Health check

In this country I see or experience numerous weird things. Most of them are tiny, inane things I immediately forget about, but I really should write in brief about our compulsory health check.

Now, if you work for a Japanese company you have to get a health check once a year. In some companies, these checks are quite intimidating (I had a student who gave up eating ramen for two weeks before his health check, and ran 10km on the morning of the check, and still failed...), including physical components, running and so on. I heard of cases where people were declared overweight and put on probation, and had to prove themselves healthier by the next check.

Fortunately, ours was nowhere near as scary. The day before the check, we were given a small plastic vial and a sheet of paper that could be folded into a box. The idea was to pee into the box and then 'pipette' the liquid out of the box into the vial. My manager showed me how the paper could be folded into a box. I was dumbfounded. Apparently, elementary school children do this once every year. I asked her what the test was for. She didn't know.

...

The clincher was when we got to the health check itself. Our building has its own in-house doctor and check-up room for the benefit of staff. When I say 'check-up room' I mean just a random carpeted room, next to a meeting room, with a series of people sitting at desks.

First we presented our vials. With a certain lack of ceremony, the lady took them and emptied them, one by one, into a cup, over a strip of paper. We assumed it might have been some kind of pH test. What I couldn't get over was that about twenty people's combined pee was sitting in a styrofoam cup on the desk. We later saw her walking nonchalantly down the corridor, cup in hand, to go empty it out.

The next test was eyes. I had to look through a microscope and say whether various circles were pointing ue, shita, hidari or migi (forward, back, left or right). The problem is my spatial awareness is dreadful and I always confuse left and right even in English. So I kept saying 'migi' where I meant 'hidari'. I think the guy knew I was getting the words wrong. But who cares. I think I still did better than Pete.

Doctor: Which way is number 6 facing?
Pete (not understanding a word): I can see all of them. No problem!

There were a couple of other tests, including an optional blood test. I learned that one of my co-workers actually likes blood tests. I don't just mean tolerate. I mean like. Weird. Anyway, then it was down to the x-ray department.

I use the word 'department' very loosely indeed. We followed signs around the labyrinth of our building's 'staff only' area, finally ending up in the loading and unloading bay. There were trucks and forklifts loading and unloading merchandise. We passed loads of umbrellas hanging ready to be taken to a retail store, and large, dirty piles of crates.

'Atta! (there it is!)' exclaimed one of my co-workers. Sure enough, there was a van in the car park with a collection of slippers on the ground outside it.

So I had my x-ray in a beat-up old van. The doctor gave me various instructions which I couldn't understand a word of; he had to move me into position, with my chin up, resting on a plate, and my arms and shoulders pressed against the block. He said only one English word, nice and clearly, 'embrace'. Slightly bewildered, I raised my arms and 'hugged' the block. The doctor had a strange look on his face, but he didn't correct me, so my x-ray was taken.

Afterwards, I mentioned this to Pete, who had gone in first. He said 'oh yeah! I did exactly the same thing! Then he said it again and I realised he was telling me 'deep breath'!'

That doctor will definitely be questioning his pronunciation after two people tried to hug the x-ray machine after being told to take a deep breath.

If the x-ray tells me I have some kind of hideous deformity, I'll know it's because I didn't breathe in.

And for the record, I have a clean bill of health. ^_^