The Saiseimaru and the Seto Inland Sea

The Seto Inland Sea (Setonaikai) in central Japan is dotted with approximately 3,000 small to medium-sized islands, often sparsely populated and located far from welfare services. The Seto Inland Sea lies between Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The relative isolation of the area has been helped out greatly by the travels of the Saiseimaru, a floating medical clinic that visits the islands on a regular schedule all year round.

Running the ship costs about 120,000,000 yen per year, which is about $1,215,120. Each year the ship services about 542,000 patients though, so it certainly seems to earn its keep. The current ship is the third Saiseimaru, and it will be exchanged for the forth on January 26th, 2014.

Tell Me More About These Islands

The Seto Inland Sea is most often compared to the Mediterranean due to its relaxed atmosphere and mild climate. Most of the sea is actually part of the Setonaikai National Park, one of the first national parks designated in Japan. The area is covered by an extensive ferry network with many of the islands being connected to one another by small local ferries. The reason for this is that the area is a historically important trade route, and the area continues to be an integral shipping lane.

Some islands in the area have become popular tourist destinations. Most notably, the eastern islands around Naoshima (which we covered before, by the way) have become a nifty modern art destination with crazy museums on Naoshima itself, Inujima, and Teshima.

Visiting the islands gives you the opportunity to visit terraced rice fields, old fishing villages complete with old wooden houses, and it gives you a peek into a traditional way of life that has largely disappeared from the mainland. It’s basically like traveling years into the past on some of the islands here.

The total population of the Seto Inland Sea is about 35 million people, but I’m pretty sure this number includes people living on the mainland coast, and not just the islands themselves. The largest island (Awajishima) has a population of 157,000, and the second largest (Shodoshima) has a population of just 32,000. Some of the smaller islands have as little as 200 people living on them, and many seem to have under 1,000. So, that kind of gives you a rough idea of what the area’s like.

The Saiseimaru Saves the Day!

I hadn’t given much thought to before, but in different areas of Japan, there are a lot of islands. So many that it wouldn’t really be feasible to have modern hospital establishments on each and every one of them. So that’s where this boat clinic comes into play. Researching the topic of the Saiseimaru itself was a real pain though. The gracious Mami helped me out a ton on this one as most all the information concerning the boat was in Japanese, and even then, there wasn’t a whole lot out there to find.

Now, this doesn’t surprise me too much as there’s only one of these boats out there doin’ its hospital thing, but I do think that it’s really cool. Since it’s so neat, I was surprised that there wasn’t more info out there, especially with the drama that just came out based upon it. And speaking of the drama, let’s get into that now, shall we?

Clinic on the Sea

I actually first heard about Clinic on the Sea, or Umi no Ue no Shinryojo (海の上の診療所) when I was watching Summer Nude earlier this year (it was great, you should check it out). There was a preview for Clinic on the Sea as a new and upcoming drama, and something about the preview just stood out to me. It made me feel like it was going to be a good one.

And so far, it is.

As of this article, I’ve only checked out the first two episodes, but they were both very enjoyable. Since the series is currently airing, only a few episodes are out right now, but I’m thinking I’ll keep up with it since I’ve enjoyed it so far already.

You already know the basic premise from reading the first part of this article – the story follows a hospital ship on its journeys to help out those on the many islands of Japan. The main dude, Dr. Kota Sezaki (played by Matsuda Shota) is a brilliant doctor serving on board the fictional floating hospital Kaishinmaru. He’s a bit quirky, and incredibly quick to fall in love. So much that he finds himself falling for a girl at every port they stop at, but the girl always ends up with someone else by the end of the episode.

Now, I usually don’t like shows that are so formulaic like this. It seems like every episode is just Kota going somewhere, instantly falling for a girl, doing medicine on someone related to that girl, and then the girl ends up with someone else and Kota is thrown into crushing depression at the end of the episode. Sure, it’s a little predictable, but I really, really like Kota as well as the rest of the cast.

Kota’s character instantly clicked with me. He has a lot of personality and he loves the ladies. Coming from the stoic lead Yamapi played in Summer Nude, Kota is a welcome change.

There’s a handful of famous actors and actresses to be seen here as well (Terajima Susumu, Arakawa Yoshiyoshi, Shinoda Mariko) so the show definitely has that star power. There’s also a bit of mystery as Kota has told his mother that he’s engaged but too busy to come home and introduce her to his fiance. And there’s also a mystery character at the restaurant/bar his mom runs who has yet to reveal his face. Toda Erika is also searching for Kota, but we have no idea why, and she’s had minimal screen time so far.

Will Kota end up with Toda Erika’s character? Will his mother ever meet the fiance that he doesn’t (or does??) have yet? Will Kota end up falling in love with one of the nurses on the Kaishinmaru instead? Who knows!? But what I do know is that the show is so funny and entertaining that I am perfectly content with watching it and slowly finding out the answers to all of these pressing questions.

If you like, boats, medicine, crazy characters, or anything else I’ve mentioned, you should check out the show. It’s nifty. It’s not gonna knock off any of the powerhouses from my Top 10 Dramas list, but it’s an entertaining show nonetheless.

So tell me, had you ever heard of these mobile sea clinics in Japan? What do you think of them? Gonna check out Clinic on the Sea? You should!

Sites Referenced:
Japan-Guide
Web-Japan
Wikipedia
EMECS

Japanese hospital experiences are known to be a little… wild… but when I saw this chart I thought it had some pretty interesting information in it. The main goal of this chart was to show how ridiculous America’s per person spending on health care is (while still doing pretty mediocre in terms of life), but of course my eyes were immediately drawn to Japan’s data.

If you look at the chart, you’ll see that Japan’s life expectancy is very high (it’s the diet, methinks, though even that seems to be changing with Western influence), and they visit a doctor an average of 12+ times per year! Can you imagine going to the doctor 12 times per year? I can barely imagine going once per year (though I suppose that’s why Americans visit doctors 0 times per year, according to the chart, ouch).

Surprisingly, though, for a country that visits a doctor 12 or more times a year, it isn’t costing people as much. People are spending approximately $2581 a year on health care in Japan, which isn’t chump change, but isn’t all that much either. Still, though, I can’t help but think that with all the horror stories I hear about Japanese doctors (I’ve only had to experience this once, thankfully, and luckily it wasn’t all that bad… unless they were lying about the lack of tumor in my head, which is completely possible) Japanese people are heading to the doctor a little too much. I don’t think the long life expectancy would go down if people went, say, 6 times a year?

Why Japanese Doctors Are Scary

There are plenty of reasons why Japanese doctors are, in general, kind of frightening. Luckily, Japan is an advanced first world country, which makes it less scary than going to a doctor in, say, Canada (just kidding, Canada!), but I’d rather go to a doctor in the U.S. or Canada (love your gravy and fries, Canada!) if I had something serious. If you are in need of a doctor in Japan, it’s generally best to find one that studied outside of Japan. The following list of scary Japanese doctor bullets are a generalization (so don’t take them as 100% true 100% of the time, because that won’t work), but will give you some insight as to why the whole doctor situation can cause a bit of a problem for foreigners in Japan.

• Doctors get a commission for every bit of prescription they give to you. According to several stories, doctors will take your temperature, listen to your heart beat, look at your throat, and then prescribe something somewhat unrelated to how you’re feeling. Stomach pain? What stomach pain? On top of that, you’ll get several different kinds of prescriptions, too much (or too little) of each, and often times something that doesn’t help you at all.
• If you have something bad, doctors might not tell you about it. They might tell your family, but the problem with that is the family might not tell you about it either. Whoops. “6 months to live? Who said that? Nah, you’re fine, just eat your wakame.”
• Japanese medicine comes from German medicine. Nothing wrong with German medicine, but I’d prefer my Japanese doctors learning specifically Japanese medical terms instead of German ones. I’ve also heard about plenty of Japanese doctors who learn medicine in German. Learn your life saving knowledge in your own native language, please!
• You can’t really question your doctor. Even when things don’t seem to make sense, it’s insulting to ask the doctor for an explanation. Though, as mentioned earlier, Japanese doctors who have studied outside of Japan seem to take this better, from various stories and articles I’ve gone through.
• In Japan, if you get almost anything, you go to a doctor. I don’t know how many times my host family tried to get me to see a doctor when I had a regular, not-all-that-bad common cold. That’s not something I really need to see a doctor for, thanks for the concern, though! Of course, there’s no data to back this up, but I imagine seeing common cold after common cold in the doctors office can make a doctor feel a bit too relaxed about how they diagnose something. Anyways, it makes me worried.
• There isn’t really much competition between hospitals. Lots of competition in terms of the folks making the medicine, but not so much in terms of the actual doctors themselves, it seems.
• You are discouraged from getting a second opinion (this goes back to questioning the doctor’s diagnosis). “How dare you question me! Did you go to Toudai? I think not!”

All that being said, there are plenty of people who have great experiences in Japanese hospitals / with Japanese doctors as well. It’s not all horror (though that could explain Japan’s obsession with hospitals + horror games & movies), and if you find yourself sick in Japan it could be so much worse. More likely than not, you’ll probably have an okay to great experience, and then you can come back here and say “damnit Koichi, why you scare me so?”

On the other hand, if you’ve had a terrible hospital / doctor experience in Japan, share it in the comments below! My own personal experience was fine, though if I find out I have a head tumor three years from now I’ll be really upset.

(chart source)

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