Hai Phong

Yesterday for work I went to Hai Phong, a large city on the Red river delta. I walked on the beach of the Pacific ocean--it was wonderful to smell the salt in the air on the ocean breeze. I went along with a woman I work with and a group visiting from HPI (Health Policy Initiative) China, to visit the HIV/AIDS legal clinic that HPI Viet Nam (the project I'm interning with) had set up in Hai Phong. The clinic was small but effective: two rooms, one for greeting potential clients and one for counseling clients. It works well on a shoestring budget because the lawyers who work there are retired and receiving healthy pensions. Jurists and peer counselors work together with the lawyers--clients first meeting with peer counselors to review their situation and determine whether their case is HIV/AIDS related (discrimination in workplace, school, etc).
After learning about the clinic's work, hearing some success stories, and holding a question and answer session we all went to lunch. There were lots of amazing foods on the table, including a salad made of thin strips of black speckled jellyfish , seaweed, carrots, and other vegetables. Of the course the first and last dishes (steamed octopus and squid and crab soup respectively) were passed over my right shoulder and placed nearly directly in front of me--rather than the 5 other people who would be sharing them.
Luckily I was sitting next to my co-worker--a former anesthesiologist--who was familiar with allergies. I was a little suprised when, after telling me she was allergic to peanuts, coconut, basically all nuts, as well as seafood, she proceeded to eat a peanut and dig into the shrimp-filled fried spring rolls. I looked at her quizically and inquired. She then proceeded to tell me that her allergy was a different kind than mine--hers was cellular, her bodies' cells would attack anything foreign and send out too many histamines, but she didn't feel the affects right away, she said she felt them a few days later. If she didn't take a claritin (antihistamine) before she ate foods she was allergic too, she said she would feel sick and swollen 2-3 days later. She also said she only ate limited amounts of the foods she was allergic too. She informed me that my allergy on the other hand, was "in the blood," and when exposed to an allergen my allergy acts faster and is therefor more dangerous.
I tried to argue that we both had the same things happening in our bodies--an overproduction of histamines which causes swelling of soft tissue--but that her allergic reactions were simply not as severe, given that her 10mg of claritin seemed to do the trick, allowing her to partake in what seemed like far more than "a little bit" of shellfish. The last time I accidentally "ate" shellfish was when only the rice on the edge of a piece of sushi containing crab was dipped in my tamari. I kept using the tamari to eat my vegetarian sushi and 30 minutes later I had a lump in my throat which made it very uncomfortable to swallow. Though it dissipated in a few hours my throat was sore for 24 hours. But no, my allergy was different because it was in the blood. She also said that people like she and I (allergy sufferers) wouldn't get cancer, because our bodies would recognize cancerous cells as allergens. Hmmmm....
Allergies are bizzare. And certainly, different cultures have different perceptions of what they are, why they happen, and what can make them better. As far as I know, the number of people with allergies to food, latex, insect stings, and pollen etc has increased dramatically in recent years. Maybe there only seems to be more of us because we're living longer thanks to medicine and EMS; but I think there actually is an increase beyond this and I do wonder what kind of protective factors having allergies gives us. I doubt resistance to cancer is one of them.