"Knocked-out, unable to move arm, broken collar bone, but we're okay!"

On Saturday I went to a school Judo match--which reminds me of something I've wanted to write about for some time: the Japanese medical system.

Injuries and illnesses in Japan are viewed very differently from the way I grew up viewing them in the west. I believe that the Japanese medical system treats injuries and illnesses not soley as physical ailments to be medicated or 'fixed,' but also as personal challenges to be mentally overcome.

Here's what I mean:

A boy got knocked out during his match Saturday morning. He was carried off the mat, and he awoke with an ice pack on his head. This was the only medical treatment he got. Within a half an hour, he was back in the ring fighting another match.

A second boy, the solidly built captain of Arao #4's team, got painfully and forcefully pinned during his match. He yelped, and as he and his opponent untangled, one of his arms dangled awkwardly at his side. He slumped and fell back on the mat, in a daze. Lifted and set aside, he cradled the appendage softly as the nurse rushed off for ice. The other boys tried to create a makeshift sling from his belt; they wrapped it around and around his back and and arm in a mind-bogglingly yo-yo-like fashion, creating something, sadly, not resembling a sling.
About a half an hour later, one of the other boys, with the approval of the nurse, helped the boy put his dogi top back on, and lined him up for his next fight. The boy fought using one arm, and lost.

And finally, the long-foreheaded boy, Mi-kun, was wrestling with a bum knee to start with. He was still using a crutch that morning.
His accident was the most disturbing. While being pinned, his legs began to shake violently. He tapped the mat, exclaiming, "Excuse me!! Excuse me!! Please stop!!!" His opponent didn't hear, and a second later his legs shot up again like they'd been plugged into a socket. Seeing this, his opponent quickly released his hold, and Mi-kun lay flat. Carried from the mat, as he passed by me, I think he said, "I heard it break."
Did someone call an ambulance? Give the boy a pain-killer?
No. He got up, crying, and, aided by the nurse, walked(limping, without his crutch)to the lobby, where he waited for someone to give him a ride to the hospital.
I saw him today. Three months in a cast. Broken collar bone. Surgery. That being all it was, I'm surprised they didn't make him fight his final match.

The mental endurance I've witnessed here in the face of pain and fear has astonished me in so many ways. I heard(although I don't know if it's true) that the three monkeys representing 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' originated from this area. It certainly seems to be a way of life on this side of reality.


(By the way, I still go to Aikido twice a week, in case you thought my Judo craze-faze had somehow taken over.
And... still waiting to find out about the job. I'll have an interview this week and then they'll let me know.)