Life With A Lion: La Duzi

Judah's currently has his first case of L.D., which stands for la duzi - a Chinese term which is literally translated as "spicy stomach" but means "diarrhea". Prior to moving to China, this condition would be, for me personally, a cause for much concern. However, here it is so common - and we're not just talking amongst foreigners - that hardly a week goes by without experiencing la duzi at least a few times. So much so that all of our friends call it L.D. and it's a regular enough topic that it's passable for small talk or dinner conversation.

A: "Hey, How's everything going?"

B: "Good, how about you?"

A: "Okay, but I had to jump out of a cab today because I had L.D."

B: "Oh, that's annoying."

When I was teaching, the book we used had a unit on common health problems. As a conversation starter, the students were asked identify some common ailments they'd had in the past month. Cold, fever, headache, backache, stomachache, sore muscles....100% of my students identified "stomachache". Every time. When they were late for class these college aged Chinese kids would not hesitate to announce that they had la duzi to me in front of all of their classmates. I cannot imagine the mortification at the mention of the word "diarrhea" in any American classroom.

American classroom

Teacher: "You're five minutes late."

Student 1 (Johnny): "I'm sorry, Mrs. Knapp, my car wouldn't start."

Student 2 (Sally): "It's true, he called me for a ride but I was already here."

Chinese classroom

Teacher: "You're five minutes late."

Student 1 (Peter Pan): "I'm sorry, Mrs. Knapp, I had la duzi."

Student 2 (Seven Salt): "It's true, I heard Peter Pan in the bathroom."

(Actual names used to protect the hilarity of the fact that these are the names actually used by Chinese people choosing English names. A person by the name of "Tinkle" just joined Justin's company.)

Anyway, that being said, it's a whole other story with a lot more worry and alarm when your ten-month-old has diarrhea for the first time. Poor Judah has also has a fever, which now seems to have subsided. Justin and I have realized how much we love our child over the past few days as we plunge fearlessly into watery-poo-filled diapers, or as Justin experienced last night, a bath during which a child poos three separate times in the water. Awesome.

I'm sure you parents out there have similar sob stories, but at this point I'm just thinking of wrapping Judah's entire lower body in Saran wrap until this whole thing blows over.

On a more light-hearted note, here are some recent photos of "Mr. Squirts".