My Daughter the "Half Returnee"

On one hand, all the people whom I respect their opinion on things Japanese (ex. foreigners with children that have lived and raised their kids here for more than one year) tell me that Japanese elementary school is the best. Worldwide scientific survey back it up. My own personal experience with both the American and Japanese public school system validates what I've heard from them.

On the other side of the fence is the American who's been force-fed articles from the '90s and '80s on how Japanese discriminate against returnees. They take for granted that my daughter will be enrolled in an International School in an English bubble, insulated from that arduous, unforgiving system that tolerates only robotic memorization and conformity.

Adult returnees find themselves spurned by co-workers and neighbors for acting "too foreign." Their children are often harassed by schoolmates for being "too individualistic."

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"They look at my background in Chicago and then they look at me and they say, 「もう日本人じゃない。 Mō Nihon-jin ja nai.」 ('You are no longer Japanese.')," says the 29-year-old Muranaka, a professional jazz pianist, composer and arranger. "Then I usually don't get hired."

Excuse me? Is the author of this article trying to imply that acting different (and by "different," I mean "foreign different," not "look at me! I'm a wild and crazy American but that's okay because I'm an in-duh-vidual!" different) in the United States is greeted with open arms? In what jazz club in the world would a musician be turned down because of individualism? Most likely this musician was turned down because he had a music background and was applying for a non-music related professional. But he can't be doing too badly, because he usually doesn't get hired. Which means he sometimes does gets hired. Newsflash, folks, getting hired is tough everywhere, in every country… even if you're qualified.

I'd like the author of the above judgmental article to don a cloak of invisibility and watch what happens on an American public elementary school playground. Kids assimilate and act like the rest of their classmates if they want to play and be accepted. Those that don't sit alone during recess with a toy or shoveling sand by themselves.

I'm not saying it's right. I'd love a society where all cultures could interact seamlessly without compromise. But it doesn't happen. Not in Japan — though it's getting much better. And certainly not in the United States — which is better than most countries, but is certainly no shining model for other countries to emulate.

Many of the U.S. based articles I've read usually contain three themes:

1. The parents/children complain that their behavior in the U.S. is not accepted carte blanche in Japan.
2. Their U.S. behavior is universally acceptable in all cultures and situations, because the U.S. is global and U.S. individualism is an international standard.
3. Japan is a stifling society where the slightest hint of indivuality is met with scorn and everyone else acts like robots. The adage "Japanese say 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.'" is particularly popular in these articles.

Every non-American kid that grows up in the U.S. suburbia knows that if you want friends, you better Act American. Parents raising their Asian-American children fret on how difficult it is to get their teenage children to accept their parents culture. I've heard first-generation mothers of Asian-American kids use terms such as "banana" and "twinkie" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) amongst their peers when complaining about how their child refuses to learn their language or eat their food.

As a child, I had many, many friends who were Asian-American. Asian-Americans comprised of close to 15% of the population of my suburban junior and senior high schools. I'm sure many Americans who live in metropolises like L.A. and N.Y.C. will laugh at that low percentage, but considering that I could count that number of black kids in my high school on one hand, Asian-Americans represented the largest contingent of non-white kids.

For the most part, there were little to no incidents of racial non-harmony during my days. And that's probably because, aside from their skin color and last name, it was really difficult to put your finger on anything that was not "American" about our largest minority. No special lunches brought to school. No special (read: non-Christian) religions. No special customs or clothes. And definitely no non-English conversation — even among a group of all-Chinese or all-Korean or all-Japanese. Sometimes when we went over to their houses, their mother or father would bark something to them in their mother tongue. The Asian-American kid would often either pretend he/she didn't hear them, feign (were they faking? I don't know) minimal comprehension ("I think she wants me to clean my room.") or if acknowledgment was mandatory, they'd reply back to the CJKV in English. Sure, the Asian-American kids studied and got good grades like the stereotype … but this didn't stand out in our school district, which was for the most part affluent and the vast majority of the kids were college-bound.

Even the 1.5 generation kids kids had the high-school survival smarts to know that displaying your heritage at home is one thing, but it is something to best be left at home before going to the cruel and judgmental world of high school, where clique rule. When you compare the hours spent amongst those of your own heritage compared to the hours spent with your friends surrounded by Americana, it's easy to see which part of ones culture gets the most enriching and emphasis.

It's this reason that I made sure my American-born daughter who lived the first five years of her life in the American South was immersed in as deep of a Japanese environment as possible:

• Only Japanese in the house (and that includes me, even though it's not my native language). And Japanese customs in the house. A 炬燵 kotatsu (a low table with an electric heater underneath and a comforter blanket around the perimeter) in the living room (finding one that works on 120V electricity was a challenge). No shoes in the house. Though my extended family seems to think the "five-second rule" applies: if you forget something on the way out, it's okay to dash in the house with shoes to retrieve it so long as your feet are in contact with the floor for five seconds or less.
• Only Japanese food in the house. That meant buying lots of equipment that was relatively "exotic" in North Carolina: hot water pots and fancy rice cookers to 鉄板焼 teppanyaki (large hot plates for grilling thin sliced meats and vegetables) and たこ焼器 takoyaki-ki (fried octopus ball grill). Even though RTP has only one Japanese grocery, our pantry was stocked almost exclusively with Japanese ingredients. Except for one jar of peanut butter. Which nobody ate. I think it was a gift.
• My daughter had a fairly large collection of Japanese story books for bedtime. Because I read Japanese at about 50% of the speed of a native and I too had bedtime reading duties, the other 50% of her collection was in English. If she picked a Japanese book at bedtime: Mom's turn to read. If she picked an English book: Dad's turn. When we pampered/spoiled our kid with treats, it was Japanese treats: Pocky.
• Japanese television. We invested a lot of money in a specialized satellite dish to get exactly the only Japanese channel in North America. Because the channel tended to be heavily on educational and public programming, we'd supplement with videotapes rented from the Japanese grocery and Japanese-import DVDs and games that we'd play on our special region-free DVD player and mod-chipped Playstation 2. The heavy diet of Japanese TV caused my daughter to identify heavily with Japanese pop-culture, preferring characters and toys which the kids in her preschool were unfamiliar with. She most likely would have found little common ground if it weren't for Disney and Pixar.

It certainly would have been a lot easier for as to give her the "Japan light" experience. That is, raise her as a "Japanese-American" or the generic "Asian-American." Americans love a little dash of internationalism in their friends. Fusion foods like California rolls are okay. Real Japanese sushi, other than tuna, is raw and dangerous and gross. "Did you really live in country for χ years?" the cocktail party crowd will ask. They will want an amusing fifteen to thirty second anecdote summarizing your life-changing experience. Anything international longer than 30 seconds is tolerated only by the crowd that regularly watches movies with subtitles. In the United States, that's not a lot of people.

Removing Your Tattoos for Japan

Once upon a time 15 years ago in Japan, the banning signs at the 銭湯 sentō (public baths), capsule hotels, and business hotels only used the word "入れ墨 irezumi and had a helpful manga character of a beefy looking shirtless yakuza with a huge picture of 雷神 raijin (Shintō god of thunder) painted on his back so you knew who the message was for. I never had a problem going in because I didn't have an "irezumi". I had a "tattoo," which from a nuance point of view is like a comic book compared to a manga.

Today, my gym's prohibition sign and membership contract has no helpful cariacture. Instead, it has the following list: 「入れ墨 irezumi、タトゥー tatū、ボディーアート bodī āto等 nado」([Japanese] tattoos, [Western] tattoos, body art, etc.); followed by legalese saying that painted and temporary tattoos and body piercings were also forbidden with the penalty of contract cancellation sans refund, and it didn't matter if you weren't swimming or it wasn't normally visible with clothes on or concealed.

At first I thought the addition of the "tattoo" clause was some clever way to ban foreigners. But one of the trainers told me the rule snags way more Japanese Gen-Yers than non-Japanese. Gyms in Japan like to keep the riff-raff out, I guess.

In Japan, laser tattoo removal usually costs slightly under ¥15,000/cm²/session. You will need about four to five sessions, depending on the colors used. They may also charge you a one time fee (probably no more than ¥2,500) for the analgesic cream you take home and keep refrigerated. You self apply the cream to the treatment area two hours before each session. Being the domain of cosmetic surgeons, they'll want to take a picture of the tattoo before starting each session. They then post that pic on 2ch.net.

They use a YAG laser which emits a few beams simultaneously, each of a different wavelength. The laser looks like a dentist's drill and shoots every 250ms. Each blast makes a snapping sound that sounds like the loudest static electricity shock you've ever heard. Like the pop sound of a 100V electric cord short circuiting right before the breaker blows.

You, the doctor, and the assistant all wear funky orange tinted safety glasses during the procedure. Very outpatient. The atmosphere feels like going to the dentist. The assistant is usually female and cute and beautiful because, hey, she works for a cosmetic surgeon. Employee discount perhaps? The male doc's not too bad looking either. Like a dentist nurse, the assistant's job is to hold you down to keep the doctor from zapping your eye out when you reflexively freak your first time.

The pain? Even with the analgesic cream, each rapid blast feels like a tiny droplet of cooking oil grease splatter on your skin. Unlike a tattoo, where the level of pain depends on where you get it (fatty places like breasts and buttocks, low pain. Thin and close to bone, high pain), the pain seems uniform no matter the location. It's bearable. If you could handle the tattoo you can handle the removal.

It takes about 30s/cm², so even with a big tat, the session is over pretty quickly and you'll feel gypped when you realize that machine has probably paid for itself ×100. You go back no earlier than three weeks later. Repeat until either the tat or your bank account is gone. Yes they take credit cards. And no they don't take insurance.

The evening after the procedure your skin will be a bloody mess and you need to keep it clean just like you would a cut: antiseptic with a bandage most days for about a week. It won't leave a scar.

Will it be completely removed? Depends. It works by having the color pigments of the ink react with the different wavelengths of the different lasers. The laser, when the wavelength is compatible with the ink, pulverizes the pigment under your skin so that the ink is digestable by your white blood cells. All that pus after the procedure is your body's defense system eating away the ink.

The problem is that there are only a few wavelengths, the wavelengths don't react with all inks, and the ingredients for tattoo inks are not standardized and vary with the artist.

• Is the ink black? You're in luck — black absorbs all light hence all lasers. If you have one of those aboriginal all black bands or an idiotic kanji in black, chances are it will be completely removed, with nobody the wiser.
• Is the ink blue or red? Much harder. Expect many sessions to get it off, but it should come off unless your tat artist used a really wacky ink.
• Is the ink white or yellow? You might be out of luck. This includes colors that were created by mixing two or more together, as opposed to a out-of-the-tube color. The current state-of-the-art lasers don't work well on very light colors, if at all.

Because the laser reacts to all pigment, including natural pigment, the skin affected will turn whiter or even albino-ish temporarily after the last session. Your natural pigment will return to the skin after a few months, though.

Racing Santa to my House via Google Earth

I introduced my daughter to the Google Earth/Norad Santa tracking tie up this year, knowing that it supported both English and Japanese. On Christmas eve, I plugged my laptop into my television set so we could watch Santa leave the North Pole and fly around the world.

"Daddy, where are the chocolate chip cookies?"

"Huh? What? The cookies we bought last week? I think they're all gone." That's double-speak meaning I ate them.

"But we have to have cookies with milk for when Santa comes!"

My wife shot me a dirty look. How was I supposed to know the chocolate chip cookies were for Santa? On second thought, we never have cookies in the house. I thought it was a pleasant surprise.

According to Google Earth, Santa is making serious time. And he's not just moving along. Apparently he teleports to select cities, starting at the international date line and moving westward. I tried briefly peeking the Google Earth KML file to see what Santa's (supposably secret) flight path will be. Tokyo is stop #46. Santa is on stop #20.

Japan is nine hours ahead of Greenwich Median Time. Which means that Japan is usually the second stop on Santa's trip after Australia and obscure Pacific Islands. Hawaii is the one of the last stops. Obama will have to wait for his spam sushi in his stocking.

"Daddy! He's already in Japan! He's at the Kuril Islands!" my daughter says while pointing at the big situation screen (my TV).

"That's under dispute." Right now my head is racing. Part of me is hoping that Japanese right wing activists will cause a delay at 得撫島 Uruppu (Урýп, Urup Island). Or perhaps Norad would lose track of Santa. I'm starting to take this Santa fantasy as seriously as my daughter.

Even though my daughter knows that Santa Claus isn't real, she still believes in him. That's either my fault or my achievement. I'm not sure which yet.

Trying to have it both ways in that I wanted my daughter to experience the innocence of childhood by believing in Santa but at the same time always being honest and real with my daughter, I explained to her long ago that Santa Claus was Make Believe, and that both adults (including me) and children play along. This explanation actually worked too well: to a seven year old, the line between make believe and reality is a blurry and thin one. Of course, if you tell your daughter that everybody, including adults, participates in the make believe, that means I have to participate too, even though my daughter knows that I know that Santa Claus isn't real. Gotta be a team player when it comes to playing make believe otherwise you're a Bad Father.

So Google, playing along with the Santa fantasy, is forcing me to leave the house late Christmas Eve in the dark cold to fetch some chocolate chip cookies.

I needed some insurance in case I don't make it back in time. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep, under the futon, with your eyes closed? You know that Santa only comes when you're sleeping."

It worked. For the first time in her life, my daughter raced to her room, turned off the lights, and stayed there without a complaint. I gotta remember that trick for the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and anything else that occurs next year.

I peek back at Google Earth. Santa's now at Онекотан Onekotan (Onekotan To). I race to my local York Mart. Being Japan, where neither Christmas Eve nor Christmas is an official holiday, the supermarket is open late at night on the 24th. The temperature is only a few degrees above freezing, but the shock of going from warm air to heavily breathing as I jog-runned to the market has me coughing. I pick up the exact same cookies that my wife bought last week for ¥143. With plenty of change from my ¥1000 bill left over, I buy some milk as insurance just in case we're out. Non-fat of course. Santa needs to watch his weight. The register assistant, wearing a Santa hat, smiles at me and seems to know why I've bought my two items.

I race back home. Google Earth says Santa is now in Kōbe. Two more stops before Tōkyō.

Daughter is still asleep. In retrospect, I could have taken my time. However, I'm happy I beat the clock and got the preparations for Santa done. Maybe because there's a part of me that still likes to play make believe too when it comes to Santa Claus.

I put the cookies on the 炬燵 kotatsu (kotatsu; low Japanese heated table), ate two cookies as evidence that he paid a visit, and turned off the TV.

Mission accomplished. Merry Christmas, Japan.

Riding the train in Tōkyō with ex-NHLers

My company's "ice club" went to see the Seibu Prince Rabbits last week.

Oh, you didn't know that there was professional ice hockey in Japan? Well, now you know. One word of advice, though: get your tickets quickly, because the premier team in Japan is folding at the end of the season. They're another sad victim of the global recession. They're currently looking for an owner or a group of owners that will pony up for a team that has an operating cost of ¥500,000,000/year.

It's sad, actually, because while the majority of the Japanese names have been Japanese-Canadians (Paul Kariya, David Tanabe, Devin Setoguchi, Jamie Storr), Japan's system has produced a few that have made it to the minors and just recently produced a goalie that made it to the NHL for a couple games (福藤 豊 {FUKUFUJI Yutaka}). Most of these Japanese pros have been Prince Rabbits (neé Kokudō) alumni. The Prince Rabbits have been around in one form or another in Japan since 1972. They will fold after this year.

Brad Fast, the pro in the picture, currently plays for the 안양 한라 {Anyang Halla}, which is one of two Korean teams participating in the pro Asia League.

But I know him from somewhere else. He played in the NHL as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes in the very last game of the 2003-2004 season. He has the dubious honor of being just one of three NHLers that have only played in one game in the majors (NHL) and scoring in that one game.

One of the cool things about living in Japan is that you have accidental access to celebrities that would be off limits in the United States. Rock stars and sports stars don't bring their entourage of bouncers and handlers with them to Japan. They don't need to. The Japanese generally leave them alone when they're not on the job. Even during rock concerts, big name stars will sometimes walk off stage for an impromptu solo in the middle of the stadium's crowd. In the United States, this would spell certain death for that star. But in Japan, the crowd will part way and give the musician room to play.

After the game (Brad's team, Anyang Halla, beat the Prince Rabbits, 7-5), the team had their equipment manager handle their equipment. But they traveled back from 西東京市Nishi-Tōkyō-shi (West Tokyo City) to their downtown hotel via the train, with the fans. While waiting for the train on the platform, I made small talk.

"So how does one end up playing professional hockey in South Korea?" I asked.

Brad and his teammate laughed. "That's a long story."

Brad was very modest and easy to talk to. He asked a few questions to me and my friend about the hockey equipment my friend just purchased at the shop next to the ﾀﾞｲﾄﾞｰ ﾄﾞﾘﾝｺ ｱｲｽ ｱﾘｰﾅDaidō Dorinko Aisu Arīna (DyDo Drink Ice Arena).

I asked him, given how we paid just ¥1500 for our seats, how the owners could afford to send a team back and forth between countries when the stadium has a maximum capacity of perhaps a few thousand, of which at most 50% of the seats were occupied.

He said that he was surprised at the price because in Korea the seats are much more cheaper (₩6,000 for a regular seat). He mentioned that the man that owns the team is a huge hockey fan and rich, and maintaining a pro team is not necessarily about making a profit more than it is about loving hockey (and having enough money to turn that love into ownership of a professional team). My collegue was more about the game, asking about the uncharactistic roughness of some of the players and how the referree seemed to be a bit fast with the whistles. "He's a referree. You don't become a referree unless you like being in control," Brad quipped.

Like all pro hockey players (except Sean Avery), Brad was modest and down to earth. I wouldn't have even know he played for the 'Canes and scored a goal if his teammate, Jon Awe, hadn't chipped in that factoid during our conversation.

He asked us a bunch of questions about where we worked and how does one end of living in Japan and what it was like. I gave a quick 90-second bio of my life and a list of things he should do in Japan that he won't find in Fodor's guide (going to the Tsukiji Fish Market is not one of them).

Eventually, we had to part ways at 高田馬場駅 Takadanobaba-eki Takadanobaba station. He had to go to his team's hotel and I had to go home. We thanked him for a great game (even though his team beat the local Japanese team) and entertaining our questions. He said he hoped to see us at the playoffs in a few weeks. We said we'll be there.

My wife, a big fan of hockey and a former season ticket holder for the Carolina Hurricanes, opted out of joining me at the game because it was late and a school night. I texted her and told her who I met.

She'll be joining me now for the playoffs.

Clockwork Commuting in the Morning

One of the pleasures I enjoy in the morning is leaving for work at the same time as my daughter leaves for school. We both leave at 8am. My daughter's public school in 世田谷区 Setagaya-ku (Setagaya Ward) doesn't require a uniform — like most public schools in Tōkyō in the 21st century. Back in the mid 90s, my uniform as a computer programmer was (cheap) suit and tie, and I sweated in a dilapidated office surrounded by servers in 大阪市本町 Ōsaka-shi Hommachi (Ōsaka City's Hommachi). These days, I work for a progressive internet company. When I dress my age, I wear a colored buttoned shirt and some slacks. My peers consider me to be overdressed.

Leaving at 8am sharp, I know my 7-year old daughter will walk exactly 1km to school one way, wearing her ランドセル randoseru (ransel [dutch], a heavy hard leather backpack) which is loaded with about 2kg of books and homework from the previous day.

I do my 1km 12 minute walk to the station. I treat myself to a croissant at a chain faux-Euro bakery in front of the station, paying for it by tapping my wallet containing my Pasmo RFID card against their cash register's RFID reader/writer, where my card has it's pre-loaded yen deducted

Wolfing down the croissant, I head to the my pre-paid commuter route programmed in, board the local 小田急線 Odakyū-sen (Odakyū Line) at 8:22am, and arrive at 下北沢駅 Shimokitazawa-eki (Shimo-kitazawa Station) at 8:31am. From here I'll switch to the 京王線 Keiō-sen (Keiō Line).

I get in line about 30 people deep for the middle door of the second car (the middle door allows silent data cell phone use. The ends of the cars request that you switch your phones off because some Japanese are afraid of cell phone signals in confined spaces). I board the local 京王線 Keiō-sen (Keiō Line) at 8:36am, arrive at 渋谷駅 Shibuya-eki (Shibuya Station) at 8:40am, and I'm at work in front of my LCD monitors and laptops, coffee in hand, ready for my 9am JST video meeting with Silicon Valley.

I can cut it this close every day because statistically speaking, the trains run like clockwork in Japan compared to most countries. And more importantly, I get that extra x amount of minutes sleep and extra y amount of minutes with my family in the morning. Packed liked sardines? It's worth it. At least I don't have to drive. I found driving to work in the U.S. far more stressful.

A New Permanent Record in Japan

Last week I picked up my new Alien Registration Card card from the Setagaya Ward Office. On it were two critical new items:

• (10)在留資格 zairyū shikaku (residency status): 永住者 eijūsha (permanent resident)
• (11)在留期間 zairyū kikan (residency period): ****年**月**日 (YYYY-MM-DD)

It was a replacement card. I wanted a new card and not one with the new status marked on the back on the comments. So I arranged for my previous card to have a little accident. With a shredder.

♦ ♦ ♦

In Japan, you first apply for permanent residency at Immigration. They send you a postcard when your application is successfully processed. They told me that the process can take "up to six months." I got my postcard exactly 5 months and 20 days after applying. At immigration, you get a new adhesive seal stamp in your passport. Two things were different from my dozen other Japanese visa stamps, re-entry permits, and collected over 15 years and two passports:

1. The stamp was issued by the 法務省 hōmushō (Ministry of Justice), not Immigration
2. No expiration date

After one gets their permanent residency status (unlike all other Residency Statues, it's not a visa), you then go to the 区役所 kuyakusho (Ward Office) to get it your 外国人登録証明書 gaikokujin tōroku shōmeisho (Certificate of Alien Registration, "ARC", "Green Card," "Gaijin Card") modified. It's not citizenship nor naturalization. All non-Japanese in Japan must carry either their passport or their ARC card on their person at all times and present it when requested by the police. No non-Japanese that lives in Japan carries their passport with them 24/7, so most everybody carries their credit card sized ARC card instead. I even have a pouch on my running shoe in case I pass a police officer's 交番 kōban (mini police station, "Police Box") and they are stopping people (normally to check for stolen and unsafe bicycles) during a jog.

I got mine modified. The public servant dutifully inscribed the change on the back of my card in the 記載欄 kisairan (notation field(s)), noting that fields 10 and 11 on the front had changed. He made the change official by stamping over them with a seal and putting a transparent security seal over the note.

I knew right then and there that my card needed to meet with an accident.

One of the priviledges you get with permanent residency, besides having the right to be homeless, jobless, and spouseless in Japan for the rest of your life, is a little bit of extra privacy.

Permanent Resident's ARCs don't have your history of employers on them. Nor do they have a history of your previous statuses. non-Japanese that don't have a driver's license use their ARC instead for anything that requires a photo ID.

Because my new status was simply notated on my old card, my previous résumé was still on the front and back of the card.

In my opinion, who I've worked for in Japan over the years, whether or not I was an Instructor or an Engineer or Married to a Japanese over the years is my business that I'll choose to reveal on my own terms and I need not broadcast it to every official that inspects my card.

I had had problems dealing with beauracracy at the Ward Office in the past so I did not ask the person for a new card. I did know that if you lose your card, you get a new one for free. I could wait for five years when my card would expire and I'd get a new one, but five years is a long time to wait for a little extra privacy.

So I arranged for my card to accidently fall into the office shredder.

A week later, I returned to the Ward Office and said that my card got "shredded" and I let the public servant assume it was an accident.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now I have a new card. Nice and clean. I still have a history, but it's not on my main form of legal identification.

The only thing I don't like about my new card? The new photo. I liked my old photo better.

Tokyo Disneyland is great; except for the customers

This week, my wife took my daughter to Tokyo Disneyland in 千葉県 Chiba-ken (Chiba Prefecture).

Much like 成田国際空港 Narita kokusai kūkō (Narita Airport aka NAA) née 新東京国際空港 shin-Tōkyō kokusai kūkō (New Tokyo International Airport), it's actually in a different prefecture and it takes some time to get there. My wife took the very rare step of taking my daughter out of preschool for a day for the Mickey excursion. How rare is missing school for my daughter? Much to the consternation of my parents, who place "visiting grandparents" way ahead of "education" on my daughter's priority list, we declined a lot of trips last year so that my daughter would get the 皆勤賞 kaikin-shō (Perfect Attendance Award) from her 日本語補習学校 Nihongo hoshū gakkō (Japanese supplementary school). Unfortunately, she was late to school one day out of the year, so she was disqualified. There's no such thing as an "almost perfect attendance" award in Japan.

The night before Disney, my daughter suffered her first night terror. Some people that have never actually seen a night terror think that their children has suffered from a night terror when what really happened was the kid had a very bad dream and woke up crying. Night terrors are on a different level. A parent's first experience with a night terror usually leads them to want to bring their child to the hospital emergency room; the child displays autistic and/or epileptic seizure like tendencies for up to 30 minutes. All you can do is hold the flailing child down to prevent them from injuring themselves and try to cover up the blood curdling screams so that the neighbors don't call the police mistaking the night terror for torture.

Night terrors are caused by the child getting "stuck" between stage 3 non-REM sleep and stage 4 non-REM sleep. Based on the average person's cycle length, this is usually 90 minutes after falling asleep. Nightmares, on the other hand, occur during REM sleep. Night terrors are hereditary; My wife suffered from them. So did her mother. With the exception of rare cases, they occur mainly in pre-school children. As my wife and my mother-in-law outgrew their night terrors, it stands to reason that my daughter eventually will too.

Night terrors can happen out of the blue, but going to sleep stressed or in an extremely exhausted condition can provoke it. The mid-week Disneyland excursion was an attempt by my wife to relieve some of the stress of the new school environment as well as "fill up the day" with positive stimulation so my daughter doesn't attempt to stay awake out of boredom. My wife, my daughter, and I suffer from minor insomnia.

Disneyland was fantastic. The rides were fun. The service was great. If there was one thing that was unpleasant, it was the non-Japanese customers behaving in a non-Japanese way. Pushing and shoving in line. Cutting in line. Basically a "every person for himself" and "the strong will ride first; fast pass be damned" mentality.

There are two subway systems in 東京都 Tōkyō-to (Tokyo Metropolis): the private one called メトロ metoro (the Metro) and the public one called the 都営 Toei (under metropolitan management), which is short for "run by the 東京都交通局 Tōkyō kōtsū-kyoku (TMBT)." The public system is underneath the private system, which means that you can take up to five or six sets of escalators or stairs to get from the platform to above ground!

Japan is a crowded place. In order for everybody to get along, manners are important. Boarding an escalator, everybody knows that you stand on the left, walk on the right. Even during rush hour in ultra-crowded stations such as 都営大江戸線 Toei Ō-Edo sen (Toei Ōedo Subway Line) 六本木駅 Roppongi eki (Roppongi Station), almost everyone uses only half of the escalators: they stand on the left, allowing those in a hurry to pass on the right. This often results in congestion at the base of the escalators as everybody queues up to board the left side. Even stairways have arrows designated which sides are for ascending and which side are for descending.

The system works because almost everybody follows it. Sometimes an occasional space cadet, a tourist that is engrossed in their map, or a grandparent from out-of-town is on the wrong side. But this is unintentional and they normally move to the correct side once they become aware of their surroundings.

My daughter is five years old and doesn't move as fast as an adult. You would think this wouldn't be a problem at a family-oriented place like Disneyland, but some of the other non-Japanese tourists took advantage of this to cut in front of my family numerous times.

I realize that this is most likely a cultural difference and that the reason they do this is because the environment in the non-Japanese environment doesn't lend itself to efficient crowd processing. The cultural difference is not exclusive to pedestrians or East Asian cultures: look at how Americans behave on the roads and highways towards someone that follows the rules (like the speed limit). I drove the speed limit in the U.S. in North Carolina. Driving the legal speed in Raleigh is terrifying.

Still, you would think that guests to Japan would follow the "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" rule.

The rudeness made me appreciate again just how lucky I am to live in a society where both the people and the infrastructure work in harmony to create a place where so many people can live so closely together without resembling the Lord of the Flies.

Michael Moore is Right: U.S. Health care sucks, Japan is Good

Michael Moore's "Sicko" is not the first to say that the United States health care system isn't that great.

The WHO ranked the United States as № 37.

So where does Japan rank on the WHO chart? Japan is № 10. Of all Asian countries, only Singapore checks in higher at № 6.

While neither system the Japanese nor United States is perfect, I've received superior care from the Japanese system. I didn't always feel this way.

"Sicko" has a Japan connection.

There's a great Japan related anecdote sixteen minutes into the movie Sicko. Maria's primary care physician referred her to see an ophthalmologist, a neurologist, and get a MRI. All three of these requests were denied by Blue Shield of California. Maria then gets ill while vacationing with her family in Japan. She gets the MRI in Japan and discovers she has a brain tumor. Like any good American, she sues. There's video of the March 13, 2003 trial which shows Glen L. Hollinger, M.D., the medial director for GSMPA (the contracted medical group for Blue Shield of CA), admitting that his signature on the denial letters was a stamp and that he doesn't actually look into detail as to whether people should be denied procedures. In other words, very little priority and follow through is done to see that the denials that American medical insurance companies issue are actually "not medically necessary," as Maria was told by Blue Shield.

F.O.B., I thought the Japanese system sucked.

I'm not dying from some horrible disease. I've always had health insurance in the U.S.: either through my parents when I was a teenager or via a health insurance company subsidized by a large, publicly traded company. My company has switched providers multiple times. I've experienced Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina. I'm married with a family and concerned that my child gets the best possible care, and I have the income to afford it, so I've always purchased the premium PPO packages with the highest premiums and the lowest deductibles.

I would not be a good anecdote for Michael Moore's "Sicko."

Like most Americans, I was taught that thanks to the free market system, America's system was the best in the world. America's blind belief in this may explain the disparity in the WHO survey that shows how Americans have the highest satisfaction in their system. My American dentist during my teenage days would rant about how Hillary Clinton's health care plan would ruin America's #1 position in the world. At the time, I nodded in agreement. I didn't realize how much of his opinion was bound in self-interest and his own prejudices.

My first few years in Japan in the early '90s didn't change my opinion. I didn't speak the language very well. I didn't know how to communicate with the dentists and doctors. The first dentist I went to confirmed every stereotype I had about why Japanese and British people had such crooked and horrible looking teeth (not anymore, by the way. How quickly things change in fifteen years). The dentist's drill was powered by a pulley system, rather than the modern air system. The walls were not painted white, which helps gives the illusion of a sterile environment by looking cleaner. The atmosphere reminded me of the 1985 dentist scene in the movie タンポポ Tampopo ("dandelion") by 伊丹十三監督 ITAMI Jūzō kantoku (Director Jūzō ITAMI).

The dentist wanted to take a souvenir picture of my American dental work … oblivious to the American fears of overexposure to X-rays. Most people receive far more radiation from CRT monitors and airplanes in their lifetime than from their two to four medical X-rays a year. A fellow English teacher at the time summed up the visible difference in Americans dental care with the following cultural explanation:

"Japanese and British people only go to the dentist when it hurts when they eat. In Japan, the display of teeth is like the display of bone. It's gross and thus avoided. Since your teeth aren't on display when you smile, the appearance of your teeth, be them yellow and/or crooked, isn't important."

"Dentists in Japan don't need to look at the color of your skin, eyes, or hair to tell that you're an American. One look inside your mouth and they'll say 「やっぱりアメリカ人ですね。 Yappari Amerika-jin desu ne.]
("You're an American all right.")

My first experience with a hospital visit was also marred by my inability to communicate effectively. Much like the hospital scene in Lost in Translation, there are some doctors that will communicate with the patient entirely in Japanese, even if it's clear that the patient doesn't understand the language. I believe they do this for liability reasons. If a doctor (whose native language is Japanese and his limited foreign language skills) attempts to communicate in a foreign language and misspeaks, the misunderstanding is the doctor's fault. In Japan, however, the official national language is Japanese. If the doctor gives you a diagnosis in Japanese and you don't understand, that's your fault. That being said, many doctors have been taught overseas and even those taught in Japan have to learn the Latin terms for many diseases and often will attempt "Medical Nihonglish"— incredibly difficult medical terminology intertwined with broken English grammar.

My second experience with the Japanese medical system also occurred during my first three years in Japan. I had a full blown case of influenza, which was triggering an asthma attack.

I don't remember that much about the experience because I was delirious. I do remember coming home from work during winter feeling unexpectedly feverish. I vomited a few times prior to boarding a bus from 難波 Namba (Namba) to my home in 大正区 Taishō-ku (Taishō Ward). The fever was so bad I passed out on the city bus and missed my stop.

I could barely breathe and I felt like I was close to death due to asphyxiation. I had too much pride to ask others for help and I attempted to go to what I thought was a general hospital's 24 hour emergency room after hours (around 2 am). Nobody would help me and nobody knew how to help me because they couldn't understand me.

I had broken up with my girlfriend that year and had nowhere to go, so I ended up crawling to a neighbors apartment on the same floor whom I knew. She used to be a nurse. She ended up caring for me over the next couple days, making me easy-to-digest traditional meals of rice gruel.

The experience brought out a bigot in me that I didn't know existed. I was swearing and calling the Japanese system an inferior piece of shit compared to the U.S. system and repeating all the negative things I had heard about Japanese medicine from other foreigners:

Things on the Internet about Japanese medicine aren't 100% true.

• Japanese doctors aren't used to and thus don't like patients asking questions.
  

Depends. As long as you ask respectfully and don't phrase the question in such a form that you're telling the doctor what you think the diagnosis is and/or what drug you need, they're more than happy to answer questions.

• Japanese doctors give you unlabeled drugs without telling you their purpose.

False. Most Japanese don't care to ask so they may not volunteer the information. But if you ask, they'll tell you.

• Japanese doctors lack ethics and bedside manner and won't tell you what's wrong.
  

False. They'll give the patient the option as to whether they want to hear the bad news. Doctors in Japan get ethics training like all other doctors that practice Western medicine. As for bedside manner, it may not be the manner a non-Japanese is used to, but they do have bedside manners.

Apocryphal non-Japanese at the Doctor Miscommunication Example

Foreigner goes to the Japanese doctor's place. Doctor says 「どうしましたか？ Dō shimashita ka?」("What's wrong?")

The patient wants to say 「頭が痛い。 Atama ga itai.」("My head hurts.")

Instead he says 「頭が悪い。 Atama ga warui.」("My head is bad.") which means "I'm stupid" in Japanese.

After the nurse and doctors finish laughing, the doctor pats him on the head and replies back with the Japanese proverb, 「馬鹿が死ななければ治らない。 Baka ga shinakereba naoranai.」 ("Only death can cure a fool.")

That was then. This is now.

Actually knowing Japanese and having enough years under your belt will do wonders towards your impression of the foreign country.

Right now I'm getting state-of-the-art insured dental care that was deemed medically unnecessary by my my former U.S. gold-plated plan (replacing of old 1970s era amalgam fillings which have mercury in them and conduct heat and cold easily. I was also able to get a prescription refilled that my gold-plated plan provider refused to refill despite my doctor prescribing it for me. They considered the drug "experimental." That's a health insurance term which is used as a synonym for "expensive."

Soon I'll have a new crown put in place. I'm paying extra for the cosmetic crown that looks like a white tooth as opposed to being made of silver or gold. That price is still cheaper that what I'd have to pay for the silver crown in the States.

The health care system in Japan does have it's problems, just like all systems. But on a whole it's superior to the States. And that's based on my anecdotes from living and experiencing the health care here in both countries over a period of many years.