My Week in a Japanese Hospital

So as I was sitting in my hotel room, I realized that I had never made a post about my experience in the Hospital. This was an interesting week. Each day we spent with an interpreter from each ward. Some days we would spend in a few different wards. It was very interesting to see the different wards in the hospital! A few of them looked very similar to what we have back home, but some were very different. I think the parts of the week the really stood out were surgery and physical therapy. Surgery was very eye opening and had a great impact on me. Whether I was a good or bad impact, I am not quite sure. It is definitely something I will remember. Physical therapy/ Rehab stood out mainly because it was the most fun because we go to try out some of the equipment. The best part was when they put on these muscle stimulators on our arms and then every 5 seconds or so the machine would go off and the muscles the patches were over would contract involuntarily moving our hands and arms out of our control. That was good for some laughs. Then we also got a body scan that showed us our percent body fat and muscle content and such. I surprisingly got good results which was nice. On Friday, our last day in Otsu and at the University hospital, our teachers and some of the nurse staff from the hospital took us out for a farewell party. This was a lot of fun! They got us a few small gifts and even paid for our dinners! It was very nice of them and it was a good time!

AKB 48

For those of you not familiar with Japanese pop culture, so a vast majority of you, probably have no idea what that title means. No, it's not some high tech gun, or a complicated piece of machinery, but a Japanese pop group. Unlike American pop groups that usually have 5-6 people in them, as the number in the title would indicate, there are 48 girls in this group. Now you are probably about as confused and/or shocked as I was when I heard about this. BUT WAIT, there's more! I came downstairs the other day and looked at the TV and saw one of the members on TV crying. I was thinking something terrible had happened, so I asked my host mom what was up. She explained to me that it was the AKB 48 election time. Come again? Elections for a pop group. She went on to explain that the girls in the group had elections every year to determine their position in the band. The closer you were to 1, the more up front and center you would be during performances, music videos and such. At this point I was like, are you serious? This is ridiculous! But since seeing this a few days ago I have been analyzing it trying to think in terms of Japanese culture. This group of girls usually around 18-20 years old had 48 members that I guess would just get swapped out when they get too old or want out or something, the election is the process for this to happen. The votes for the election come from a ballot received when purchasing a CD (by the way, genius marketing ploy). That all made sense but then I started thinking, why 48. I still don't have a good answer but I have a hunch that it ties back to the Japanese sense of homogeneity (aka uniformity). That there were 48 girls, all pretty similar so nobody really stands out. Uniform. Now I could be completely wrong with this, and feel free to call me out on anything if you disagree but I have noticed that there are few solo groups. The majority of J-pop music is all groups. Just some food for thought.

Also, here is a video of them performing one of their songs. I'm pretty sure this is their most popular song because it's the one that plays almost always when their name is mentioned. Forewarning: This may be nauseatingly cute for some.

Japanese Swimming Pools

So just a quick update on things so far. Our class portion of the trip ended last Friday. I went to Kyoto again last Friday with Stephanie and Hannah for some last minute souvenir shopping and to hang out. Saturday, I just kind of hung around Otsu for the day and made my host family Mac and Cheese because they had never had it.  Crazy right? Today was an interesting day, and also where the title of this post comes from. So first off, my host dad, brother and I went to a ramen house. It was my first time to a ramen shop so I didn't really know what to expect. We get to this small restaurant and my host dad goes inside and gets us a number. We then waited outside for about 10 minutes until we ordered and got called in. We waited on a bench inside while they set up 3 seats at a bar for us. We sat down and after another couple minutes our food came. It was so good! I have only ever had instant ramen and I was always just kind of lukewarm about it but this ramen was delicious! After finishing lunch, I went to SUMS to meet up with the other international students to play some sports which was fun, except one of the other teams players got hurt while playing basketball. Luckily enough, like my friend Miriam pointed out, everyone here is pretty much a doctor so he got him all taken care of and played badminton for a bit until I had to go home for dinner. My host dad was teaching me how to make Okonomiyaki. I was very excited because I had been itching to learn how to cook Japanese food for people when I got home. I figured it would be a good way to help share my experiences more. Its hard to describe what Okonomiyaki is but I will try. It is kind of like a Japanese cross between a pancake and an omelet topped with a special sauce and mayo. It sounds weird but its delicious. I'll post a picture too so you guys can see what it looks like. 

After letting dinner digest, my host dad, brother and I went to the community pool. Now the differences weren't HUGE, but after swimming competitively for almost 8 years of my life and life guarding for 4 years, I notice these things.  So first we walked into this large sports complex and went to this ticket machine next to the front desk and bought 3 tickets to swim and took them to the front desk where we exchanged them for plastic chips with rubber bands on them. We went to the locker room, which was pretty small compared to most locker rooms you find in the US, and changed into our swim suits. Now all I brought with me was one of my old work suits, but everyone else was wearing jammers or one piece suits, depending on gender of course.  I thought this was a little strange because even thought this was a lap pool only, in the US unless you swim competitively, you probably don't even know what a jammer is. Now in America, its suggested that you shower before entering the pool, but nobody does. In Japan, they found a way to enforce this quite effectively. The entryway to the pool had motion activated showers in the ceiling that formed a barrier of hot water that you had to pass through before you could even get into the pool area. I thought this was interesting, I mean there had to have been a way around it for staff and people who for some reason or another came to a lap pool and couldn't get wet but still it was effective. I was just glad that the water was a pleasant temperature and not like freezing cold like I was expecting. The next difference was that each lane was specifically assigned for a purpose. 3 lanes were lap swim only, 1 lane for walking and 1 lane for kicking, with a side area for kids that was shallower than the rest of the pool. I thought this was nice so that way if you were trying to swim you wouldn't get caught behind some chatty Kathys with kick boards, moving at a leisurely pace. The last big thing I noticed were what I thought were sinks. On the wall by the entryway was what I thought to be a bank of sinks, which I thought was weird anyway but after getting out of the pool, my host dad walks over to them and puts his face over one of them and pushes the handle. They turned out to be eye washes to get the chlorine (I think they use chlorine in their pools) out of your eyes. I thought this was a great idea because I feel like a lot of the people at the pool I work at would love this. Okay, now to mention a few things about the locker room that I forget to mention above. All of the lockers were coin operated. You put in a 10 yen coin and the key (which was on a watch like wristband) came out when you shut and locked the door. Now I figured that this was like any other coin operated locker and that once your coin was in, it was gone. This was not the case. Before we got in the pool, I realized that I needed that plastic chip with the rubber band to get in. "Crap" I thought "There goes 10 yen down the drain," but when I put my key back in, out popped my coin. I guess the coin just acts as collateral for use of the locker, which doesn't make a whole lot on sense considering that 10 yen is approximately $0.12. Also, they had a hair dryer. Not one of those hand dryers they just put a few feet higher up so you could stand under it and get your hair half dry, but a real hair dryer that was just plugged into the outlet there. I thought this was strange and awfully trusting of people, but as demonstrated by a previous post, Japanese really don't steal anything (except bicycles  and umbrellas apparently). 

Well now you are pretty much caught up on my adventures. I still haven't finished the kanpo post I have mentioned a few times now but it's almost done so hopefully in the next few days I can finish it. I start my internship/ hospital observation tomorrow so that should be interesting, but for now it's off to bed so I can get enough sleep for the long days ahead. 

Updates

I feel like I say this too often here but I have fallen behind again on my blogging. So just to catch up with my trip I will write some short blurbs about what I have done recently and hopefully go back later and go into more detail (I have a Kanpo piece in the works but I dont have my laptop here to work on it). Thursday and Friday last week were our last days with Denise before she flew back to America. Thursday was mainly about Kanpo and Friday was about minorities in Japan, and like I said I will probably go back once I have more time because both were really fascinating. I should also mention that on Friday at SUMS (Shiga University of Medical Sciences) a part was thrown for us so we could meet students here. This was very nice of SUMS to do for us and it was really fun. There was loads of good food and we met a bunch of new people!

Saturday I spent most of it looking at temples and shrines with my otoosan. The first one we went to was one of my favorites because you had to walk like 2km through the mountains, away from civilization, to get there. It was almost as though it was place where it was long ago so that you had to almost walk through the woods and kind of forget everything behind you and focus on where you were going before you could get there. I really like this concept of almost purification before getting there, but that might just be the Shinto sinking in. Next we went to Mt. Hiei, which was this HUGE mountain overlooking both Otsu and Kyoto. Otoosan was telling me that pretty much the whole mountain was considered a temple. I could see what he meant when we got to the top. There had to have been at least 12 shrines and temples to visit. I think the one that was my favorite was a Buddhist temple that was at the top of the flight of steep stairs. The set up of the temple was some steps up to a small outside vestibule where you would remove your shoes. After you did that there was a small enclosed garden that had a wood path leading you into the main building. You entered into this semi lit room where you would go kneel before a small fence facing another room that was not too visible when you walked in, but once you got up to the fence and knelt the view was amazing. I was just telling my friend that I wish I could have gotten a picture but it would not have done it any justice. I will try and describe it as best as I can. The air was heavy with incense. Even though it was only 2pm outside, the sun was mostly blocked and replaced with many candles. As I knelt down I was astounded at what was on the other side. Many candles lit up the the large space beyond the fence. In the center was a large statue of a Buddha. Not the stereotypical fat jolly Buddha but a more sober serene Buddha, sitting with his right hand raised. Around him were statues of what I believe were other smaller deities. The walls were covered in this round black and gold globe like decorations. It was breathtaking! It is amazing that after all of these years this shrine has been here it still maintains its original beauty.

After seeing a few more temples we started our decent. This mountain was so high that going up and down caused your ears to pop like on an airplane even though I was in a car. I found this amazing because I am from Michigan where it is flat. After making a few quick stops places on the way home, we had dinner with the rest of the family.

Nothing too exceptional happened Sunday except going back to Hikone for the afternoon to do Karaoke with my friends back there. It was really fun and I got in some quality songs because this was the first karaoke place I had been that had Panic! at the Disco (my favorite band). I will admit however, I am no Brendon Urie.

Post Op Picture.

Monday was probably one of the best class days so far because we got to learn about MRI image guided surgery AND THEN PREFORM IT! I mean it was only on a block of agar gel with a hypotheitcal tumor but we still did a pretty legitimate procedure with the Double Donut MRI and the Microwave probes to coagulate the hypothetical tumors. This was very interesting and a wonderful opportunity to try this type of procedure first hand. The rest of that day and today were lectures from various professors at SUMS that were interesting but I will be honest did not top the surgery. The only bad part about the surgery was that I forgot to take my bus pass out of my pocket and the MRI deactivated it because to the magnets but it was an easy fix. Just had to go to the Keihan Bus Office and ask them to remake it.

Well there are some quick updates. Hopefully I can find sometime this week to finish my piece on Kanpo and maybe a few others about other topics covered.

The Sunglasses Story

This experience will probably become one of my most told stories of the trip. It shows how kind and helpful the Japanese people are. Our story begins on one of the buses on my morning commute. I foolishly stuck my sunglasses in my sweatshirt pocket even though about 75% of the time everything always falls out but you know I was in a rush to get to school and had to get out my bus pass. Anyway, I get off the bus with Hannah at our stop and after the bus pulls out I realized that it is incredibly bright out now. I reach for my sunglasses and wait they aren't in that pocket, or that pocket, or that pocket (I was wearing cargo shorts at the time so I could go on but I'll stop there). They weren't in my back pack either. I came to the realization that they must have fallen out of my pocket on the bus. I was devastated! These were my absolute favorite sunglasses because they had once belonged to one of my cousins that I am close with. He had bought them when he was my age and had given them to me after I graduated because they were coming back in style. I was so upset with myself for leaving them on the bus. I was going to ask someone if there was a lost and found for the bus company but I mean they were Ray-Bans I figured they were going to be long gone. I waited until the day after and decided there was no harm in asking Nao-sensei if there was a lost and found. She told me that there was one and took me to another professor to explain the situation to her so she could call the bus company and ask them for me. She proceeded to call the bus company and translate my description of the sunglasses to the bus company. By some miracle, the bus company had them! I was so happy my sunglasses hadn't disappeared into the abyss, but the kindness didn't end there. The professor had then written down for me the schedule and route I would have to take to get to the bus station and explained it to me so I would not get lost. So me an Hannah (I do have to give props to Hannah for accompanying me because it was quite the adventure) went to the bus stop and waited for the bus, got on and asked the driver if this was the right bus to our stop and showed him the kanji characters of the bus stop we needed. He told us that it was and he would make sure we got off at the right place. After about 20 minutes on the bus, we arrive at the terminal station where the bus company's lost and found is. We pay our fare and thank the driver for helping us. After exchanging thanks and bows, we enter the office and ask about the sunglasses. They were expecting us because our professor had told them that we were coming and I mean two gaijin in suburban Japan don't exactly blend too well. The woman behind the desk pulls out the glasses and hands them to me and has a book for me to sign to claim them. I thank them graciously for helping me find my glasses and they show us to the bus we need to get back to the train station. We get on the bus and have to wait a few minutes because the driver was taking a break between routes, but not until after he let us on the bus to sit.  You would think that it would be the end of the story here but in one last gracious act of kindness, the woman from the office comes on and tells us not to worry about paying the fare home that they would cover it. How amazing is that! All I had asked was if there even was such a thing as a bus lost and found and I not only got my glasses back but help with every step along the way. This is why the Japanese are amazing people! I am so grateful to have been able to be a guest in their country.

Second and Third Days of Class

Just finished up with the third day of class. Both days were very interesting but to keep in chronological order I will start with Tuesdays class.
Tuesday was all about Japanese interpersonal relations, or how Japanese people interact with each other in different situations. There are basically 3 classifications of interactions: intimate, ritual and anomic. All of these come from the cross overs between omote and ura (front and back) and uchi and soto (inside and outside). Front and back can be thought of as from the perspective of the person and whether or not the behavior is front (more public) or back (more private). Inside and outside can kind of be looked at like if its more of a private/ relaxed almost setting (inside) and outside being more like a public and more formal setting. I do not know if that makes much sense but once I explain them with the behavior types maybe that will clear things up.
Let`s start with ritual behaviors because I think its the easiest to understand (and explain). Ritual behavior is seen as soto omote or outside front. You can think of it kind of like talking to a boss or superior. You know the person, they could have a great effect in your life; so you act very formal and habitually.  Some signs of ritual behavior are things like very formal speech, stiff, formal posture, physical distance, and little to no expression on the face. It has been described as the social mask. Before we go any further with ritual behavior I have to quickly explain the concept of `face`. Face can be thought of as honor or place in society. Ritual behavior can be considered a good thing because there are many strategies to maintain or even gain face. It is at least about prevention of loss of face of yourself　or the other parties face. Using the example of talking with your boss, you greet them formally and ask polite questions like you do in the us (Good Morning, How are you? Nice weather right?)
Next up is intimate behaviors. Now get your minds out of the gutters because it is not like that. Intimate behaviors are thought to to be uchi ura (inside back). You can think of it as kind of a private scenario with people you are close with, like a small party with your close friends. Behavior is very relaxed. The social mask mentioned above is removed and people are in a state of social nudity. An example of this in a Japanese context is that people will  often go out after work to the bar and drink together. This demonstrates one of the big requirements of intimate behavior; it must be away from ones setting of everyday work. There also must be equality or at least the illusion of equality among participants. This allows for the state of social nudity I talked about. People are allowed to be much more relaxed and let go a little bit.

Last, and kind of least, is anomic behavior. Anomic behavior is classified as soto ura (outside back). This is a bit strange because its more of a private type of behavior but its more in public. Lebra (author) described it as interaction with someone considered an outsider but not in the public eye. This one is kind of hard to wrap your mind around. I myself am still struggling with it so I wont go into much detail. Basically it`s how you treat a stranger (quick side note: sorry about the weird ` apostrophes I`m on a Japanese keyboard and they are a bit different than US keyboards and im struggling a bit). Like you don`t really have to be super polite to them but you do not necessarily treat them like a friend.

Moving onto day 3! Day three was all about Japanese health care and society. Today we started by looking at the system overall and comparing it to the concepts about culture we have learned so far and then analyzing that and making connections back to US culture. Japanese health care cannot be looked at as just biomedicine (things like hospitals and such as used in Western medicine) or just the more traditional types of medicine like kampoo or herbal remedies, because in Japan they sometimes use a combination of the both. It depends on peoples age and beliefs among other factors, but for the most part it can be looked at as more of an integrative approach. Now today we just scratched the surface so I will go into more detail tomorrow but I will throw out a few things I found interesting. The first thing I found fascinating was that because of relationship behaviors doctors are viewed as higher than patients. This puts their interactions at a ritualistic type of level so the patients feel as though they cannot really express verbally what is ailing them so doctors and nurses have to use physical and other signals to try and figure out what is wrong with them. Also, the Japanese consider telling patients about terminal conditions to be unethical, whereas in America that is an ethical duty of doctors to tell their patients. Can you imagine that being the standard?!?! It blows my mind! I could go on but I fear this post is becoming too long so I will save it for tomorrow.

As I mentioned last post, if you have any questions, comments, concerns with any of my posts; PLEASE leave a comment or email me! I would love to discuss or explain things in more detail. I also realized that I did not put my email address last time so here you go: suriano.alex@gmail.com

Host Family and First Days of Class

Alright, here is the lengthier post that I promised you last time. So last Saturday me and Hannah scrambled to get ready to leave Hikone and move in with our host families in Otsu. We had just finished sorting her trash when the taxi that was taking us to the train station pulled up. We loaded in our stuff and sped off towards Hikone Station where we would meet Kitamura-sensei who was escorting us to Otsu to help us meet our families. We arrived at the station and found our families and went our separate ways. My host dad Otoosan picked me up in the family car and took me to a cafe where we got coffee and had a conversation in broken languages. We then went to Ishiyama Station to get me a bus pass and to show me where to get on the bus. After I understood how to commute to school every day. Then it was time to head back home to see where I would be living the next three weeks.

I arrive and he helps me bring in my luggage. We enter and of course the first things that happens in the shoes come off. We learned a bit about this on the first day of class but I will talk about that later in this post. I come in and meet my host mother (Okaasan) (note: Otoosan and Okaasan are father and mother in Japanese not their actual names). We talk for a bit about house rules and getting to know each other. My host dad is a traditional business man who commutes 2 hours by train everyday to Kobe. It's kind of intense because I think he leaves the house around 6 and isn't back till around 9 or 10 but I guess that is normal in Japan. Okaasan is a stay at home mom but she also teaches English among other things to kids after school. I have an older sister who is a year older than I am named Ayako who is a college student at Shiga Univ. who is studying to be a teacher as well as having two part time jobs at the grocery store and teaching at a cram school. My younger brother is 14 and his name is Wataru. He is in junior high and plays soccer and swims. They are all very nice and welcoming!

After a few days to settle in with the family it was off to school! I had practiced my commute the day before so luckily I didn't have a problem finding anything. The only problem was that my bus ran late making me late for my train but I just caught the next train and was able to get on the next bus right away. I made it to class with 15 minutes to spare. We walk in and meet our professor for the course Denise Saint Arnault We started off the class with introductions and Denise explained to us that she started off as a Pysch nurse and did that for a while but decided to go back and get her Ph.D and is now an associate professor at U of M. She is a medical anthropologist and has done some very interesting research concerning Japan. We also have a professor from Shiga Univeristy of Medical Science (SUMS) named Aiura. Her and Denise have been colleges now for 5 years.

After introductions we drove right into the first topic; Religion. I won't go into too much detail (mainly because I have a limited battery life right now) but there are two main religions in Japan: Shinto and Buddhism. The two are not mutually exclusive. Most people are both in fact or have parts of both. Shinto is considered the "indigenous" religion of Japan. Based a lot on maintaining relationships with the Kami. Kami are the spirits or dieties of the land, but can also be the spirits of heroes and even things that were just awesome to early man. The kami reside in things such as the rivers, mountains and even in things like trees. Kami are neutral in nature but can do good or bad depending on your relationship with them. If you are respectful and treat them with respect they will bring you good, but if your are neglectful and disrespectful they can bring misfortune. Shinto is also about purity. This is where the whole taking shoes off when you enter a house. Inside, whether it be a house or just a metaphorical sense, is pure while everything outside is impure or polluted. The shoes are taken off because they are from the out side and considered impure. Shinto places of worship are shrines. Shrines, unlike churches, are not usually visited regularly. They are visited when you are born, age 3,5,7 and on New Years, but they can also be visited whenever when you are looking for purification or just for favorable things. The other main religion is Buddhism. Now I know I had thought I had a pretty good grasp on what Buddhism was but it was a lot more complicated than I thought. Buddhism is based on 4 truths. 1) Suffering is inevitable in life 2) This suffering is caused by desires 3) You can release yourself of these desires and therefore release yourself from suffering 4) The Noble Eight-fold Path that can lead you to the peace of Nirvana. There are also 3 Treasures or Refuges of Buddhism: 1) Buddha 2) Dharma (teachings) 3) Shangha (or community). The goal of Buddhism is to reach enlightenment to release yourself of suffering caused by desire. There are a lot more to these religions that the nutshell I put them in, so I recommend taking the 5 minutes it would take to pop over to Wikipedia and read about them really quick because both are FASCINATING! I would go on myself but my laptop is litterally dying as I am typing this so I hope that my brief summary of those two religions were interesting and that you learned something new or even just cleared up a misconception you had on the topic.

Note: we also talked about Confuciusism but like I said laptop about to die. Maybe next time I will add a quick note about it but again take the few minutes to punch it into Google or you can always ask me about any of this in the comments, email or if you can wait until my return I would be open to discussion of this or any topic covered in my blog!