Anyone want to guess what it means? If I didn't know Japanese, I would have absolutely no clue. Heck, ask me a month ago, and I still wouldn't have been able to tell you! (And I have been studying Japanese for two and a half years now.) Just goes to show you how important Japanese teachers think the dentist is I guess. I haven't been keeping up my end of blogging... I originally said I wanted to blog every day, but we all know how that ended up! In the end I won't blame myself. Blame it on having nothing to write. But! Today I went to the dentist! It's the most exciting thing I have done in a while! Lately all I have been doing is trying out meditation with a real Buddhist monk, learning about education by observing a Japanese elementary school class, hiking in the various mountain ranges around Tokyo, learning to play the Shamisen and Koto, somehow managing to go to class despite all of this other stuff, and going grocery shopping. Lots of grocery shopping. Because I finally learned how to make food for myself. I mean, look at this masterpiece! So yep. The most exciting thing in my life right now is going to the dentist! I'm sorry I can't bring any more fun info from Japan! I know I am most of my readers most realistic and reliable source for information on everything important going on in Japan. But there's truly nothing to report up until now! Anyway, without further ado, I present to you: My Trip to the Japanese Dentist OfficeFirst of all, let me start off by telling you that the dentist is the dentist, even in a foreign country. My cavities have become "tooth bugs" but in the end, it's just clean, polish, spit, and pray there are none. (Which there weren't of course!) On the other hand, I would say that's pretty much the end of similarities. You still have to fill in paperwork when you first go in, but the manner of the staff and even the set up of the office is completely different!
When I was waiting to be taken back, the dentist told me, "Just a check up and cleaning, right? Don't be scared! It won't hurt!" (Because I went to an office that has an English speaking dentist, this was said in English) Can you imagine it? A dentist telling a 21-year-old girl not to be afraid of having her teeth cleaned? I can't, and I was there. I was so touched, I didn't even have time to be flabbergasted. Next, when it was time to head back to go through my scary ordeal, I had to take off my shoes. I'm assuming many of you know that you have to remove your shoes before going into someone's house in Japan, but I wasn't expecting it at the dentist's! They also provide plastic slippers for you to walk around in. Makes the trip feel kind of homey in a way! Padding past the reception desk in my slippers, I couldn't believe my eyes! True, usually dentist's offices don't really have their own rooms for patients, but this office didn't even have the cubby-like areas for the chairs. Everything was just out in the open! Mine in particular was right next to a door leading to who knows where, but people were going in and out of there during the cleaning process. I would say that makes me worry that it could cause a distraction and the dentist could end up hurting me with the dental scalar, but even that was different! It's hard to imagine it being as effective as the metal scraper that American's use, but all they use here is a high pressure water squirter! The even weirder thing was that it felt similar to when the dentists in the US use the metal apparatus to scrape at my teeth. It makes me wonder just how strong that water stream is? It's at least strong enough that before starting the dentist puts a towel on you, on top of the typical paper bib, while also giving you a pair of protective eye wear. It's like science class all over again, except that they give you the fancy plastic glasses instead of the clunky goggles. After the intense spray down is the relaxed spray down. Instead of having a sprayer that looks like the typical scraper, the next sprayer looks just like the typical polishing brush, but this one also sprays water! So, to recap, first scrape with water, then rub with water. I started to get excited thinking I might be able to save money on toothpaste! But then the next step is to polish, so I figured maybe a dollar every three months is worth it to get rid of morning breath. The polish came out of a normal toothpaste looking tube, and the dentist's assistant (who actually did everything in this transaction) put it on her glove, kind of like those make-up artists who test the color of the make-up by applying it to their hand first. Then, using an assumedly normal brush, she polished my teeth. Finally, using a mini-marshmallow size cotton ball, they rubbed a weaker version of fluoride on my teeth. The dentist also stressed not eating or drinking for the next 20 minutes. And that's how it happened. While the dentist's assistant was cleaning my teeth, just after starting each process she would stop and ask me if it hurt and if I was okay. Also, before cleaning any of my teeth, she would announce in which part of my mouth she would be working in with detail. Front of the bottom teeth, back of the top teeth, etc. She was super gentle and extremely nice. She even answered all of my weird questions. For my mom's sake, I wanted to get a Japanese dentist's take on wisdom teeth. They said as long as there is no inflammation or visible problems with the other teeth, the there they won't remove the wisdom teeth even if they aren't growing in! No unnecessary surgery, mom! Also, it seems that unless you have a cavity or something wrong with your teeth, then they won't do the X-Ray, though I didn't interrogate them enough to know this for sure. And that was it! All the details about the Japanese dentist that no one really cared to know! Please enjoy these weirdly in English but great pictures that they had hanging in the reception area. I know I did.
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AuthorThe name's Sarah. From September, 2017 to June, 2018 I will be your guide through life as an exchange student in Tokyo. (Some guide I am. It's like I just left you in the middle of nowhere so that I could go off on my own adventures!) Archives
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