Awkward lunch

I had one of the most awkward lunches ever. I had Chinese, in a private room with a big round table, sitting with three other women I had never met in my life. We ate in silence, and those who finished left quietly.

This was lunch that came with our annual health check-up. I arrived hungry at 9am at the health check-up center, and stayed there for 2 1/2 hours.

So health examination seems to be a specialized industry in Japan. My office is a member of this particular establishment, and we take turns to visit for a morning every year. Today was my turn, and nobody else from my office had an appointment. I assume most workplaces in Japan have a private health examination center with which they contract. These are establishments that conduct annual health check-ups for members, and health check-ups only. If you need further examination or treatment, then you are referred to a real hospital.

The center was full. First, you check in, and you change into an unflattering robe. Imagine a waiting room full of men and women of all working ages, clad in the same unflattering robe. You carry your chart and are led from one place to another, from blood sampling to x-ray to eye sight test to mammogram to electrocardiogram to urine test. Two and a half hours of going under thorough bodily probe, and surrounded by strangers who are sharing the same uncomfortable process with you. Coming out of a room after an ultrasound abdomen inspection, and keeping cool among your fellow subjects, pretending to leaf through a magazine, before being called for another procedure.

I had never gone through so many medical devices in so few hours.

Medical examination is a kind of forced intimacy between you and the medical staff. This mass health check-up center, then, is a place of forced intimacy among the strangers who very well know what others are being subjected to.

After those 2 1/2 hours, it may just be too much to ask for friendliness at a shared meal. We already had enough of an intimate morning. Awkward silence rules.