It is an unusual sort of thing to do on your OE, the graphic artist admits, and she is not sure how much she actually wants to go, but being the eldest grandchild and knowing how much Grandmother Xhou is looking forward to her help, she is going into it with a positive frame of mind.
Miss Norgate, the daughter of a Chinese mother and New Zealand father who ran fish and chip shops around Dunedin for most of her life, said she had visited her grandmother and other family in China several times before, with her longest previous visit about five weeks.
This time, she would be there to help Grandmother Xhou for three months.
While she had watched her grandmother work before and even helped sort vitamins into various bottles, she knew little more than that about the traditional Chinese medicine her grandmother practised, and was interested to learn more.
Her grandmother, who is in her mid-70s, was a medical doctor in the main hospital in Guangzhou before taking up the illegal practice of traditional Chinese medicine about 35 years ago.
Because traditional Chinese medicine was not sanctioned by the Chinese Government, which, Miss Norgate said, preferred doctors to practise only Western medicine, her grandmother worked out of a base in "the wop-wops" outside Guangzhou.
She was impressed by what her grandmother, who was well respected in her field, could achieve, particularly her ability to cure illness through diet changes, Miss Norgate said.
It would also be interesting to watch acupuncture and cupping being applied, as well as learning to diagnose people and give injections.
While she had a visa for three months, she was not sure if the experience would lead to her staying longer, although she suspected she would, despite her struggle to deal with the highly visible poverty and division between rich and poor in China.
"I find it quite traumatising. I try and give people, especially children, food where I can, but you can't give everyone something or you run out of money."
At this stage, it seemed unlikely she would take over her grandmother's clinic. Her grandmother, who worked 13-hour days, seven days a week, was exceptionally healthy and fit.
While she suspected Grandmother Xhou might have a few suitors lined up, as it was expected in China that women be already married and have a child by the age of 23, she was fairly confident she could resist their charms, but was still trying to work out how she was going to explain her tattoos - which in China are associated with gangs.
