Is this sanitary?

  Nachikatsuura, Japan
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Lily and I just returned from our annual town health exam. As far as I can tell, if you are an employee of the town you are required to submit to a full health exam every year. Our supervisor took us to one of the local hospitals, which is incredibly dilapidated and depressing both inside and out. I know our town is small, but there are some nice things there (like the new town gymnasium)- you'd think one of the main hospitals would be one of those things!

robots in japanese hospitals!?

Take a look at this picture, (probably Tokyo) or a robot helping out in a Japanese hospital. It's seriously a totally different world in the big cities...especially Tokyo.

Anyways, we checked-in at reception, were given a check list with our names at the top, and sat down on a bench in the hallway. Before I knew it an older nurse beckoned me into her exam room. Last year when we did this I remember the nurses being a lot more friendly and relaxed, but this year was totally different. It was like a factory of nurses, each doing a different job on the conveyor belt of people making their way through the exam room. The first nurse was ordering me to do god knows what in Japanese, and when I finally understood she wanted me to lie down on the exam table, I was so confused from trying to understand her orders, I forgot to take my shoes off before laying down on the exam table (she didn't like that too much, oops)! She took my blood pressure, told me to stand up, and ushered me to the next station: the eye exam. Once again, all directions were given in fast Japanese, luckily my supervisor translated everything for me last year so I had some idea of what I was supposed to be doing.

I completed the eye test easily in Japanese, having learned the words for 'up, down, right and left' fairly early on last year. At the next station I sat down on a small stool and before I knew it a new nurse had stuck me with the needle and was drawing blood. My favorite part was right before she stuck me with the needle she apologized profusely for what she was about to do, when I go back to America I'm going to miss (kinda) the constant apologizing of the Japanese people - they are SO polite!! Last thing to do in that room was to be weighed and measured.

We went to another hallway after we were finished with that stuff, and were given a cup for a urine sample. After finishing that we walked back down a long hallway, urine in hand (sorry I know, gross), and set it back on the counter in front of the lab. All I could think about was all the TV shows where drug addicts need clean urine so they have to smuggle it in the lab and somehow replace the clean urine with their own. Well that would've been so easy to do as we had as much time as we needed to pee in the cup, no one was watching, and we could've tampered with it as much as we wanted! Oh and the lady that took our urine cup into the lab wasn't wearing gloves!! eeek

After that it was time to sit down and wait again, on another bench in another dreary hallway with dirty walls in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. Lily and I were last in line behind about 10 "salary men," who had taken off an hour or so from work to come to the hospital to do their tests as well. They were all chatting with each other, probably friends from high school or what not, and seemed to be thrilled to have a break from doing desk work at the office. The 6th and 7th things on the list to do were some kind of weird test where you lay on a bed and they clamp all these suction cups all over your body, and last a chest x-ray. Another very typicall Japanese thing that happened during this exam was the chest x-ray technician said "Otsukaresamadeshita" which translates to "thank you for your hard work." This phrase cracks me up because all I did was stand infront of a machine, then walk away and he gave me a slight bow and said that to me. I should be thanking HIM for his hard work! Once again, the politeness is ridiculous here, sometimes a bit over the top if you ask me.

So all in all it took about an hour.

Here's a tally of the afternoon events--

# of nurses I interacted with: 7
# of times a nurse said "I'm sorry"/"thank you for your hard work" to me: 6
# of unsanitary things I noticed: 1
# of people who stared at me while walking around the hospital: impossible to count

Luckily in our town we don't have to do some of the things other JET's have to do in their towns. I've heard of people having to drink barium so that some sort of full-body scan can be done, AND people have to go #2 and then use a small brush to scrape it and give a sample to the lab!! GROSS!! In Japan poop has a lot to do with health. Apparently doctors are almost as likely to order a fecal sample as well as a urine sample when you go for a physical. In elementary school, it's sometimes required to bring a sample for the yearly health exam!

That brings up something else unique to the Japanese culture--their obsession with poop. They think it's cute, yes cute. Leave it to the Japanese to turn this poop shape into a cell phone charm! One particular Japanese website that sells these popular cell phone "charms" (as I call them)... is full of ridiculous cell phone accessories, the number three best-selling cell phone charm at the moment is a tiny, golden version of something found you'd find in your toilet.

unko cell phone charm

However the website proudly proclaims that "unko" (as the Japanese call it) also means "a lucky kid," I can't help but think the whole thing is terribly wrong, not to mention gross. But I guess I'm that one that's wrong as apparently over two million of the little things have been sold!

The Japanese love fads and have really taken a hold of this one. The unko is available in a variety of colors, some of which have little happy faces. Prices range from just $1.98 to up to $18 for a dangle that comes with a red cushion and a fortune. Don't worry, if your child doesn't have a cell phone yet they can attach it to their Nintendo Wii remote. In addition to unko charms for your phone, you can buy unko post-it notes, a

unko stickies, ridiculous

nd even unko on your birthday cake! The Japanese really take a trend and run with it...but they are creative, I'll give them that!

But I digress...

Thank god that's my 2nd and final town health exam!!

I apologize for the gross blog but I wanted to share my experiences at the Japanese hospital today. Now Lily and I are off to the gym and to meet with the other JET's in the area, as we have to put on an English skit at a junior highschool on Friday! Should be funny.

Happy Halloween, and Happy 21st TOM!!! :)

Keep an eye out for my next blog - it's going to be about my upcoming volunteer trip to Cambodia!!