Matt Abraham spits hot PI palaver mixing Mickey Spillane with the classic superheroes from the golden age. In his series Black Cape Case Files we follow Dane Curse, a former black cape turned PI, as he navigates the powered underbelly of Gold Coast City. While not writing he’s engaged in juggling his fearsome cat Durden, newborn baby boy Kal, and supportive wife Jenny, all in the People’s paradise of China.

Some people who travel abroad are in search of the most authentic experiences. This can range from eating fried bugs to spending time in hotels without running water, and while both are fine (maybe for you, not me), if you really want to get down to brass tacks I recommend going someplace where there are no fizzy drinks or colorful costumes. Someplace like a hospital.
Yeah, a place where life and death decisions are made tends to cut through the just for show pretenses of everyday life and lets you see just how different a foreign land is from your own beloved home. I learned this the hard way when my wife contracted food poisoning on the third day of our move to China and we headed to the local hospital.
Now here’s a caveat: I haven’t seen every medicine man in The Middle Kingdom so I’m not saying they’re all bad. I’m certain that China is a country filled with stories of Westerners who received first-rate medical services administered in professional, sterile conditions, which left them not just healthier, but more hopeful for the treatment.
All I’m saying is that this isn’t one of them.

• 1. You Pay Up Front
  You may not believe it, but Hospitals in China expect you to pay before you see a doctor. Oh, did something sever your arm so you can’t grab your wallet? Well tough luck, Lefty. Get used to writing a check with that other hand or get used to dying because it’s cash first, medicine later in China. Yeah, that’s right, when my wife and I showed up we were being administered to by people who trusted us less than every single server we’ve ever had at Chili’s.But I was in no position to complain, my wife was having stomach issues that would be considered serious in the movie Alien, so I went to the cashier to make quick payment. Not such an easy thing since that lines aren’t really a thing in China, so my first step was to fight my way to the lady behind the bullet proof glass and throw her some money like I was trying to lay a bet on my favorite Stalker in The Running Man.

• 2. They Scoff at US Currency
  Once I got to the front of the “line” my liaison (Our work sent someone to help translate so I didn’t accidentally get my wife a vasectomy) told them what we needed, so it was time to pay and pay I did. With a hundred dollar bill.
  This produced a strange effect.
  Now when I flash a Benjamin in a foreign country I don’t expect the full “Indiana Jones bringing back the village kids” treatment, however the nurse looked at me like I was trying to pay for a brain transplant with one lamb, two chickens, and a bag of beans. Come on, I know it’s not Chinese currency, but jeez, it’s a Benjamin. If Slumdog Millionaire wasn’t lying to me that bill can impress even 5 year old blind Indian beggars! But for some reason in China’s hinterland they’re about as attractive as a radioactive rod that someone sneezed on. Fortunately for me my liaison exchanged some of my cash for her Yuan, and I paid the doctor’s fee. It was 4 dollars.
  Not a lot of cash, but I failed to get my money’s worth.
• 3. Privacy Isn’t a Thing
  So then me, my very sick wife, and our liaison went to the diagnosis room to see a doctor. I can’t tell you how heartened I was when, as we approached, I saw a line. Ahhh, a line. There’s nothing like a line for standing in. Lines are the number one proof of civilization. I was happy. The feeling passed quickly though because, as it turned out, when we finally saw the doctor we wouldn’t be speaking to him one on one, but instead amongst a room full of locals. Obviously as an American I wasn’t comfortable talking about my wife’s private health issues in front of an audience, so I asked our liaison “Um, aren’t we going to see the doctor alone?”
  “No,” she said. “Why would you?”
  “Because this is sort of personal. Is there a private room?”
  Her eyes lit up. “You want a private room! For a stomach problem? HAHAHAHAHA! Oh my God, that’s hilarious.” Then in Mandarin I assume she said, “Everyone, hey everyone, Emperor white guy here wants a private room to talk to the doctor! Quick, grab your livestock, children, and whatever you’re cooking and please go into the hall while these two discuss her upset tummy!”
  The old people laughed. The children laughed. The doctor laughed. He was the loudest.



• 4. There’s One Type Of Medicine
  So after the public forum regarding my wife’s bowels we got a prescription, and with our trusty sidekick/medical liaison in tow, made our way back to the payment desk. After that it was onto the treatment room. I call it that, but it’s kind of like calling Fenway Park a ‘baseball room’, because this place was so big I couldn’t see the far wall. I don’t know who builds hospitals in China, but I’m sure they could make a working TARDIS. It was that big.
  We took our seat somewhere in the middle and a nurse came by to administer the IV drip. I don’t know which medical school she learned her technique from, but that nurse plunged the needle into my wife’s arm like she was Vincent Vega.

  

  After that our liaison left, most likely to writer her own article for Chinese Cracked “5 Hilarious Things Americans Do in Hospitals”, and I noticed something strange. Everybody had the same IV drip in their arm with the same clear liquid. I don’t care if they had a head wound or that wood growth on Black Tom Cassidy, it was all the same…
  “Why?” I asked a passing nurse who refused to answer in English. I asked a second nurse, but she too insisted in only conversing with Mandarin. So to this day I have no idea what was in those drips. It’s probably some ancient kind of secret. But whatever it was my wife started to feel better. And I got calmer.

  Then it, as hack writers everywhere say, happened. She threw up. And keep in mind when I say ‘threw up’ I mean I’ve never seen a human being expel this much of anything. If stomach juice were profanity she was Andrew Dice Clay if he had Tourette Syndrome and just stubbed his toe. And since an American death reports need the most paperwork, the nurses sent us to… The ER!

• 5. The ER’s are Insane
  Please read that headline again, but this time with more imposing music like dun dun duuuun. Ok, now you’re prepared. Psyche! Nothing can prepare you for a Chinese ER. Nothing. I’d say it was like Thunderdome, but there’s a hard 50% survival rate there. It says so right there in the rules. Also, you can’t smoke in Thunderdome, unlike a Chinese Emergency Room where no less than half of the people are as busy puffing on cigarettes as the other half are hating Japan.

  And the semi-nudity, it runs rampant. Raaaampaaaaaant! If you’ve been to China you know that on hot days the men like to pull their shirts up under their armpits and hold them there like half shirts because taking them all the way off is impolite, you barbarian. This is perfectly permissible in the ER as well, which means that if you’re in a bad accident, and need the most serious, life saving medicine be prepared to get wheeled into a room with semi-hostile, half naked, smoking men. It’s just like a bar in Jersey Shore.

It was only another seven hours before I could take my wife back home. I have to say, the experience on the whole, was awful. Unless you’re a Chinese hacker or government spy, in which case it was excellent, yay Communism!

Matt Abraham’s novel, Dane Curse, was published in February 2015. It’s available on Amazon here http://goo.gl/sUHj3D. There is also a free promo for Dane Curse on August 6 and 7.

If you lose a black cape, and can’t go to the cops, then you come to me because that’s what I do. I’ve been in the game for years. I know all the curves and all the angles, and if it gets rough then so be it, I got plenty strength, I’m double tough, and I never quit. And if need be I’ll pull my artillery to get you some answers, because I don’t care about the mistakes you’ve made or how you chose to live your life, sometimes even the unjust deserve a little justice.

At least that’s how it was before a mysterious murder threatens to plunge Gold Coast City into a super powered war unless I find the killer in five days’ time. But getting to the truth won’t be so easy. I’ll have to face ruthless black capes with secrets to hide, a powerful government agency bent on national expansion, and even teams of white caped heroes whose intentions are less than pure.

No easy task for a small time PI, so I’ll need every bit of my strength and guts if I’m going to find the killer, save my city, and maybe even get some justice for the greatest hero the world has ever known.

All opinions expressed in the above post are those of author Matt Abraham.