what being hit by a car has taught me about japanese culture

Hello again everyone!

Let me just start by saying sorry for the huge gap between postings this time!! I sincerely hope I haven't frustrated anyone too bad with my lack of correspondence. I have something of an excuse, though, that I think might relieve me of some of the guilt of being such a bad blogger, just a little, maybe...

So, this is going to sound unbelievable, but I was kind of hit by a car two weeks ago.

Don't worry, though- I am okay!!

Think boo boo bunny and tylenol serious...

...not full-body cast, surgery serious.

Seriously. :)

Nothing's broken and I'm almost "hyaku paasento" (100%) by now! I just thought I'd look at the whole debacle as in interesting experience and I figured it was worth mentioning. Because, you know, a lot of people can say they've been to Japan before but how many people can say they've been to Japan and got hit by a car?

I don't suppose I could get by using the, admittedly dramatized, words "HIT BY A CAR" without divulging more details about what actually happened, so here is a quick run down of the incident in convenient list format:

1. I was riding my bike home from school at around 2:30 pm (sorry Japan, I can't think in military time yet) on Thursday, October 27th.
2. The last stretch of my way home, I was headed straight on the street that my host family lives on. I could see my host family's house up the street on my left.
3. Two intersections before my house (about one minute away from being home) I collided with a vehicle coming from my right. I do not remember the actual collision, but found myself on the ground with a gaggle of alarmed Japanese people all around me, including the old woman driving the car, who might have been her daughter, and a young mother that was walking by, I guess, who was on the phone with the police.  
4. What happened during this time was a real adrenaline-induced blur of disbelief and shock. My host mother happened to stumble upon the incident while driving in her car and joined the group of panicked Japanese bystanders right before the ambulance came. All I could think about was finding some way to press the "REDO" button and, in an effort to believe that I did not just get hit by a car during study abroad, wanted to just go home, clean myself up, and pretend that nothing happened . 
5. I was really preoccupied with the damages involved- the money I might have to pay and the commotion that was being raised around me- rather than my physical condition so I denied the ambulance ride to the hospital and convinced everyone to let me go home. My glasses broke and I do not remember the details of the following moments very well, but I remember that the police were there and they carried my warped bicycle the remaining block to my host family's house. I got home with my host mother under the condition that she would take me to the hospital later. 
6. About an hour later, my host mom drove me to the hospital after I cleaned my face and laid down for a bit while she made some important phone calls, and there I got both a CT scan of my head and an X-Ray of my knee. By this time, the adrenaline was wearing off and I was starting to feel everything. It turns out I had a concussion, which explained why I was sick, but that there was no internal bleeding or any damage to my brain, which was awesome. They prescribed me some pain medicine and told me to come back the following Monday when the brain doctor was in. 
7. Fortunately, the following Tuesday was the start of fall break here, so I missed only a little bit of school and had plenty of time to rest and recover. (Good timing, right? :))

Since then I have been in an out of the hospital 4 times, and, through working out the aftermath with insurance people, my school, the police and the hospital, have been able to see sides of Japanese society that many foreigners never have access to. I mean, I know it might seem like I'm trying to put a childishly positive spin on a silly and pathetic situation, but I really do feel like I learned a lot in the past two weeks.
Here are just a few of those things:

1. Japanese health care and insurance is stunning. My experience with Japanese hospitals has been like taking part in a big health care machine. You get this card when you become a patient at the hospital and, the next time you return, you put the card in this reception machine to see a doctor. If you have an appointment, the machine spits out a piece of paper with a bar code and your appointment time, along with your number that will pop up on the screen in that ward's waiting area when its your turn. If you are coming because you are sick, you go through the touchscreen and select the appropriate disease/ type of doctor you want to see and you get a number that will be called based on the order of first-come-first-served. However, this also means that you have to go to the hospital when it opens if you want to be seen without an appointment and you'll probably end up spending several hours waiting, anyways, especially if its a bigger hospital. Doctors are only there in the morning, too, so they joke that you can't get sick in the afternoons. :)  This sounds kind of bad, but I think the system's efficiency and accessibility makes up for any waiting you might have to do. That's one thing I would like to stress about the health care system here- it is incredibly affordable. For the 1400 yen that I pay per month to be enrolled in the national health care program, I have had all of my hospital visits free of charge. Because I was in an accident, whatever small costs I would have had to pay otherwise are completely covered by insurance. As long as I see a doctor or receive medicine for injuries related to my accident, I do not have to worry about paying for anything, which still leaves me speechless. I always leave the hospital with the weirdest feeling that I'm doing something wrong- like its too good to be true and someone is going to run out, rip of my band-aids and tell me to give back the rest of the health care I'm stealing.
2. Saying sorry means you are wrong (but never completely). My host mother told me that you do not say sorry in these sort of situations because that means that you are accepting the blame and saying that it is your own fault. However, it was explained to me that the way Japanese insurance companies usually work is so that, no matter what the situation is, some sort of financial burden is footed by each party. There is no 100% at fault or 100% innocent in any situation, but rather a collaboration. Also, in a normal situation, they take the amount in damages from both parties and split it up so that each person pays for both part of their own damages and part of the other party's. (For example, if they decide that you are 4:6 wrong, you will pay for 40% of the damages on each vehicle.) I was actually lucky that my situation was unique. Instead of paying for any percentage of the car's damages and having the car owner pay for a part of my bike, the driver's car insurance is taking care of her vehicle while the bike is left to me, which, financially, I think works out much better.
3. When in doubt, go to the hospital. For everything, anything, go to the hospital. Have a cold? Go to the hospital. Headache? Go to the hospital. Paper-cut? Hospital. :) I'm exaggerating, but, really, I was super surprised at first by how common it is to go to the hospital in Japan! I think its a part of the American health care system that I've grown up with, but the first time my host mother told me she took her kids to the hospital that day, I immediately thought, "oh my god! broken bones! leukemia!", not  "mild cold! cough medicine!". Whether it is a product of culture or simply to do with the affordability of healthcare, I am not sure, but I get the impression that it's more okay to show your physical pain in Japan. If you say "大丈夫です..." ("I'm okay..."), you must really be okay. Talking about what hurts is not complaining, and there is no virtue in trying to be tough. My host family told me to tell the doctor every itty bitty thing that I was feeling, no matter how small, and let him "fix me"- to keep going and going as many times as it took to get every little boo boo and scratch looked at. But I have to admit, I feel silly consulting a doctor about a bruise when my inner Payton Manning is telling me to just  "rub some dirt on it" and "shake it off". :)
4. Ambulances are free! I think I knew this before hand, but was too confused and afraid of being wrong to accept my free escort to medical attention. I mean, I'd have to be on the verge of death or missing a limb for an ambulance ride to be worth the bill I'd receive in America... It's... just... wow, Japan. I wish I could write you a thank-you card. 

All and all, I have more positive feelings about being so lucky that it was not worse and that I was so well taken care of than I do negative feelings that the accident happened in the first place.

If nothing else, it makes an interesting story, don't you think?

love,
mackenzie

(Also, please feel free to laugh. I mean, after all... I went to Japan and got hit by a car.)