Increasing my Vocabulary

I learned some new vocabulary a few days ago while I was in Japan with the kids:

kyuu kyuu sha

yuketsu

denshi moofu

-- ambulance, blood transfusion, and electric warming blanket, respectively.

I was at the local shopping center with my cousin's wife, Hiroko-san, doing some last minute shopping before our flight out the following day, and I passed out from anemia and went into shock. Although I don't remember this very clearly, Hiroko-san filled me in later, describing how I was saying to the EMT in the ambulance (in Japanese), "I don't speak Japanese," and he responded very loudly, "What are you talking about? YOU ARE SPEAKING JAPANESE RIGHT NOW." I asked him (in Japanese) to tell me the "top number" and "bottom number" of my blood pressure reading, and when he said it was something like 80 over 60, I replied (in Japanese), "Hmmm, that's low, isn't it." Once I got to the ER, my condition had worsened, and Hiroko-san was kept out of the ER, so I was really on my own. I discovered that my contextual language decoding skills are actually better than I thought they would be, which was good, since there was very limited English spoken in there. Fortunately, there was one doctor there (I suspect he was sent over because of his language skills) who had spent three years in Boston and was present when I said, "I am going to throw up right NOW." I had said it in Japanese already, but the urgency was apparently more effectively communicated in English. I think it sounded too polite in Japanese, and they were like, "Oh, a little nauseous? We'll get you some medication for that now ... just wait a minute ..." Thank goodness for Dr. Boston.

I had to be admitted to the hospital, where I learned a lot about the Japanese health care system. Also learned that Japanese nurses all speak the same way, in a cutesy voice, and will code switch into local dialect for elderly patients to make them feel more at home. Had a conversation about Bush and Christianity and Buddhism with a little old lady in the bed across the way. I didn't understand everything completely, but found it very telling that she referred to the war in Iraq as a "religious war" and how she admired President Bush for taking a stand for his country's religion, even though she thought the war was wrong. I tried to communicate that there actually was no "official" American religion, and that religious wars are considered wrong in America, but I don't think I got my point across. We both smiled politely through it all. She told me she was in the hospital "for something in English ... what's it called? Oh yeah, 'peisumeekaa' (pacemaker)."

In any case, we missed our flight and found ourselves without a way back home during the peak travel season in Japan. With my somewhat uncertain medical condition, things have been a little complicated, but my cousin somehow managed to get us on a flight back to SFO today (8.11.07). I was cleared for take-off by the doctor on Friday, and got to be escorted around in a wheelchair through the airport(s).

I definitely had more excitement than I expected, and got to experience a previously unseen Japan -- although I would not necessarily recommend putting a ride on a kyuu kyuu sha on anybody's itinerary.