"Samansa Leezu, please go to exam room number 2"
I knocked, slid the door open, said good morning to the man in the white cloak and sat down. He gave me a brief glance, and turned back to look at his papers. He asked me how I got hurt, still looking at his papers, and I explained how I got that 1-inch long 0.5cm wide cut on my knee. He took a deep breath. He then turned to look at my knee, and I took off my make-shift wound-cover (which consisted of disinfected cotton for make-up-removal and a band-aid on either side to keep the cotton on my knee). He looked at it a bit, jotted notes, looked again, drew a picture of it, jotted more notes and sighed again. Throughout this whole time I couldn't see his facial expressions due to a massive surgical mask and a pair of thick glasses over his face.
"It says here....you got this cut...yesterday...!?"
"Yes."
He sucked his teeth.
"How did you do that?"
"I was running for the last train at the station, and fell on the stairs, and hit my knee on the stair." (But I caught the train! I didn't tell that to the doctor though.)
"Hm....since it's been over 6 hours since you did it, if we stitch this, there's a risk of it getting infected. It might fester. Pus. Ne."
"Oh......"
"But since it's the knee part unless we stitch it it won't really heal."
"OK...."
"So.....what do you want to do?"
I think this was the first time I ever got asked by a doctor what I want to do. Was he serious?
"Uh....I think it'd be good to get stitches. Can I get stitches?"
"Hmm........have you been disinfecting the wound since yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm....."
"So...stitches?"
"I think...that would be good."
FINALLY.
I was told to get on the narrow bed. I got on and lay down and waited while the nurse flustered around and faffed around getting the tools requested by the doctor, except perhaps she was being the Japanese subordinate and not being confident and authoritative and kept asking the doctor "is this it? No? How about this one?"
I rolled my eyes.
OK so we're finally ready. The doctor starts cleaning the wound. "Shodoku...ehh wound cleaning!" He said in wobbly English, pronouncing the 'ound' in 'wound' like 'round'. He pokes around my bruised and bleeding knee asking "does this hurt? Does this hurt? How about here?" And keeps asking even when I said YES to all those questions. He takes out a massive needle for local anesthesia and pokes my knee once, waits for a while, and then again, at which point I exclaim "woah again!?" (not expecting the 2nd poke). He replies, "oh, you felt that??" with a tone of surprise.
I was starting to get slightly more worried.
With my knee completely numb, it was stitching time. The nurse brought the doctor some stuff , and doctor replied, "is this all you have?...(mumble)..Hmm....(mumble to nurse)....kore, tsukainikui na - this is kinda difficult to use. But that's all we got? Oh well...shoganai - that's too bad."
I was nervous & in disbelief to the point of speechlessness and couldn't protest; and my knee was numb and wet with anticeptic so running away wasn't really an option.
With each stitch I tried to force myself to think of a different song so I can take my mind off what these so-called professionals are doing to my poor once-beautiful knee. But I couldn't. I felt defeated. I tried to accept my 'failure' and comfort myself and convince myself that it will turn out to be a 'cool battle scar' and/or a (slightly morbid) souviner from Japan. My knee was numb of pain, but I could still feel the pull of the thread through my skin. Doc tells me, "I can't stitch them up too tightly, as there's a small chance that it will fester. So....it's a little loose. OK?"
"Uh huh"
The ordeal was finally over. More anticeptic, then gauze, tape, and bandaged up. I hobbled back out to the reception and joined my friend Hi-chan who drove me to the hospital. I told her about what went on in that room, and we both gave each other looks of shock and disbelief. We vowed to never come back to a hospital ever again.
A week later I went back to the hospital to get the stitches out. That was not as bad but not good either. Next post.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Backwardness of Japan (cont)
3. Perhaps I was a bit spoiled when in SSGC (my high school in HK), but even back then (8-10 years ago?) we had a PC in every classroom, as well as a projector, even though the teachers didn't really use them that much back then (I'm sure they use it more often now) . It was a bit of a pain in that first week when I had to do my self-intro presentations to the new 1st graders, that I had to lug my own laptop to school (in a tiny bike basket), drag the school TV across the corridor to each new classroom that I went to (all 8 of them), faff with plugging in the TV, the laptop, the connection between the TV & the laptop...in order to show students pictures of my countries and family and hobbies and so on. (But in that school they did have a spanking new widescreen flat TV)
4. No divisions in classes according to ability. Before they enter into Junior High School, kids have to sit a test to determine their academic levels, and then the kids are put into classes so that abilities are spread even across ALL CLASSES in the grade. These kids are then stuck with each other for every single class for at least one school year. So the kid who's slow at learning English or Math is taught at the same pace as the kid who's miles ahead in English or Math.
Side note (but related): In Japan kids don't properly start learning reading and writing English until 1st grade junior high (ie beginning of secondary school) (Although it is expected that most of them know how to sing/recite the ABC and read capital letters ABC). So last week in class kids were doing their "penmanship" book, writing capital & small letters in order. In this one class all kids were at around the letter 'm' or 'n', or at least supposedly. All was well until the teacher found a student who has finished tracing & writing all the letters all the way to 'z', and more (there were sections after to write simple nouns and sentences). Turned out that the kid did it all in Juku (Japanese cram school - attended by over 60% of Japanese kids, apparently). He was subsequently told off by the teacher in front of the rest of the class for, essentially, being ahead of the class. He was told that he had to get a new penmanship book - so that he'll have 1 for school and 1 for Juku. The teacher then told he rest of the class that they either follow the pace of the class, or they have to get a new book to do in their own pace/do in Juku if they want to be ahead of class. I suppose it's understandable that the teacher doesn't want some kids to be too ahead and finish the book themselves and end up having nothing to do in class and potentially disturbing others who are supposedly working hard.
But it also seems to send the message that being ahead of the class is not a good thing, that everyone should move forwards at the same pace. And this example shows exactly why classes need to be divided to accommodate the difference paces and abilities of each student.
I was walking around the class during of those penmanship lessons and spotted one girl with another open book underneath the penmanship book. IT was a notebook where she was already copying down contents of pg. 22 of the textbook (and that page happens to be on numbers, so she was writing down 'one, two, three...hundred' etc) while at the same time she was "following the rest of the class", writing aaa.....bbb....ccc.....ddd....
5. Back to toilets. In train stations or highway rest stops, there would usually be about 50% 'Western style' toilets (ie toilets as we know it), and 50% of Japanese style ie squat. Young and old alike used either. In less urban places (actually even in popular sight-seeing spots like big shrines and temples) it would be mostly squat toilets. 2 of my schools had 1 western style out of the 4 toilets. But 2 other schools had none. Even in the really nice, decked-out wedding hall/popular banquet venue (called 'Palace Iwaya'), squat toilets were carved into the washroom's marble flooring. (Although they did have western style too)
6. No central heating in schools, houses, pretty much anywhere. When winter rumbles in, so do the kerosene heaters are rolled out of their summer slumber in closets or garages, and there is an unmistakable scent of kerosene in the air. Kerosene brings me much comfort in the winter. Because it means the place I'm entering is warm. That (kerosene heaters) and / or the kotatsu.
4. No divisions in classes according to ability. Before they enter into Junior High School, kids have to sit a test to determine their academic levels, and then the kids are put into classes so that abilities are spread even across ALL CLASSES in the grade. These kids are then stuck with each other for every single class for at least one school year. So the kid who's slow at learning English or Math is taught at the same pace as the kid who's miles ahead in English or Math.
Side note (but related): In Japan kids don't properly start learning reading and writing English until 1st grade junior high (ie beginning of secondary school) (Although it is expected that most of them know how to sing/recite the ABC and read capital letters ABC). So last week in class kids were doing their "penmanship" book, writing capital & small letters in order. In this one class all kids were at around the letter 'm' or 'n', or at least supposedly. All was well until the teacher found a student who has finished tracing & writing all the letters all the way to 'z', and more (there were sections after to write simple nouns and sentences). Turned out that the kid did it all in Juku (Japanese cram school - attended by over 60% of Japanese kids, apparently). He was subsequently told off by the teacher in front of the rest of the class for, essentially, being ahead of the class. He was told that he had to get a new penmanship book - so that he'll have 1 for school and 1 for Juku. The teacher then told he rest of the class that they either follow the pace of the class, or they have to get a new book to do in their own pace/do in Juku if they want to be ahead of class. I suppose it's understandable that the teacher doesn't want some kids to be too ahead and finish the book themselves and end up having nothing to do in class and potentially disturbing others who are supposedly working hard.
But it also seems to send the message that being ahead of the class is not a good thing, that everyone should move forwards at the same pace. And this example shows exactly why classes need to be divided to accommodate the difference paces and abilities of each student.
I was walking around the class during of those penmanship lessons and spotted one girl with another open book underneath the penmanship book. IT was a notebook where she was already copying down contents of pg. 22 of the textbook (and that page happens to be on numbers, so she was writing down 'one, two, three...hundred' etc) while at the same time she was "following the rest of the class", writing aaa.....bbb....ccc.....ddd....
5. Back to toilets. In train stations or highway rest stops, there would usually be about 50% 'Western style' toilets (ie toilets as we know it), and 50% of Japanese style ie squat. Young and old alike used either. In less urban places (actually even in popular sight-seeing spots like big shrines and temples) it would be mostly squat toilets. 2 of my schools had 1 western style out of the 4 toilets. But 2 other schools had none. Even in the really nice, decked-out wedding hall/popular banquet venue (called 'Palace Iwaya'), squat toilets were carved into the washroom's marble flooring. (Although they did have western style too)
6. No central heating in schools, houses, pretty much anywhere. When winter rumbles in, so do the kerosene heaters are rolled out of their summer slumber in closets or garages, and there is an unmistakable scent of kerosene in the air. Kerosene brings me much comfort in the winter. Because it means the place I'm entering is warm. That (kerosene heaters) and / or the kotatsu.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)