Won't Miss #543 - "Japanese food is healthy"

One of the things you notice about not living in Japan is that people aren't nearly as interested in talking about it. That means that I no longer find myself hearing comments about how Japanese culture is superior in this way or that way on a regular basis. One of the highest grounds that people tended to occupy when it came to expressing how much better Japanese culture was than others (usually American, because everyone knows America is a horrible place full of horrible people who do and produce horrible things) about how the cuisine was so incredibly healthy. To hear my students talk, Japanese food never strayed from the fish, tofu, rice, soup, and vegetables that most Western folks believe make up the core of the Japanese diet. The truth was that the Japanese diet consisted entirely of those items in the same way that American diets consist only of burgers, fries, and pizza. People in neither country consume stereotypical meals.

The stickiest point for me when it came to how supposedly healthy Japanese food was was the enormous consumption of white rice. In the U.S., if anyone ate so much of a white starchy food, the food police would cuff them and take them in for blood sugar crimes. In Japan, it's somehow the core of a "healthy" diet, and Japanese people almost universally eat white rice. Brown rice is only consumed because people are sick or if they are following an atypical diet. I also found that consumption of fruit and fresh vegetables was shockingly low (as was the drinking of water). If you don't believe me, do a web search on images of Japanese bento and see how ornamental fruit and vegetables are - a few grapes here, half a strawberry there, a cherry tomato or three here and there, a few slices of flower-shaped carrots. Mostly, it's rice, fish, and, if there's a salad, it's a bit of shredded cabbage drenched in mayo or thousand island dressing.

At any rate, as someone who saw and talked about what people actually ate, and who had to struggle to find and pay much, much more for anything that was brown (bread, rice, pasta, etc.), I found the claims of how healthy the Japanese diet was in terms of composition over-rated. Frankly, I think the diet in Japan is better because of portion sizes and variety - not because all of the food is so much healthier on the whole. I don't miss hearing people pompously assert how healthy the Japanese diet was.

Note to commenters: This is not a pissing contest. It's not about "Japanese food is healthier than (other country's food)," but whether or not the Japanese can universally and smugly claim their diet is "healthy". If you want to simply say, "X is better than Y," then you already "win." Congratulations.  Your comment will not be necessary. 

Won't Miss #524 - lots of deadly halitosis

The Japanese labor under the idea that foreigners stink more than they do. Deodorant is sometimes advertised as helping people who have the body odor issues of a non-Japanese and many supremely stinky people live their daily lives offending others because they've bought into the idea that all Japanese people don't have the same glands as foreigners and therefore never need some antiperspirant.

It may or may not be true that Japanese people don't have B.O. as often as gaijin ("outsiders"), but one thing which does appear to be the case is that Japanese people have their own issues and I'm talking about halitosis. I was subjected to more than my share of people, especially men, who could kill small creatures with their toxic breath. I don't know if this was caused by a lack of oral hygiene (though I did note most women were meticulous about tooth-brushing), diet, or health issues, but I do not miss the frequency with which I encountered people who had obnoxious and highly potent bad breath, especially when teaching them in a cubicle.

Won't Miss #17 - uncovered, open-mouth coughing (reflection)

If your germ-bra slips down, it's not going to protect anyone from disease.

One of my former high school classmates recently messaged me on Facebook to say that he was going to be meeting the head of a major Japanese company that had acquired his somewhat less major American company. He wanted any advice I could give him about dealing with this meeting. During our exchanges, he mentioned that a woman who went to Harvard or Yale or some impressive school and studied Japanese culture at a Buddhist monastery said that you had to carry a handkerchief, but she didn't say why and he wanted to understand the why of the things she told him. I guess really smart people don't have time for giving you reasons.

As far as I know, the reason most Japanese people carry handkerchiefs is to dry their hands in public restrooms that don't have dryers or paper towels, to wipe their brows in the horridly hot and humid weather, or to clean or wipe down surfaces that they want to sit on or interact with (like a wet bench after rainfall). The one thing they don't do with them is blow their noses or use them to cover their mouths while coughing. When I mentioned this to my husband, he joked that Americans didn't bother with handkerchiefs, to which I said that they didn't have to since they, by and large, didn't spray their bodily fluids omnidirectionally like a bacteria/viral shower when they were sick. We are taught to cover our mouths/noses when we do such things.

So, as you can see, I still don't miss all of the open-mouth coughing that I experienced in Japan and I haven't forgotten how gross it was. 

Will Miss #481 - dislike of medication

Despite the fact that doctors love to over-prescribe medication every time a patient comes in with fatal toe jam or a bleeding hang nail, Japanese people in general are not the same sort of pill poppers as people in the U.S. One of the reasons that alternative medicine, including kampo (Chinese herbal treatments), acupuncture, and whatnot are so popular in Japan is that there is a general sense that medicine is to be avoided if at all possible. Strong medicine in particular is harder to get in Japan, which can be good and bad depending on your condition. However, I learned that most modern medicine is handled by the body as a toxin and is only to be taken when absolutely necessary, yet I see people all around me not only taking it like candy, but swapping pills like baseball cards.

I'm uncomfortable with the casual attitude toward taking strong medicine that I see around me and feel that people might be better off in some cases if they gave their bodies, their diets, and yes, even maybe some herbs a chance before they start pushing their livers to deal with the hard stuff. I miss the Japanese attitude toward medicine.

Won't Miss #470 - being asked if I went to the doctor

Who needs a doctor when you can just use a charm?

Like most people, I occasionally catch a cold, have a stomachache or some other minor problem. Back home, if I told people, "I had a cold last week," their response would never be, "I'm sorry to hear that," or "I hope you're feeling better. They would never ask, "did you go to the doctor?" In Japan, whenever I have a small, temporary health problem, the inevitable query is about whether or not I was ministered to by a trained professional. This is because many Japanese people go to the doctor for incidental problems including those which can't be cured by a doctor (as the common cold cannot). They do this both because health care is so cheap and because many operate on the assumption that we cannot get better without the assistance of a trained professional. The idea that our immune system will look after us in such cases seems to be alien to most people there.

I won't miss being asked if I went to the doctor every time I have a minor illness or injury.

Won't Miss #459 - organ donation hypocrisy

There was a television show called "L.A. Law" back in the mid 80's to early 90's which had an episode about kidney transplants. In the story, a wealthy Japanese businessman essentially "bought" an organ and a dying woman of more modest means who was higher on the donation recipients list was contesting his right to do so. At the time, I thought no further than the notion that a Japanese man was chosen because it was feared that Japan would take over the world with its economic might. That was probably the writer's motivation in making the character Japanese, but the truth is that there is a deeper issue about organ donation and Japan. Many Japanese have to go abroad to get organ transplants because they can't get organs back home. The Japanese overwhelmingly do not donate organs, but they will accept transplants without hesitation. This hypocrisy is fueled by Buddhist beliefs about remaining intact when you cross the river to the next life, but also by irrational fears that doctors are going to carve them up for their organs at the first opportunity and rational fears about the pain of surrendering an organ.

When discussing this topic with Japanese people, I was always frustrated by the hypocrisy and selfishness inherent in such thinking and I won't miss it.

Will MIss #350 - natural food dyes

Lunch meat in Japan is its own brand of "scary".

Many foods in Japan have common preservatives and chemicals added to them just like back home, but one thing the Japanese are careful about is food dyes. Unless a food is imported, it's quite rare to find a food that has had its color altered with chemical dyes. Most of the time, natural coloring extracted from carrots, potatoes, annatto, turmeric, paprika, etc. are used. Even the lunch meat that looks like it's a radioactive pink that is pictured with this post was made that bizarre color with beet juice.

I'll miss not seeing things like red #40 listed on my food purchases.

Won't Miss #333 - necessities that are not available

Disposable heating patches on sale in a plethora of sizes.

This was a hard post to title, but it comes about because of my increasing decrepitude as my age advances and the fact that there are some things which are easy to get back home which are damn near impossible to locate in Japan. For reasons I do not understand, getting a hot water bottle or heating pad is difficult here. A sort of heating pad is sold, but it is not designed to be placed against the body but rather as a bed warmer. It becomes too hot when placed next to the skin and isn't designed for that purpose. The lack of a hot water bottle, surely an ecologically sound and useful item for everything from stomachaches to sore muscles to bed warming is puzzling. This is a country which prides itself on having a culture based on not wasting things as part of its older customs (like using a furoshiki instead of a bag to carry lunch), yet they rely on various disposable chemical patches (hokkairo) to deal with aches and to dispense heat. They're not only a waste of money, but a waste of resources.

I won't miss the fact that I have to have people from America send over some rather basic and useful items personal items like heating pads and hot water bottles.

Won't Miss #306 - carb and calorie bombs

This plain-looking bit of sponge cake is a calorie bomb waiting to explode onto your thighs.

Early on in my time in Japan, most products did not have complete nutritional data on them. In particular, calorie information was not commonly given. These days, you find it on most, but not all foods. Generally, mass-produced food by major companies have such information, but traditional snacks or foods made by smaller places do not. Back when I first got here, I tried to gauge the caloric impact of a food by its sweetness or size. If it wasn't very big or sweet, I figured, "it can't be too bad." When it comes to the rows and rows of not-too-sweet packaged pastries that fill the shelves of convenience stores and supermarkets, I couldn't have been more wrong. One of my favorites was a steamed cake that I have pictured above. It's about 10 cm/4 in. in diameter, has no filling or frosting, and is only lightly sweet. I ate a lot of these back in the day. Now I know that they are 460 calories apiece and won't touch them. These pastries are monster carb and calorie bombs despite the fact that they look and taste like they'd be much less bad for you than say, a Twinkie. You can actually eat three Twinkies for the caloric cost of the sponge cake above (and still come out 10 calories below) and they both have trans fats.

I won't miss these calorific pastries.

Won't Miss #285 - allergy issues

The cold and flu seasons and the allergy seasons are the times when you see the most mask wearing. This picture is from the former, but what the heck.

Before coming to Tokyo, I never had any allergies. I credit this partially to good genetics, but also to having grown up in a rural area with clean air. Living in a city with pollution tends to eventually cause some people to develop allergies. It can't be helped, but it still is annoying that repeated exposure to dirty air sends ones histamine response into overdrive. The thing which annoys me more is the fact that allergy medication which is equivalent to the type you can buy over the counter back in the United States costs a fortune here, and can only be purchased via prescription and cannot be paid for with the Japanese health insurance card.

I won't miss the fact that it costs about $1.50 per pill for (the same) medication (Claritan) that I can pay about $10 per bottle of 100 tablets for back home.

Will Miss #260 - my dentist(s)

Best dentists (and hygienists), ever.

I can't speak to the quality of dental care everywhere in Japan, and I have mentioned before that it is irritating having to get treatment in multiple stages due to the way in which the national health insurance works. However, I have had nothing but the best dental care in Japan. This is in stark contrast to the horrific experiences I had in America with dentists who incredibly painfully pulled my adult molars when I was a preteen rather than fill cavities (leaving me with gaping holes in my bite on either side of my lower jaw). I've had my teeth drilled, filled, and cleaned by two different dentists in Japan (both Japanese, but they speak English well) and my husband has also had oral surgery as well as routine care from them. Both of us have had no pain at all and have been treated with respect and given good explanations of our situation. The environment we're treated in is modern and comfortable.

I will miss the dentists who have done such an excellent job over the more than two decades I've been here.

Won't Miss #255 - MSG

Jars of "Aji Shio" at a local convenience market. It's the only type of salt on offer.

One of the many mistakes that foreign folks make early on in their stay in Japan is buying salt with MSG or MSG instead of salt to put on their food. Unless you know what it is, they look very similar and are not marked in an appreciably different fashion. In fact, in many convenience stores, they don't sell shakers of regular salt and only sell "Aji Shio", which is salt with MSG. While I don't believe MSG is dangerous, I don't like the taste of it and it can have bad side effects like causing headaches.

I won't miss the liberal addition of MSG to processed and restaurant foods in Japan nor the difficulty of getting salt without it at certain shops.

Will Miss #251 - free ambulance service

In odd contrast to the previous post about paying for emergency rescue services, ambulances in Japan are free. If you've fallen and you can't get up, you get a free ride to the hospital. Considering that many people back home in America won't call an ambulance when they need one for fear of the cost, this is a rather refreshing situation. Of course, there is a down side, and that's that some people will call an ambulance in a non-emergency situation rather than take a cab because one is free and the other is not.

I think that free ambulances for those who need it is worth a little abuse on the part of those who don't, and I'll miss the fact that one need not worry about cost in the case of a medical emergency.

Won't Miss #223 - multi-stage dental work

The last time my husband and I went in for a dental check-up and teeth cleaning, he paid in cash and I used the Japanese national health insurance. For him, he got a good chat with the dentist and a full cleaning all at once for about 500 yen (about $5) more than I paid once the deductible was paid. For me, I got a (literally) 10 second glance in my mouth and my cleaning split into two appointments (one cleaning for upper teeth and one for lower). If you use national health insurance, your dental work takes on the longevity of deep psychotherapy. Once you start your relationship, it will take many, many appointments to complete the procedures and sometimes it seems as if they will never finish.

Because of the billing loopholes in the national health insurance and the uncertain nature of dental work and when it is actually done such that a patient can't know what is really happening, dentists string out procedures so that you have to make multiple appointments, sometimes over a series of months, and I won't miss it.

Will Miss #222 - a little bit of everything

The Japanese have a belief that healthy eating requires that you eat 30 different foods every day. You don't have to eat a ton of any one food, but the general presentation of food in Japan is one which incorporates variety. In the U.S., unless there is a special occasion, there are usually three parts to a meal, four at most. We have a meat, starch, and vegetable component that are sometimes followed by a dessert. In Japan, there are usually a lot of little parts to every meal. It's part of the reason you see the addition of one or two strawberries to a bento. It's added for color, but also variety. That makes meals in Japan not only more interesting, but more nutritious.

I'll miss this focus on variety in meals.

Will Miss #208 - healthy portion sizes

This picture is supposed to be ironic in light of the contents of this post. I thought I'd better make that clear for the humor-impaired.

When I say "healthy", I don't mean "big", but rather the right size for a person to consume and maintain a healthy body weight. Like many foreigners who first arrive in Japan, I thought that the portion sizes were puny for the cost and was critical of them because I felt they represented poor value. What I have discovered is that these sizes are actually much closer to what one should eat to stay at a healthy body weight. In the U.S., we used to have a restaurant culture which gave us large portions so we could take home leftovers and enjoy one more experience with the restaurant's food. Now, we just overfeed ourselves on huge portions and think this is normal. There has been a domino effect to this in that people scale everything up, including food prepared at home, in accord with the cultural norms in regards to portion sizes. Being in Japan has really helped me learn to eat less because the portion sizes here have acclimated me to a different serving size.

I'll miss getting closer to the "right" amount of food when eating out rather than being continuously overfed.

Will Miss #70 - socialized medicine (on the whole)

Japan has socialized medicine so no one has to worry about medical coverage. If you're working as a salaried employee, the deal is great because your company will pay 50% of the fees (which are about 10-15% of your annual income up to a cap of about $5500). This means there are no hassles for people with pre-existing conditions and people can get regular health maintenance checks. In fact, I'm certain that the socialized medical program in Japan is at least part of the reason people live so long.

I will miss having worry-free medical insurance.

Will Miss #56 - surgical masks

Despite how long I've lived here, I continue to be amused by the large numbers of people wearing surgical masks. The weave on the masks is too loose to keep out most viruses and doesn't do anything to protect people from catching the flu or colds. Though it will protect cold and flu sufferers from transmitting their diseases, most people aren't aware they're sick until they're symptomatic and past the contagious stage so it's like closing the barn door after the horse is long gone. The masks do help with pollen in the hayfever season, but you see many people wear them when there's a flu scare or the weather gets cold.

I'll miss seeing people pointlessly donning surgical masks.

Will Miss #36 - people with crooked teeth

One of the things I noticed early on in my stay in Japan is that, compared to the U.S., a lot of people never had their crooked teeth fixed. Unless one plans to be a model, television personality, etc., it's relatively rare for Japanese people to bother to get braces. They simply aren't that hung up on having perfectly straight teeth and are okay with the way they look naturally.

I love the way people just allow their crooked teeth to look the way they were born to look rather than torture their mouths and wallets to straighten them out, and I'll miss that.

Won't Miss #17 -uncovered, open mouth coughers

For a country which is obsessed with wearing surgical masks when there is a flu epidemic or the cold season is at hand, there are an awful lot of people who cough without covering their mouths. Some of them seem to be determined to project as many germs as possible forward as they hack away with their mouths wide open. There isn't even an effort made to cup their hands over their mouths to stop germs from spreading omnidirectionally.

I won't miss being trapped on trains or walking behind people who can't be bothered to cover their mouths when they cough.