A nurse turns out of the corridor and calls what I think is my name. But she pronounces it wrong, and instantly I am torn- do I answer? What if it's not me?

She calls again, sounding just a little bit more irate. I decide to risk it, and tentatively raise a shaky hand.

The nurse sighs and comes over. "Ho York Leng?"

She has the intonations all wrong. "Ho Yoke Eng," I say.

"Ho York Leng?" she repeats, and she is still wrong. We do-si-do for a while, but she is starting to look annoyed, so I give in and admit to being somebody that I am not.

She says something in English, and gestures to a board with flashing numbers behind her. I do not speak English, but I gather from her tone and how she rolls her eyes skywards is that she is berating me for something about those numbers.

I look at the board, and the numbers swim. I try to apologize, to tell her that I didn't do it willfully, and that I didn't know what those numbers were for, and that I am not what she thinks I am. But words fail me, and I am left stammering away in Chinese.

The nurse seems to sense my discomfort and her eyes soften. "Have you eaten?" she asks me in Chinese.

This courtesy is one that I am familiar with, and I nod, finally able to find my ground in this alien and terrifying environment.

But it seems that was the wrong answer to give- her expression instantly returns to that now-familiar annoyance. "You weren't supposed to eat! You have to do a blood test, and now that you've eaten, you can't do it anymore!"

I am lost. No one had told me that before- at least not in a language I understood. I open my mouth, wanting to say something in defense of myself, but she has turned away in exasperation to tell on me to the doctor.

I close my mouth. Once again, I am a lost child, trying to understand the world of adults, who show their wiseness by jabbering away in English, and feeling exasperated by this slow old lady who does not understand the simplest things.

Do they know that as a child, I, too, was top of my class?