The Japanese healthcare system: an explanation

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The 101 for the Japanese healthcare system

Japan has had a universal health care system in place since the 1960’s and has enjoyed the benefits of such a system. Coming from another country with a health care system it is something I can appreciate and understand, not just the positives but also the negatives about it.

The problem with Japan’s health care system is 3 fold:

  1. an aging population
  2. low economic growth with high rates of unemployment
  3. a negative population growth i.e. low birth rate

There are plans to change the system into something more sustainable and allows more collective responsibility to ensure it remains stable and sustainable. But what about how the system stands currently?

A post-code lottery

There is an uneven distribution of health care providers in Japan as most clinics are private and it is down to the business to where it should open. As a general trend clinics are only found within built up areas and clinics that specialise in something are extremely rare outside cities. While researching this article, I came across a singular diabetes specialist in Nabari and Iga but there are many clinics that specialise in diabetes in Osaka.

Another example is palliative care which is expected to be the responsibility of the household. An advertisement on the train (of all places) gave commuters information about a palliative care clinic in Osaka and people were reading this and taking that information in.

Cost of healthcare for foreign nationals living in Japan

If you live in Japan, you are required to join the health care system and I will always say one thing: do it. The current system will cover 70% of the costs of any necessary treatment plan e.g. dentistry, internal and external medicine etc. A recent trip to the dentist should have cost me just offer 10,000 JPY but under this system I paid around 3000 JPY instead.

This has a few positives especially for Americans living in Japan. This is a form of insurance that everyone is required to have and if you’re filling US taxes, this does count in the eyes of the IRS.

My monthly cost is just under 2000 JPY and just one visit to the dentist or doctor would be the equivalent to 4 or 5 months work of insurance. It is brilliant for the end user but not for the system. The amount of money that the government spends under this system is astronomical. This is a better system than the UK as everyone has a more direct input into the running costs of health care in Japan, but there is still money being pumped into the system.


Patient enpowerment

A patients choice is at the heart of the Japanese healthcare system and people are encouraged to give suggestions to policy makers in Tokyo. People have the right to chose which clinic, which hospitals they would like to go to regardless of insurance status, disease or background. There may be a fee incurred but people have that right.

Please note there is also voluntary private health insurance available which helps cover things that national health insurance dies not including: loss of income insurance, transportation, food etc.


There is no difference between primary and secondary care in Japan, even historically. This means that you can go to a clinic or a hospital without a referral, a small clinic may be extremely specialized in an obscure disease but they are located in the smallest town imaginable or have no specialist available within a city.

In Japan there are over 8,400 hospitals and over 100,000 clinics and 80% are privately owned. The system is split into several major sectors: internal medicine, external medicine, dentistry, gynecology, emergency medicine, pediatric medicine and pharmaceutical.

Emergency care

Even emergency care is split into primary care (on call doctors and prefecture run care), secondary care (hospitalization is required) and tertiary care (advanced or more grievous care).

The general pathway for this system is 119 (ambulance) assistance, then hospitalization, the removal to a specialist facility e.g. ICU.

Where to go?

As a general rule of thumb, the guidelines about where to go are:

  • External medicine: injuries and problems of the limbs
  • Internal medicine: anything else e.g. vaccines, non-commutable diseases (cancer, COPD, cancer etc)
  • Dentistry: teeth….
  • Gynecology: females
  • Pediatric medicine: Children
  • pharmaceutical : drugs
  • Emergency medicine: ambulance

There is a lot more information about the Japanese health care system and I can, and really want to, go into so much more detail but this is an overview and a general guide.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Happy 100th post

Nabari Dam


Additionally, on the homepage, there are 2 new sections:

  • A pictures in Japan section
  • A western calendar to Japanese era conversion page

Let’s start the post!

Full Review: 青蓮寺ダム Shorenji dam aka Nabari Dam

A nice, pretty picture of the dam





  • electricity generation: green electricity is generated





Just remember: take only photos and leave only footprints.

HOW2: Japanese place name ~ヶ丘






Product review:

A vege bowl- with meat





How2: romaji

ひのとり becomes Hinotori in romaji

Anyone who either learns or attempts to learn Japanese comes across romaji or romanized Japanese. Other languages have similar systems (pinyin for Chinese, romaja for romanised Korean etc- there are many different systems to represent each language).

In simple terms, romaji (Japanese romanisation of either Kana or Kanji) for most sounds is simple. Japanese sounds are either a vowel or a consonant and examples of singular vowel sound are: “a, i, u, e, and o”. In English there are the main vowels (we’ll ignore y) but each sound is pronounced differently- which is extremely important to note.

The phonics of each sound are:

  • /a/ from fat
  • /i/ from ink
  • /u/ from Uber
  • /e/ from egg
  • /o/ from video

Please note, there are no other ways to pronounce the letters- unlike English- there is either the correct or incorrect way.

These 5 sounds are then combined with a consonant either: k, s, t, n, h. m, y, r, or w. Together sounds such as ra, ma, ya etc are created. There are obviously exceptions. The main exceptions are

  • fu (not hu)
  • ha in a sentence is pronounced as “wa”
  • wi, wu, we- these sound have been mostly removed from the language
  • wo is just pronounced o
  • n- is a consonant digraph. Imagine the m sound you make when thinking- not pronounced but made in the throat. This is n.

With this basic understanding, the following sentence can be read:

watashi ha nihongo wo yomemasu. ( I can read Japanese)

For any visitors, this is immensely helpful with reading Japanese signs or simple sentences. Now we’ll get into it a bit more.

There are a lot more rules for transliteration on Japanese and converting elongated sounds to romaji but in order to read romaji and write, you need to be aware of some slight differences.

An elongation in a u sound may be represented in one of the following ways:

  • u- without any hit elongation (technically a mistake)
  • either using uu or uo to stress an elongation
  • û shows a stress and thus elongation
  • ū uses a line to show a lengthened vowel

I hope you enjoyed my into into the romanisation of Japanese.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Iga, the ninja journey

A journey around the heart of Iga

City hall with that sign….



Who’s a cute dog?






All that remains of the heart of the operation






The castle is also known as “white phoenix” castle.



You can actually see Nara-prefecture from here.


A ninja’s house










The floats of lanterns used in festivals



Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

The small thanks

Convenience store raffle

A win is a win

Occasionally while buying extreamly unhealthy food and coffee, it was treat day (come one next Tuesday), you’ll be told by the attendant to take a ticket.

At first you are likely to be confused. But as the attendant holds this card box, you see that there are ticket inside. You take one, after struggling to open it while holding your lovely bento, and see a Barcode, you have won.

What a Nice dramatic story for winning a pack of sugar free chewing-gum but the spend X to get a free Y is extreamly common in Japan. The change of winning has enticed me in the past, even with winning being highly unlikely.

With this post, today’s Japanese phrase is はずれ which is simply better luck next time.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

UK attitude: an overview

Why is the UK so self-obsessed?

Photo by David Jakab on

In September, Jacob Rees-Mogg was photographed almost lying down in parliament and it became a symbol of the embodiment of British arrogance (or a nicer way to put it is: Inbegriff von der Überheblichkeit der Großbritannien) and it is this topic that I will cover today.

DISCLAIMER: This article is based upon my own opinions. Additionally, I am British and I can quote and use examples I have seen, hear, experienced etc from my life there. I will try and cover some of  the MANY reasons for this, but doing all and in detail would take too long.

The easiest way to start is by understanding UK history and out of the many many (ad nauseum) examples I can use; I’ll start with the easiest: the British empire. I know the following quote was concerning other things by the following quote fits too perfectly:

Queen Victoria

There have been many reasons given for the UK forming an empire, but at its core, the main idea was to improve the homeland. The UK has committed many heinous acts through its’ history (1), some committed before and after the Victorian era and the ones who committed them have always been celebrated back in the UK. Such examples are soldiers who fought the Zulu- the Victoria cross (a very prostitutions award was created to commemorate the fallen), the designers of the bouncing bomb were also celebrated. These and further examples highlighted the importance of the UK both to citizens and internationally, showing its’ worth, which is reason 1: ‘proven’ past importance.

Additionally, to add to historical traditions we travel quickly back to 1066 and the battle of Hastings. At the end of this battle (spoilers?!?) William slain Harrold and the old royal bloodline was ended. William became king of a divided country and established a monarchy- which was the bases of following systems that still can be seen today. This system created the upper-, middle-, and working classes which created a tier system to allow anyone to know where they stand. As a quick breakdown:

  • Upper: Royalty and those who are ennobled (have a title)
  • Middle: Skilled and well educated (teachers, doctors etc)
  • Working: the grafters and anyone else

While my description is extremely general- it gives a good oversite into a tradition what should have ended in the 1950’s. This is where reason 2 comes into its’ own: especially concerning the honourable gentleman’s actions in parliament: expectation. The UK expects to remain important, because it has been so for so very long. People expect the EU to graciously allow a perfect Brexit to occur because are we not but too important for anything else?

At time of writing on the 18th of October, the EU has agreed upon a potential Brexit deal but one of the main right-winged politicians (whom has campaigned for Brexit for the best part of 20 years) has stated that they would rather further delay it, than get it on “unjust” terms.

This self-importance has been a trait going back to Tudor Britain- not even the Scottish have been innocent of this. Any internal conflict in the UK has always used the argument of a “God-given right” to rule, wage war etc. It is an unfortunate trait the Americans also picked up (sorry about that).

So we have: expectation, proven importance and expectation- not a nice combination. But is there anything else to add?

At the end of the day, the main concern for the UK government is not just the UK but their own perceived position, and more often than not, self-gain at all levels. Shall I mention that politicians vote on their own pay rises, or campaigns (like the anti-fracking) which are defeated by a local government and at a local government level have been overturned by the government for the promise of economic growth, or shall I mention UK politicians expenses scandals, banker bonuses in failing banks, Thomas cook executives getting major bonuses even though the company has gone into administration etc etc etc.

While there are many who are tying to do good in the UK, there are many more working for an agenda and being part of a system that has some control over the UK government was never going to last. This is the last and final reason: a cultural reason- a selfish culture. If you would like a good example of this, read Harry Potter. There are many Mrs Dursley’s in the UK afterall.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article. What do you think- love it or hate it?

Thank you for reading and as always, happy exploring,

Next: BACK TO JAPAN!!!!!

Health food in Japan

The world of extreams

How long does it take to spot CC lemon?










Thank you for reading and happy exploring

How2: reading train fare tables

A large complex chart, for the uniformed that is


We’ll start small with the Iga-tetsudo line:

Train fares for the Iga-tetsudo line


Now for something more complex, the kintetsu line:

So many places…





Thank you for reading and happy exploring

Japanese advertising: the need to google

When advertising in Japan, don’t worry about the website, worry about gooogle

Japanese has a non-latin based writing system which is unique, even though there are borrowed elements within. This did not pose a problem originally but this changed with the computer age.

Most websites use a Latin based Web address to search ( is a brilliant example) rather than a Arabic, Japanese, cyralic or other root based language. One reason for this is the adaptability the Latin based system, as it can spell out the phonics of other language systems.

This has effected Japanese in a particular way. While English language learning is heavily emphasised at schools here, not everyone understands the need; either globally or within Japan. This has left many people without the ability to read non-Japanese scripts–which brings us back google.

As any polygot knows, you can Google in other languages, without exception. Therefore what often happens in Japan is that advertisers don’t include their website address (due to the Latin based system ) but they instead include the information one is to Google to get to the website.

While it is a strange system, its the Japanese way and not likely to change any time soon.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Why Japanese people?

For anyone that is familiar with Japanese culture, “Why Japanese people” is a throwback to Atsugiri Jason who initially featured on the TV programme  ‘Sokuhou! Ariyoshi no o-warai daitouryousenkyo 2014,’ and is still being referenced today.

But when considering Japanese its self, why Japanese people is a good starting point.

Japanese is a mix of Chinese characters, naturally developed script (hiragana and katakana) and loanwords. Which makes it seem like a bit of a mess and it can be at times.

Kanji, the famous symbols from China and used by the Japanese for about 2000 years- which is nothing considering that Japanese far predates this date. The symbols use was changed to fit the Japanese language more effectively. So while Chinese is more like a western language in its construction (subject-verb-object language), Japanese is not. Japanese is a subject-object-verb language and traditional use of Kanji is remarkably hard to understand. Additionally, in early times, Kanji would often not fit with Japanese mora ( a sound used to denote a ‘letter’ in Japanese), so something had to change.

Japanese, therefore, had a need and hiragana (developed by women in the Hei-an period as they were not allowed to learn Kanji- or be allowed the same level of education as men) filled that gap. Hiragana is used to write okurigana, kana which allows various grammatical forms to be expressed- from particles to adjectival endings.

Next, the language of men- katakana and strangely the language of cultural divide. Katakana has to be split into pre- and postwar katakana. Modern katakana is used for transcription of load words into Japanese and also used to allow words to look more non-Japanese (used quite often in advertisements)- this is where modern Katakana’s use mostly ends.

Historical Katakana is slightly more interesting. In more recent times, it was used interchangeable with hiragana for okurigana, creating at times strange looking sentences and texts. But historically is more interesting still.

The change from a kanji-based system to a kana based, was more defied by the reduction in China’s influence on Japanese culture. One positive of this was the increase in literacy rates in Japan. The literacy rate further increased with the popularity of famous poems, one of them being “The Tosa Diary” (土佐日記) by Ki no Tsurayuki (紀貫之).

Lastly why not mention the origin of Katakana? Well there are 2 main theoires of its delelopment. One is by Buddhist scholars in the 9th centry as they helped transccribe texts from China- this theory is accepted by most. But some research does suggest that it may have orginiated from 8th centry Buddhist texts from Korea instead.

There is a lot more about the history of written Japanese, but this should give you an insight into the world of written Japanese.

As always, enjoy discovering more