Imagethief speaks enough Chinese to manage his day-to-day life, but still likes to go to clinics where he can talk to English speaking doctors. If a waitress misunderstands you and brings you plate of sugar-dipped swine spleen in place of the cucumber you thought you were ordering, well that's annoying. If the doctor misunderstands you, however, your spleen might be the next one on the plate. Imagethief firmly believes that describing medical symptoms is one of those situations that calls for absolute clarity and detail.

So does navigating hospital bureaucracy, as I was reminded when my wife found a chart of the patient-handling process while researching the Ruijin Hospital, near our apartment. Yikes. Time to reach for the dictionary.

The ominous red box at the end says "leave hospital". It does not suggest in what state.
 

Note: Ruijin is, by accounts, a perfectly fine hospital.