Japanese drugstores, or yakkyoku, can be daunting. Even if you feel pretty good about your Japanese ability, names and descriptions of medicine can be highly technical and heavy on the kanji. With shelves bursting with more products than you ever knew existed, finding the right medicine might seem like an impossible task. And kampo-yaku, … Read more
If you need to visit a doctor in Japan, you might run into some difficulties when communicating. While there are English speaking doctors or staff at some clinics and hospitals in Japan, the majority of places only understand Japanese. Even if you can find an English-speaking doctor, they might not be completely fluent and might … Read more
Useful Japanese Phrases for When You Go to the Doctor Going to the doctor in Japan can be a mixed experience, especially if you don’t speak much Japanese. Japan has a “hybrid” healthcare system, meaning that the government pays for 70% of costs (or more if you’re a low-income elderly resident) and the remaining 30% … Read more