One thing I was told upon arriving in Japan was that Japanese toothpaste was no good and that I should have some good old fashioned American toothpaste shipped to my apartment as soon as possible if I hadn’t thought to bring any with me. Incidentally, I was told the same thing about deodorant, and condoms. Japanese dentistry as a whole did not garner rave reviews among the veteran teachers who were in charge of my training; I was told that dental procedures such as drilling for cavities are typically done over multiple visits, so you’d go in one day to get your tooth drilled and the hole covered with a temporary seal, and then make another appointment to have the cavity filled later. Not fun, and little in my experience has given me any reason to alter the dismal view of Japanese dentistry that I inherited from those that came before me. In my poor farming community I rarely encounter anyone over 30 who doesn’t have at least one gold tooth. I’ve met exactly one student with braces at either of the schools at which I teach.
That said, I do have dental insurance here, after a fashion. More than I’ll have when I return to the land of the free and the home of the brave. A few weeks after arriving in Japan I noticed what looked like a hole on the front of one of my lower premolars, which was not so surprising considering I hadn’t been to a dentist in years. It didn’t hurt unless I just brushed the crap out of it, but several months later I decided I’d get it checked out while still residing in a country known for its low-cost dentists, if not for said dentists’ quality.
“Getting it checked out” in this case involved me phoning the company I work for and scheduling an appointment with my IC, or “Independent Contractor.” ICs are usually housewives who my company calls upon periodically to assist helpless baby birds like me with procedures that are still well outside my capabilities to navigate. My IC showed up at my apartment on a Saturday morning and had me drive the three blocks to the nearest dentist’s office.
Upon entering I was told to take off my shoes and put on a pair of indoor sandals in order to maintain the cleanliness of the floor, which is pretty normal here but which also is an example of irony since the dentist himself wore white slacks with grease stains all along the front of them, such that he looked more like a mechanic than a licensed medical professional getting ready to stick his hands in my mouth. I noticed that his own teeth were pretty whacked out, which did not fill me with confidence either. I was ushered into an examination room and sat down in one of the chairs there. One of the assistants held out a special stand for me to put my glasses in, which is so totally Japan. The dentist selected some prodding instruments from a tray to the right and began the examination, which lasted all of a minute. He started in with some kind of explanation, his gaze darting back between me and the IC like he wasn’t sure who he should be addressing in this situation.
“None of your teeth are bad,” my IC said. “Do you have a pain?”
“No pain,” I said. “But I thought I saw a hole in my tooth.”
“But no pain?” She seemed confused as to why we were there if I didn’t have a tooth that felt like it was already rotting out of my mouth.
“I have no pain now, but I may later, right?” It took me about three minutes to explain my thought process behind getting a hole in my tooth looked at before it started hurting, and I pointed to the tooth in question again to make sure she knew what I was talking about.
A few more words between her and the dentist. “It is not a cavity,” she said. At this point she pulled her electronic dictionary out of her purse and started tapping at its keys while muttering “nandake, nandake” under her breath. Eventually, she looked up. “Not cavity. It is a baby tooth.” More conferring with the dentist, and then she said “These three teeth”—I held my lips down and looked in the mirror, and the dentist pointed at one premolar on each side of my lower row, and one premolar on the upper row— “these three teeth are baby teeth.” Looking at them now, they do look much smaller compared to the rest of the teeth in my mouth, but since reality for me is a construct of my own consciousness, I just assumed that that’s how premolars were supposed to look.
“Are you sure it’s okay, though?” I asked. “I mean, that really does look like a hole in my tooth there.”
This question led to the quickest mouth x-ray I’ve ever had. The dentist spoke as he pointed to the developed x-ray film, which led to more discussion between him, my IC, and the female dental assistant. Finally, my IC said, “Your baby teeth are not supposed to stay in your mouth this long. So they are damaged because they are not so strong. But I’m sorry, there is nothing he can do about this problem.”
My question is, how was this not caught before? Like, I admittedly have not been to the dentist in five years, since before I started college, but even at 19 it would have been unusual for me to have three baby teeth sitting in my mouth, right? Why am I hearing this for the first time via some dude who I need a translator to communicate with?
Despite being a waste of time, this trip to the dentist—including an x-ray—only cost me 2500 yen, or about $25. And that’s without any insurance, since my dental coverage doesn’t kick in until the yen equivalent of $75. So it may have been an abortive attempt to receive treatment, but at least it was a cheap abortive attempt.
Another interesting thing I noticed was the imagery used in the posters hung up on the walls of the waiting room, which definitely demonstrated a difference of perception between the East and the West. Consider the following example of a poster I saw near the entrance to the office (I made up the title, but everything else was just illustrated with pictures):
The Wonders of Nitrous Oxide -or- My Trip to the Dentist
Panel 1: A woman drawn in an angular style sits in a dentist’s chair with a nitrous oxide mask over her nose. The dentist prepares the tools of his grim trade nearby.
Panel 2: The same woman is shown walking on a rainbow as clouds in the shapes of adorable woodland creatures float in the sky around her.
Panel 3: The woman dances on giant piano keys.
Panel 4: The woman slowly awakes from the dental procedure, her eyes half-open. Having holstered his various sharp objects, the dentist stands over her looking reassuring.
Fin.
Not sure that would fly back home.
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Every time you write about a severe cultural difference like this, I am utterly amazed.
A few additional comments:
- Dentists never do their own teeth, so the state of his teeth tells more of his standard of perfection than it does of his dental practicioning ability.
- Shame on you for not getting a pic of that poster in the dentist’s office. Your description is good, but it makes for such a weird image in my head that I desperately wish to see an actual picture of this poster.
- According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deciduous_teeth , most people lose their baby teeth by age twelve. This is proof that you must be some kind of freak.
Well, I live in East, though that poster makes me creep, especially its unnatural connection between Pannel 1 and 2.
Dancing on giant piano keys? What is it, did dentist used marihuana for anesthetic? Wierd.
What do you think of Japanese toothpaste? I’ve always found it extremely gritty and abrasive to the point of being painful. After about 2 months of using it, I think it’s cutting into some of my teeth, due to it’s abrasiveness. Anyone else have this problem?
I was reminded over and over before I even got to Japan that Japanese toothpaste sucked. So I made sure to bring several tubes of American toothpaste in my suitcase when I came over and never tried any of the Japanese stuff. In retrospect I should have probably tried some at least once just for the sake of intellectual curiosity, but the time for that has passed, I suppose. Your analysis makes me feel like maybe I made the right decision, though.
I’ve been living in Japan for about 6 months now, and did not know anything about Japanese dentistry before I came. Like an ignoramous I simply figured it was comparable to American/Western standards. Well anyway, seeing that I can’t afford dental work back in the U.S. I knew I was going to have work done while in Japan. I’ve had some bad cavities for years now, and they bothered me a great deal any time I used the left side of my mouth. Also, I was set to get my wisdom teeth out about 6 years ago, which never happened due to money issues.
I’ve been to 2 dentists while in Japan. My first experience, the one with the cavaties, was spectacular. I called, made an appointment for that day, went in, had xrays, a dental exam, my cavity drilled and filled and an explanation of a possible root canal but he was going to try to do everything in his power to prevent it all within 70 minutes of the initial phone call. There was no multiple visits, other than he needs me back in to take care of other smaller cavaties, I never even felt the novacaine shot, and he used the white resin filling for my cavaties. All of this cost me less than $60USD.
My second visit, just the other day was a slightly different experience. I went in to have my wisdom teeth looked at, and the guy ended up taking one out while I was there. Novacaine only. No laughing gas, no happy pills, no sleeping, just a towel over my eyes to “protect me” (his english was limited). Still, I have to admit the place was really clean, he was a happy guy who kept telling me it’ll be fine and not to worry, and the whole extraction took less than 10 minutes from first crank to it popping out. I’m a bit terrified of my next visit for my next tooth, and I’m not sure I can handle getting my bottom ones taken out the same way, but overall I’ve been fairly happy with dentistry in Japan. Of course, I might just be one of the few lucky ones.
My experience with dentistry was limited to this one incident, so when I talk about my dismal view of Japanese dentistry I am focusing more on the poor condition of my students’ teeth and the teeth of the people I worked with. I don’t know what part of the country you live in, but in Iwate I saw some of the gnarliest chompers I’d ever seen in my life. This isn’t entirely the fault of dentists, but it’s so much more pithy to make a direct causal relationship between crappy dentists and wacked-out teeth rather than examining other factors.
I’d been told about having to go in for multiple visits by several different people, but this was not the case for you, which is probably good; at the same time, opinions differed as to whether having to have, say, a cavity take up multiple trips to the dentist was really a bad thing anyway. But you’re right, going to the dentist in Japan is wicked cheap, especially since, as you say, the quality of care is not that much worse than it would be in the United States for several times the cost.
Anyways, thanks for the comment. Stick around; I promise that I’ll actually post new stuff here at some point in the near future.