No one does English quite like Japan

Because regular water is too fattening

The following sentences were taken from third year high school English homework from three different schools, both public and private. Mind you, these are considered correct:

"I wish there were no earthquake in Japan. But for earthquake, what a great number of historic buildings there would remain!"

"I like baseball. Because I like the moment of hit ball."

"I met a woman whose name is unusual at the party."

"Is to read comic books interesting?"

And finally, from a test:

"Everyone is in this classroom having lunch." This is marked incorrect.
"Everyone in this classroom is having lunch." This is the correct answer.
But how is one to know, you might wonder? These are its follow up sentences which were given as the hint:
"I'm hungry. I also want to have with them."

In too many cases, getting good grades in English amounts to memorizing the answers that the rigid teachers deem correct. Does this explain why there are so many crazily worded signs? They are everywhere, from the new city hospital's "Extraordinary Entrance" to new year's cards wishing "A Happy New Year."

Sign in public toilet: 

Please have running water after use. (Toilet paper also together.)

How to shed a toilet.

No washing hair or clothes in the toilet.

After-hours entrance at a cutting-edge modern hospital:

Extraordinary Entrance

At a cash register

We do not break into small.

I am told the Chinese also makes no sense.

I have no words.

"Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old."
 Mother Goose
I have a feeling that is not what the writer of the sign had in mind.

Michiko's Story

Me and Chieko

Walking down the hall towards Chieko's room at the hospital where she now lives, I pass the open doors of four-person rooms holding rail-thin elderly folks lying in catatonic quiet. Some have tubes running from their noses to machines beside their beds. Others lie with mouths agape, eyes staring at the ceiling. There is no music. No conversation. Just the quiet hum of machinery.

I knock on the last door of the hallway, call out a greeting to Chieko, and step inside her private room. She glows with welcome, reaches for my hand, and I help her to sit up. Her five English textbooks lay beside her on the bed, radio nearby. The schedule of the daily radio English classes is posted on her wall.

Schedule of radio English classes that Chieko listens to daily

As we talk, our conversation drifts to her morning activity. She joined several others who live at that hospital in the recreation room where they sang traditional songs from their childhoods. She pulls out the songsheets and I read the songs while she explains the stories.

Then she mentions Michiko, a woman she has become friendly with. Michiko is 102 years old, and she has resided at that hospital for a very long time. When she was 100 years old, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. After a lengthy and delicate operation, she has lived on, bedridden and with tubes leading from a colostomy opening to a pouch by her bed. Chieko mentions she seems happy and enjoys their group singing.

Yet when they were alone, Michiko confided how bitter her life has become. Her friends and many family members have died. She is lonely. Unable to move on her own. Yet she lives.

I ask, "Why was she operated on at such an advanced age? Surely 100 years is long enough to live?"

"Her family requested it," Chieko told me.

Is it so hard to let go?

Chieko went on, explaining how doctors are bound to prolong life by their Hippocratic oath. They feel they cannot stand idle and allow a patient to die.

But what of quality of life?

So many of the elderly are sequestered in hospitals here that many people have no idea what it is really like to grow old. The loneliness. The frustration. The bedsores. And for many, the mental incapacitation.

Chieko herself is now in constant pain. Among other ailments, the cartilage in her right shoulder has worn away. She can feel—and hear—the bones rubbing against each other.

"Are you taking any pain medication?" I ask.

"Yes. Chinese medicine." (Chinese medicine is commonly prescribed by doctors in hospitals here.)

As I left, I asked, "Is there anything I can bring you? Do you need anything?"

"No, I don't need anything. I don't need this life either. Ninety-eight years is enough. I don't need to live to 100."