Flora and Fauna
Chinese insects are, I believe, made of stronger stuff than the wimpy American ones I am accustomed to. There’s none of this “small pink somewhat itchy bump” nonsense when you encounter one of these bugs and come off the worse for it. The welts are huge, red, and massively itchy. The insect bite count is currently holding steady at about five right now (I just talked to Kevin, and he’s got more than ten!), but man are they intense. The two most awful are the red welt on my left hand, which sticks out about ¼ cm from the surface of my skin, itches like crazy and rubs up against simply everything, and a ginormous spider bite
which I acquired during my first night in Beijing and which, though no longer very itchy, continues to look like some kind of repulsive cancerous growth. The picture really doesn’t do it justice – there are two raised yellowish welts where the pincers must have sunk it, surrounded by a red, pink, and purple constellation of speckles and burst capillaries which look something like the illustrations of the Andromeda galaxy nebulae in books of astronomy. I can only give thanks again and again for the fact that I live in
posted by Kelly @ 2:17 下午
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