JAPANESE HEALTHCARE (the biggest culture shock so far!)

We DID NOT know what was coming for us when we entered into the ENT doctor's office! We knew things were going to be a bit different because we couldn't make an appointment, but what played out was quite the culture shock! Watch to hear what played out and see us be chemists;)! In the end, we were able to receive the help we needed and the medicine seemed to help our little Noa. That's really what matters most! Also, both the cost of the doctor's appointment and the medicine were very affordable!
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Lots of love,
Tanner, Risa, Willa + Noa! :)

[@indrahx5905]

As a German, when I hear earache, the first thing that comes into my mind is Zwiebelsäckchen! Do you know that one? You fill a sock or cloth with chopped raw onions and put that on the child's ear. It's something our grandmothers taught us and it works.

[@LythaWausW]

It's on Lindenstrasse so you know it's true: )

[@YT-Viewer]

My Polish parents utilized this technique as well.

[@user-pq2zj7ok9l]

日本の病院は施設の違い関係無く同じ料金なのが一般的です

[@connycatlady7429]

Wow. I don't know how I would have managed that. Without language skills. Stay strong 😁

[@ashleynalley2306]

In the US I worked as a pharmacy tech .The liquid antibiotics came to us as in a powder. We would add water to the powder when the patient came to pick it up. It’s usually only good for 10 days after the water is added. So I can see why they don’t mix it up for you. Plus we would flavor the medication with syrup also if you wanted but most of the time it already has a flavor. I bet in other countries it’s probably just straight medication with nothing extra added which would taste awful and probably bitter without the syrup.

[@OurStorytoTell]

We’ve learned that as well over the years, it was just a bit strange to not have the medicine in a bottle, but rather in the small packets. It was mostly new and different than what we were used to, but in the end functioned just the same!

[@pabnetde]

That medicine mixing might explain the japanese love for DIY candy kits :D

[@rexmoose]

Thanks!

[@OurStorytoTell]

We really appreciate your support for our channel! It means a lot 🫶 Thanks for the super thanks!

[@brucereynolds3131]

I’m so sorry to hear you didn’t have the best experience. I know the language barrier doesn’t make it any easier. Why are you not able to utilize the Naval Hospital on base? I’m was very surprised to hear that you guys had to search for a doctor out in town. I was in the Navy for 20 years and stationed in Atsugi (went to Yokosuka a lot) and just assumed civilian government employees had access to military doctors overseas. Can any of your civilian coworkers recommend a doctor’s office?

[@OurStorytoTell]

More recently the hospital has been unable to provide care for civilian employees and their dependents based on capacity. Even in the job posting when I applied they had in big, bold letters: HEALTHCARE IN JAPAN IS EXTREMELY LIMITED… or something to that effect. Overall, I think it was more overwhelming because of everything that we had going on at the time and with sick kids it doesn’t make it easier. Either way, we figured it out and are looking to go to some other Japanese clinics where we can schedule appointments online. Slowly learning and adjusting! Fortunately, we have a good list of doctors that other people have been happy with!

[@Mwoods2272]

The longest I have waited at a pharmacy in Tokyo was 15 mins. I would recommend my dentist in Tokyo but you live too far away. The staff speaks English and that are wonderful. It's interesting that you live so close to the navy base and there aren't any English-speaking medical facilities nearby. St Luke's hospital in Tokyo has English speaking staff, lots of foreigners go there but again too far for you. You will need to find a clinic because they will refer you to a specialist. Most places you need to be referred by a doctor.

[@OurStorytoTell]

Thanks for the suggestion! That’s really great you’ve only needed to wait 15 minutes for the pharmacy. We’re exploring other options nearby before we need to travel 1 hour plus for doctor visits, but we’ll definitely consider! Edit: we do have several English speaking doctors nearby, but the ENT was more difficult than a general doctor or dentist will be.

[@tk-iw4pe]

JFYI, all the cost of medical care including drugs are the same whichever hospital you visit. So pick whichever you comfortable with and clean… hope your kids get well soon!

[@DamaxThomas]

It is very strange that the doctor/nurse took kids without asking. I living in Japan for 10 years but I don’t have a kid. In my personal experience, Japaneses are painfully careful and slow to processed. Regarding the cost, always with exception of course, the cost should be the same everywhere for the same service. Most embassies (and certainly bases) has a list of bi or trilingues doctors. Of course, those doctors might be further away.

[@OurStorytoTell]

Thanks for your comment! It’s interesting to hear. We actually went to one of the locations on the list of English speakers from the base. There might be others that have more individuals speaking English, but that was our scenario. Next time maybe we will try another place, or decide to drive into Tokyo. Also, how cool you’ve lived in Japan for 10 years! We can see why you would love it to stay. 😊

[@DamaxThomas]

@@OurStorytoTell interesting, even a clinic good enough to be in the base list could not speak English ... That's disappointing. A friend passed his driving license here with the 100k English course. The manuals were in English but most teachers were not able to do better than "tUrn RIghT" / "TurN LeFt". He end up speaking Japanese all the time (he has the JLPT N2). I love living here but inside car, I feel to close to pedestrian and outside of a car, I feel too close to cars to have my mind at peace haha. English and urban planing in Japan: 2 endless topic for me. With the city that want to buy my house to make a road to connect 2 other roads, I'm highly aware of the later topic.

[@gregh7457]

My experience here in japan is that the small clinics usually have only 1 doctor and he's usually older and people here go to the doctor for even the smallest things. Even for a small cold they go to get "medicine" I can see how this would overwork doctors and make them cranky. We have found a way to bypass the clinics here in okinawa and go directly to a larger hospital without a clinic referral. I am on the japanese medical insurance so i don't know if that makes any difference with your private usa insurance. But what we do is just go up to the hospital reception and tell them we have no referral and pay 7000 yen extra to see a specialist. If you have anything more serious like surgery they keep you in the hospital a long time too so be prepared for that. I had a surgery and was held captive for 10 days. In the us the same surgery is 1 day hospital. I also educated myself on the procedure by watching youtube videos so i knew what to expect. My level of japanese is similar to yours but fortunately my wife can translate. My suggestion to you is find a japanese intrepreter to go with you the next time you go even if you have to pay for their services.

[@rabbit07236]

I, a uni student in japan, know my friends going to medical faculties are demanded to improve their English skills. Okay, the situations will change, maybe around 15 years later 😂

[@jjivy6310]

Oh bless you! What an experience.... Culture shock comes in many forms. My boys would have have infections and I made an ear warmer from a tube sock filled with rice, microwave for a minute and that would help with their ear ache pain. Can you use the medical facility on base? Not sure if I'd bel comfortable with so much lack of communication ability. Love watching y'all. Stay well my KZbin friends. Hugs from Texas!

[@suspendedhatch]

I got ankle surgery in Spain, and I didn’t go in expecting anyone to speak English. And they didn’t. Who cares? Undress, scrub yourself with sanitizer, go to this room. Wait. Here’s a shot, night night. All through gesturing- no problem. The level of care couldn’t be better, and the experience was far better than what I’ve experienced having been born in the USA where I was treated like refrigerated cattle meat. I used to go to Mexico and pay cash for treatment, rather than navigate the disastrous for-profit insurance system. Only to pay massive amounts out of pocket. So I am comfortable with communication barriers. In fact, they were more nervous than me about it.

[@OurStorytoTell]

Glad to hear your experience was good with your ankle surgery! I will have to say it’s a different ball game when you’re going with young kids/babies like ours. They have a harder time understanding what’s going on and gestures only help so much. I’m sure with some time we’ll have better experiences here in Japan like we had in Germany, but this visit was surprising and took us a bit by surprise!

[@vanessaaguilar-griffith1349]

I get so excited to see a new vlog from you. Then I view the comments, see the title, look at your demeanors and become so sad that your family is not having a positive experience 😢🩵

[@K__a__M__I]

Yeah, when I went to a japanese pharmacy and saw rows of chairs in the waiting area i knew something was up...🤣🤣🤣

[@MiciFee97]

Why do you have to wait for medicin? Do they have to make it first, i dont understand what takes so long. When its my turn in german it takes 5 minutes from there 😂

[@K__a__M__I]

Because Japan, i guess? They take the box of meds you'd normally get handed and pull it apart and prepare it _exactly_ as the doctor prescribed and return it with detailed instructions and information and stuff. My japanese friend - who, by chance, is a trained pharmacist - was absolutely *horrified* at the idea to just _give_ the patient the medication. I can see the downsides to both ways but it is quite the culture shock.@@MiciFee97

[@SuperLittleTyke]

@@MiciFee97 The Japanese pharmacist probably has to first go outside to harvest some health-giving plants.

[@onsendeyukkurishitai]

I hope people don't think that their experience was normal in Japan. There are hospitals and clinics that recieve reservations, and pharmacies that call you on apps when your medicines are ready. You might want to ask your neighbors or parents who come to parks for better doctors next time. Pediatrics otorhinolaryngologies tend to be crowded around this season because many kids catch cold, flu, and covid in winter, and half of adults suffer from pollen allergies during spring. Not to be defending for bad attitudes of the doctors they encountered, but it is not the time of the year when they have emotional leeway. We may tend to visit doctors more frequently than American people too, because all citizens are required to enter health insurances, either it's public or private, and we only have to pay 30% of the total fees. Especially childrens' medical fees are free so, it is less common to visit vacant medical facilities. If they are, they might have problems😂

[@YT-Viewer]

God, that's good to hear! If I had two young children with that experience I certainly would not be happy! Who tears a child from their mother's arms?!

[@OurStorytoTell]

We assume that this is not always the case, and hope in the future we have a better experience! Thanks for pointing this out as our intent is not to say that healthcare in Japan is all negative. However, it was an unfortunate first experience that was quite a shock.

[@berndgaal7689]

First of all...can t you use a doctor at the military base?? I also had to wait at pharmacy for about 90 mins to finally get a few pills. They count them and pack them into little bags. Well, I told you about the international hospital in Tokyo near Tsukiji (fishmarket) and Ginza. There is everything under one roof and they speak english. Also dentists.There I never had a problem, but maybe its too far away for you. It took me also a long time to find this place. Before that I went to numerous other hospitals without any result.

[@OurStorytoTell]

Yes thank you very much for sending that name over (again!) It is quite far for us to travel to, but definitely a great option for our “bigger” needs. We went to a local clinic on our list of English speaking places in Yokosuka because we know quite a bit about ear infections now & mostly wanted an update ear inspection with some medicine. We can use the Emergency services for the hospital on the US base, but otherwise we cannot.

[@arnikakiani8014]

So sorry to hear that the girls´ ears are not doing well! I hope they get better, soon. Mixing up medicine with instructions that you can´t read, relying on translating apps - and we all have read automatically translated manuals which don´t make a lick of sense - must be at the very least a bit uncomfortable.

[@SuperLittleTyke]

This was the first I've heard of Japanese health care and I'm not impressed. If it were me, i would already be planning my next destination.

[@lauracowan2925]

Sorry about your experience, but it's not the norm. My son, dil and gson live in Kagoshima had health care (ENT and pediatrician) make appointments. You call the office, given a time and arrive with 10 minutes of your time. Are you not near a US base to get care? Hope children feel better soon.

[@OurStorytoTell]

Because I’m a civilian employee, I don’t have access to the hospital on base for regular care visits (ER only really at this point). It’s good to hear this isn’t the norm, and hopefully we’ll figure something out moving forward. Thanks for letting us know there are other clinics that work with appointments!

[@berndgaal7689]

O.K. the name of the international hospital is Seiroka byouin.

[@OurStorytoTell]

Thank you! 😊

[@van03de]

During my 26 trips from Germany to Japan, I visited a doctor's office only once when I had the flu. It was very different from Germany. The hallway was the waiting room, the doctor's room was only separated by a curtain. I guess all other patients could hear what the doctor said to me. There was not much of privacy. This being said, at pharmacies I always found someone speaking English. But I didn't like medications that mix everything in one pill, like aspirin plus anthistamine plus codein and the like. So I do my own research and usually buy medicines similar to German ones. The US Embassy website has published a list of English speaking doctors and hospitals.

[@avengerofthedisenfranchised]

The US employer gave no informations about english speaking medics to you? I'm surprised.

[@OurStorytoTell]

We fortunately have a list of some medical offices around the area, but we ended up not having the best of luck scheduling appointments with any of them. We drove to this clinic since it was the closest and they when they told us to wait, then we decided it was better to get their ears checked out sooner than later. In the end it all worked out, but it was definitely a bit unexpected with the blankets to hold down the kids and just how the entire experience went. Hoping for some better experiences in the future!

[@yvonnena8944]

Curious, did you do any research into living in Japan before you moved there?

[@OurStorytoTell]

Yes we did. Not so much in terms of healthcare, but it’s always different reading it and then experiencing it.

[@howierfs5471]

Hi there, I know about ear pain for my whole life and catch infections whenever its possible. Get well soon kids and your parents will manage the new healthcare system for your safty, thats for sure. CU

[@VanX1989]

Your experience provides a whole new perspective because in Asia, it is generally accepted that Japan has the best medical system and service (Taiwan seems to be good too), but I think maybe not every hospital in Japan is like that, I think you may have gone to a "community clinic" that usually only has local people and I think it is obvious that their service is not decent, This may be a common problem in some small clinics, they may be able to treat patients, but do not provide good service, I think the larger hospital may be a better choice

[@SuperLittleTyke]

I'm surprised that Tanner and family can't obtain health care on the US Base.

[@VanX1989]

@@SuperLittleTyke I'm not sure the bases there provide medical care to all U.S. citizens

[@Mwoods2272]

@@SuperLittleTyke He's not part of the military and is probably working for a private contractor working with the DOD. Also why they don't live on base.

[@gregh7457]

@@Mwoods2272The situation here in okinawa is pretty bad for the dependants and DOD. They give priority to only active duty members. Some have resorted to using local doctors/clinics and paid out of their own pocket

[@zeideerskine3462]

You may plan in a visit to Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki to celebrate recovery.

[@virginian5643]

I’m just wondering that why you didn’t go to the Yokosuka Base clinic? Isn’t that more convenient and no cost?

[@OurStorytoTell]

Great question! We are not allowed to because we aren’t active military. We can take advantage of emergency services but otherwise, we have to look off base.

[@susannehailer4606]

❤👋🇩🇪

[@SAKURA_KIRAKIRA]

日本には島国ですから単一言語だけで暮らせていますし、昔から識字率が高い国民です。 本屋に行けばお分かりの通り、日本語以外の書籍はほぼありません。 まだまだ日本人は日本語以外話す必要がないのです。日本語を勉強してみてはいかがでしょうか？😊 薬の処方は院内処方と、病院の外のドラッグストアや薬局でも行えます。私は緊急でない限り、有効期限内で、ポイントを貯めているドラッグストアで処方してもらっています。

[@starseed8087]

Maybe you should start learning the world language English. Japan loses 800,000 people every year, you need immigration, your economy is going down the drain! Germany has just replaced Japan as the third strongest economy in the world in 2023, with fewer inhabitants

[@kix1464]

「まだまだ日本人は日本語以外話す必要がないのです。」をまだ言ってる人が日本を他国の人に住みづらくしているんですよ。新しいチャレンジや勉強はいつも必要あると思います。この家族が自分の国以外を経験と勉強をしているようにもっと多くの日本人にもそうしてほしいです。

[@OurStorytoTell]

We are studying Japanese to make day to day life a bit easier, but it’s taking quite some time, especially since I don’t get the chance to practice it too much at work. We’ve really enjoyed our experience so far in Japan and are looking forward to the rest of our time here!

[@OurStorytoTell]

A bit harsh of a comment, don’t you think? This one person shouldn’t be taking the blunt for a declining population and restricted immigration policy.

[@starseed8087]

@@OurStorytoTell I know my comment may seem a bit harsh. It wasn't directed at the person but rather at Japan as a whole. I'm worried about Japan, the population is shrinking at an unprecedented rate, which would bring down every economy and society sooner or later. And yet most Japanese have not yet heard the shot. I do believe that the Japanese should stop basking in their self-isolation and beautiful order and urgently need to open up society, which also includes learning English..

[@isana788]

Gute Besserung und viel Gesundheit. (just so that you don't forget German so quickly)

[@OurStorytoTell]

Natürlich reden wir immer noch ein wenig miteinander! Thank you 😊

[@bernadetteontour3891]

I'm surprised that it is hard to find someone who speaks English. For any reason I did not expect this due to the fact, that Japan is one of the world's largest economies. I thought the level of education at school was high. In my opinion this includes English skills.

[@noseboop4354]

Japan, especially outside of Tokyo, has very poor English skills. Doctors and pharmacies must be even worse as they rarely have to deal with tourists.

[@Mwoods2272]

In school, they learn English for an hour everyday and after finishing school, they don't practice. How many people took a language in high school in America and as they got older can barely say hello. It's the same with immigrants to the US, the children lose the fluency of their parent's language if they stop being exposed to it.

[@joyceandrada8697]

...where's the house hunting😮

[@puckiman1]

I have a lot of experience with people from Germany in a profesional way. Why is it that there are many people who live in Germany from other countrys and the first question is...do you speak English? It came out so natural. When I visit the USA I never asked if they speak Greek or German or French etc. Dont get it. I know why thats a fact but you are locaded in a countryso you must learn the languege. You are new in Japan but it will be better for all of you.

[@noseboop4354]

Because English is a common bridge language for business and politics, including Asia. When Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, Indians meet, guess what they usually communicate in English.

[@SuperLittleTyke]

Japanese and all other Asian languages are so very different from English, German or French. I read on Wikipedia " the Japanese writing system is considered to be one of the most complicated currently in use". I think Tanner is doing remarkably well to learn even a few Japanese characters and sounds already. It must be incredibly frustrating to have to rely on Google Translate, good though it is.

[@Mwoods2272]

@@noseboop4354 Yes, for people who are in international business and the government but at the basic level, everyone speaks Japanese so there is no reason for them to learn English.

[@ellierobbins746]

I grew up in Japan and I can see how some Japanese people might not have the best bedside manner, even though generally people are polite. Sorry you and your kids had to go through that :(

[@SuperLittleTyke]

How often have you guys wished you were back in Germany since moving to Japan? With every video you make from there, Japan slips down my list of desirable countries to visit, let alone emigrate to. So different from your enthusiasm while you were in Bavaria.

[@dreasbn]

I think it’s neither useful nor nice to point out this possibility. They decided and they’re gonna make the best of it. Of course living in Japan takes a lot more effort to adjust and get used to it. Normal. So maybe after a year or two they might be able to really evaluate and compare.

[@rairei]

They made their decision for Japan and they knew it will be hard. And first steps in Germany/Bavaria was also undiscover land. The plan is 2.5 years in Japan, anyway.. me in Bayern is missing them 🙂 ..and anyway: very interesting new experiences out of Japan 👍

[@SuperLittleTyke]

@@rairei It was obviously much easier to adapt to the German lifestyle and norms than the Japanese way.

[@JG4689]

@@SuperLittleTyke just because something is easier doesn’t mean that it is more rewarding. I haven’t lived in an Asian country yet but visited and it is harder to find your way when you cannot even look at the characters of a language and understand part of their meaning. It is also normal to have more enthusiasm at the start of a journey than throughout it. Germany was the start of their overseas living experience with kids, but the more you experience, the more you get to know yourself, learn what you appreciate, how difficult it can be to build a new social network etc, so you go into new places with more experience and realism

[@SuperLittleTyke]

@@JG4689 It's one thing to visit a country as a tourist for a couple of weeks, but moving there for over two years is totally different. You can tell from the video that Tanner is annoyed about that strange health care experience compared with Germany or the US. I was astonished that the pharmacy gave them little sachets and they had to mix up the medication using a dropper, a most inaccurate way of dosing correctly.