Pain in the... er...

Small things make me happy. One recent happy thing is that I found a pediatrician who understands English. Yippee. When we first got here, we found a very sweet English speaking pediatrician, but seh retired a few months ago, leaving us in the lurch. Looking for another one wasn't that easy. The list of doctors I had didn't have a single one who spoke or understood English.

One just can't afford to have a communication gap with a doctor. When we first got to Japan, it was cold. Very cold. At least we were. The temperature differerence between Singapore and Tsuruoka was some 30°C. To say that we were freezing would be an understatement. And every trip out of the guest house to get essentials like milk and bread would lead to major discussions on who's turn it was to brave the elements.

And wouldn't you believe it, I developed a rash. In... er... a very sensitive part of my anatomy. And in keeping with Murphy's laws, I picked a long weekend to come down with this. The offices were closed, our liaison was out of town and we were totally on our own. So first thing we did was look up the dictionary. We didn't find a word for rash. So we looked up 'boil' only to find that the dictionary only had listings for the verb, and not the noun. In desperation we ran down the list of words we thought we could use. So we finally got the Japanese words for skin, wound (yes, that's as close as a pocket dictionary lets you get), pain and medicine. Off went the better half, the little one, and yours truly to .... (fanfare please) the ER.

First thing we had to call a cab. Fortunately we could recite the address of the guest house, so we rattled it off, and a cab was soon there. Then we looked up hospital in the dictionary and told the driver where we needed to go. And got to the hospital, and the ER. That was the first battle won.

At ER there were forms miles long with pretty and not so pretty squiggles. So we kept saying "English" until someone managed to get us a form in English. We filled that out, and waited.. and crossed our fingers, toes, eyes... anything crossable. After waiting interminably for someone to acknowledge us, a nurse came up, took my blood pressure, and started talking to me. Actually she was talking AT me. A ten day crash course in Japanese had nowhere near prepared me for this. Once she was done, she bowed and waited. We stared at each other and said the one word that we knew for sure, "wakarimasen (I don't understand).

A and I looked at each other. Well, we thought, let's try telling her what the problem is. So we fired off all the words we'd memorized and gave her a very triumphant smile. And she looked totally blank. Then it hit us that there was this probability that she had no clue what we'd just said.

I mined writing. She smiled, and came back with a paper and pen. And then I drew out (what looked to me like) a human body, much to her amazement. I'll be darned if that didn't look more like the chalk outline from a homicide investigation. Sometimes, I wonder if she thought I'd knocked someone off. I pointed to that drawing and to then pointed to myself. And marked the spot with an "X". By this time she was trying desperately hard not to laugh.

And then, slowly, there was this growing crowd around me while I tried to explain what was wrong. And I had a suspicion that the nursing staff was trying desperately hard not to giggle. With mimes, drawings I think I managed to communicate what was wrong with me. And finally got to see a doctor... who didn't speak English.

After an examination, the doctor asked me to wait outside. Then he handed me a slip of paper with the words "Please Wait" painstakingly written on it. And wait I did for another hour. By this time I was starting to suspect the worst. Anyone who's watched lots of (desi) movies knows that if a doctor isn't talking to you, then something is seriously wrong. My imagination was on overdrive.

Finally my problems seemed that much closer to a solution. The staff at the ER had decided to page an English speaking doctor, get him to come to the hospital and see what was wrong. And finally, without resorting to any playacting or drawing, I spoke to someone who understood exactly what I said, who very reassuringly spoke to me in English, assured me that all was ok, and gave me a prescription. And thankfully didn't call the cops about a chalk outline.

One good thing came out of all this. The two of us started taking our Japanese lessons VERY seriously. After all, when in Rome..... know how to say that you have a whatever in your wherever.

Reading Katakana

Katakana... sometimes a boon, sometimes a bane.

It's a boon when we see something written in Katakana. First of all, we can read what's written. Since chances of it being an English word are reasonably decent, there is a chance that we can not only read, but also understand what is written.

The painful part is to decipher it. Easiest way is to read it aloud, repeat it a few times, now add the thick accent of a Japanese person saying an English (sounding) word, and chances are (50-50) that you'll get it. Some of the more common words written in Katakana are ra-ji-o (radio), oo-i-su-ki (whisky) and do-a (door). Some are uniquely abbreviated in a Japanese style like te-re-bi (television) or ra-ji-ka-se (radio-casette player). Some need more than a few repetitions to get right ke-ki (cake), ku-tsu-ki (cookie) or mi-ru-ku (milk).

The bane of Katakana is to read names written so. Ku-ri-shi-yu-na-n is fairly straightforward. But I raised a racket at the hospital when they gave me the medical report of someone called Ooideiya. No jokes there. That's how my name's written in the Latin alphabet. This is after getting totally massacred by entering it the hospital computers in Katakana. After a few of Aditi's teachers struggled with reading my name, they now call me Aditi-chan-no-mama (the mother of little Aditi). And there my poor mother thought she was doing me a favour by giving me (what she thought was) a short and sweet name.

The real fun starts with movie titles. We want to watch a movie today. And I open the local cinema's online listing, and start to decipher. The first thing to do is eliminate all movie titles written in totally in Kanji or Hiragana. If it's part Kanji part Katakana, I'd read the Katakana bit before discarding it as a potential choice.

Once I start reading the Katakana, I repeat the word aloud a few times to see if it sounds meaningful in English. One of the movies playing today is ハリー ポッターと不死鳥の騎士団. The Katakana part reads Ha-Ree-Po-Tsu-Ta. Say that a few times, and you realise that it sounds like 'Harry Potter' spoken in a thick Japanese accent. And Harry Potter it is. The Kanji part reads "With horseman group of immortal bird". I am not making this up. Copy and paste that into Babel Fish, and see for yourself.

Well, we've watched Harry Potter. So what else is playing, asks A? There's to-ra-n-su-fu-o-ma. Say it aloud. Read it out a few times. Sounds like 'Transformer', doesn't it? Yes, that's the listing for Transformers. And there's fu-a-n-ta-su-te-i-tsu-ku-fu-o, mi-su-po-ta and also ra-tsu-shi-yu-a-va-3.

The last one is fairly easy. Think back on on the sequels and trilogies all this year, and it's not too hard to read that as Rush Hour 3. A is not too keen on watching what he calls 'boring movies' like Miss Potter.

Anyone wants to guess what movie we've finally decided to watch??