Winjeel.Com

English Language Teaching and Learning

Living in Asia

Getting Well: and archoo... over it

Life: What is it really like to live there, in Asia?

This section includes:

• Medicines (prescription and off the shelf)

• Allergies

• A quick Japanese language lesson

If you want to, do ask questions or share advice on our forums.

Getting Well:

Seeing a real quack: Fortunately, doctors are pretty intelligent, and often need to study medicine from foreign research articles, and so they often know how to read a foreign language. In the case of Japanese and Koreans, it's often English... or German; Taiwanese, English or Japanese. Though often the German and Japanese speaking doctors know at least a little English. Most doctors know simple conversational English, so when you talk to them, keep it simple, but remember that they usually know all the medical terms like 'stool', 'urine', 'mucus', and 'phlegm', rather than 'poo', 'pee', 'snot', and 'snot'.

They'll typically prescribe you with a whole lot of medicines, and not often these might include antibiotics. Mostly, they'll prescribe cough suppressants, mucus production suppressants, anti-inflammatory medicine (good to protect vocal cords), and other things. You'll feel better, and your body will use it's own immune system to kill the cold or flu in its own time, whilst you can still work and keep earning money (and avoiding additional stresses).

DIY Doctoring: The pharmacy industry in Japan isn't a lazy one, it's big business. They have a whole other market of pseudo-medicine. Some of it seems a little hit and miss, and I use these if I don't have the time to get to a real doctor.

Coughing: Here's some medi that seem to be for coughs, fever, and a sore throat. (I'm not actually sure, I just went by the picture on the box this came in). This particular one, you take three, after eating, and within thirty minutes of eating, three times a day.
	Sneezing: I asked about this one, it'll help with sneezing, fever, and throat. This particular one is to take three after meals (three times a day).
Nasal issues: Well, the picture says it all, and perhaps the title, too. (But, just incase the picture didn't download). This is for blocked or stuffy noses. It works really well, but spray in each nostril, no more than once every three hours.

Allergies: Don't forget, that usually in the second year in Japan, we may start to be affected by hay fever, even if we haven't suffered it before. Often Japanese cypress is to blame. There are Ear Nose Throat (ENT) specialists that you can see to quickly and easily confirm if your runny nose is because of an allergy, and not a cold. If it is an allergy, they prescribe you with medicines to help you cope.

Japanese Lesson: As promised. Read, write and practice saying these before walking in to a pharmacy or other place

Some phrases:

• Have (this) three times a day.

• 1-nichi-ni-3-kai-tabemasu (1=ichi, 2=ni, 3=san, kai=times, tabe=eat)

• １にちに３かいたべます。１日に３回食べます。

• (Be sure to have a real Japanese person double check the dosages and stuff before you take any medicine)

japan, korea, taiwan, asia, homesick