Neighborhood Sightings

Last Saturday night I went for dinner at a local French restaurant. It's a brief walk from hotel and an even briefer walk from our future apartment. During that short time, I noticed, not one or two men in pyjamas, but three. It is a fairly common sight here in Shanghai to see people walking around on the street in their pyjamas. What set these guys apart was the fact that they were wearing the same blue and grey vertically striped pyjamas. One was just casually walking towards me, one came out of a convenience store and the other was making a call at a local phone booth. They looked okay, but it was the large bandage on the first person's forehead that made me think that there might be a connection between them and the two nearby hospitals.

Since I now have a local Shanghai source to ask my endless questions, I took the opportunity after class last week to ask her about these gentlemen (poor Yaya, I have at least one question per day- I store them for her you see). It seems as though inpatients at local hospitals are permitted to take walks around the neighborhood.

I wonder if there is an advantage to this approach? I wonder if it helps recovery? I also wonder whether there are staff members at the hospital that are specifically tasked with rounding up patients that do not come back?

There are no photos for this post- I thought it might be insensitive.