Anyway, as tasteless as it might seem to have a gall bladder bouncing around over these pages like some sort of medical football (sorry about this imagery) the reason for me bringing this subject up is the usual dig at British doctors. You see my Ox Hammer insists on regular medical check ups for me when we are in Japan. The particular doctor we went to see this time had noticed a "thickening of the wall of the gall bladder" last January and decided it was worth monitoring the situation.
This contrasts starkly with my last GP who started shouting like a 9 year old when I told him that I had regular medicals in Japan. "This is all rubbish, complete rubbish, it does no-one any good and just creates anxieties that are unnecessary." he snapped anxiously. I calmly responded, "Well you are dealing with a different culture of medicine here and it is my wife's culture. In Japan they believe in preventative medicine, catching things before they become a major problem rather than dealing with major problems." That was when his anxiety levels hit the roof and he really started shouting at me. "This is all unnecessary, it's a complete waste of time......" I didn't hear anything else he said because I had got up and walked out. Typical arrogant British GP who treats patients like production line mushrooms.
What I love about the Japanese hospitals is the efficiencies. Obviously the scrupulous hygiene is attractive but the efficiencies are exquisite to the British eye. Apologies for the quality of the photo above however you will appreciate the technical difficulties I face as a cultural reporter photographing inside a hospital with a security guard standing by my shoulder. I can hardly ask him if he could hold a tripod whilst I check my settings. So the sneaky snap school of photography is the way forward.
The image above shows the accounts department. This is at the main entrance/exit and as you can see is well staffed (count the heads). There are about nine people behind that counter at most times and if you queue for more than a minute you are very unlucky. After leaving your appointment you go to this desk and present your hospital card. From that they can instantly read off your treatment and its costs. They then process that, provide you with a payment number and send you to the other side of the lobby where the payment machines are.
There are eight of these ATM style machines and when your number comes up on the big board (about a two minute wait) you progress to the machine, insert your hospital card and then pay in cash or by credit card. The money for your treatment is in the hospital bank account before you leave. As previously reported, in Japan everyone pays 30% of their medical costs but I, as a foreigner, get to pay 100%.
So we coughed up the required £5 for my consultation with the doctor that day. Obviously the tests I had gone through the previous week had been paid on that visit but even so those amounted to £48. So a total of £53 to make sure one part of my body is not a cause for concern. Perhaps that GP should consider popping over to Japan for an anxiety test!
With the Ox Hammer in tip top form now she knows her husband will live for another year she is up for buying me a beer. Wisely, I suggest that we should first visit Grandmother's grave. I didn't realise exactly how good a move that was until much later.
On our way we stopped to buy some postcards and I was particularly taken by the subject matter of some of them. Note the minimalist approach of the one second from the right. I bought that as a collectors item and no doubt will proudly show it off when back in the UK. "Have you seen my Japanese postcard collection? I only have one but it is a corker!"
The graveyards in Japan are tended by a temple within which sits a monk/monks who are always there to provide the best quality customer service. Remember that in the Japanese religious traditions the dead are a continuous source of income for many years after they transit over into the spiritual plane. Their journey to re-incarnation is fraught with dangers and so a rigid pattern of rituals needs to be performed at pre-determined intervals in the calender in order to ease that journey. Obviously, the more you pay for the rituals the higher status monk you get to perform a better level of ritual. You, or in this case your ancestor, only gets what you pay for.
After all, maintaining a graveyard and ensuring that the monks and their temple are all running smoothly requires more than just prayers. In Buddhism the material world is not all there is, all about us are the spiritual planes of existence and it is the task of the monks to interact and intercede with those ethereal realities. Life is an illusion and through self discipline and prayer the monks show the way towards nirvana and the path through which a soul can become a fully self realised being at one with Buddha.
The site of grandmother's grave (HMiL's honourable mother) is in the north of Tokyo. This is an urban landscape is filled with graveyards and temples, it is a city of the dead where the living abide right up to its edge. Each graveyard immaculately tended to, each temple guarded by gardens of flowers.
Grandmothers grave is a place we go to every time we are in Tokyo. Paying respect to the ancestors is a very important part of Japanese culture for all you have and are today relies on their smiling down on you. Each day we tend to the two shrines in the home, each visit to Japan we go to grandmother's grave and also to father's grave. Father is a duty and lies two hours outside of Tokyo in the home village, grandmother is a devotion, Ox Hammer loved, and still loves, her grandmother and spent a lot of her childhood with her.
We were fortunate to see a lotus flower, the season was not right but luck was with us. This was the first time I had seen one in bloom.
The temples and their gardens are in many ways the anchor of tradition in Japanese culture. This bedrock is a cultural artefact we have lost in the UK. Our churches have become culturally decentralised.
If you compare the fundamentalist baptist churches of London with the temples of Japan, the lack of value for money is apparent. In Japan the monks and the temples are an ever present cultural resource which provide a continuity of what it is to be Japanese. In London, Baptist ministers buy villas in Florida on the "church" credit card whilst operating their business out of a disused warehouse or cinema without any gardens whatsoever.
Japanese religions, as you would expect, are a much more efficient business model that believe in customer service and consumer value as an intrinsic part of the proposition. When we arrive at grandmother's grave we know we are going to pay £5 for the incense sticks but that is the price for the continued support of the ancestors.
The ritual is to place incense at the grave and then to place flowers and/or gifts there. It is not uncommon to see bottles of saki or tins of beer resting unopened on the grave stones. One could imagine how long they would last if such a tradition was practised in London!
Purple High Mountain arranges the flowers she has bought and generally tidies up the grave. I usually just stand back and let her sort all this out herself. For me it is like being a witness at a very personal event. I know from PHM that her grandmother meant the world to her. As HMiL worked and father was not PHM's favourite person, she would return from school to be looked after by grandmother.
PHM pours water over the headstone of the grave. This is part of the ritual, keeping the stone wet, and it has a certain elegance.
Next to grandmother's grave there are other family graves. In Japan cremation is the practice now. Each family has a family grave and the ashes of the family go into a compartment at the base of the grave. Here PHM is watering and attending to the graves of other ancestors within the family grouping.
The presence of the dead amongst the living is important in Japanese culture. Life is continuous even after death and the faces of ancestors stare down from dusty old photographs in most Japanese family homes. This continuity provides the Japanese people with a responsibility in life to look after and respect those who have been before. The graveyard is not a sombre isolated place visited for internment and then mostly forgotten. The graveyard is a point of connection, the connection of the past with the present, and therefore not to serve the graves and appropriately maintain them is to reject the past and bring misfortune on your family.
The temples and monks protect what it is to be Japanese, they are the guardians of the Japanese spiritual way of life and death. They do this in the Japanese way, with quietly crafted beauty and grace. Everyone knows that this all costs money and everyone pays willingly. The temples are very rich institutions but in the Japanese mind that is the way it should be. The spiritual past and the ancestors are not for compromise. If the monks need to drive then they should drive appropriate cars, no compromise.
Infiniti is the luxury automotive brand of Nissan and was launched in November 1989 exclusively for the North American market. It has since expanded to 15 countries including most of Europe. All Infiniti models are based on Nissan's FM platform, except for the QX56 full-size SUV, which is based on the F-Alpha truck platform. The brand's logo is an artistic interpretation of Japan's famous Mount Fuji.
source: Autoblog
On returning home my Ox Hammer told HMiL that my medical had proven positive and that after we had visited grandmother's grave. She approved.
"Quite right to, it is only because the ancestors are happy that Jack's health is good."
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