Korean Medicine

On the subway yesterday, I saw this:

You don’t need to know Korean to be able to understand what it’s advertising, although knowing that its saying that using 시원비뇨기과, or C1 Urology clinic, will give you a confident and masculine lifestyle (자신감 있는 남성 삶!) will give you some added chuckles. But actually the name is simply bizarre, for C1 is also the name of a popular brand of the national paint thinner otherwise known as soju, and given that Korea has one of the highest drinking rates in the world, then I guarantee you that every night there are probably hundreds of Korean men silently ruing C1 Soju as they make their way to one of these numerous clinics.

Of course, thousands upon thousands of can’t-get-it-up-clinics (as I like to call them) in Korea are probably primarily but definitely not solely there because of the amount of alcohol consumption. We’ve already seen how little Koreans value sleep for example. And then there are the social consequences of the Korea’s salaryman ethos as well, two of which are both men and women thinking that its perfectly acceptable for a husband to live in a different city to his wife and children Mon-Fri (or even Sat) because of his job, sometimes for 5 years or even more, or that if he does ‘live’ with them then its okay that his job hours mean that he does little more than sleep at home. All of these are not the stuff of which healthy happy sex lives are made.

Having one of the biggest sex industries in the world probably doesn’t help either, and although I won’t get into that here (see the Metropolitician here instead for a very comprehensive look at the subject), don’t let me pretend for a moment that I don’t think that the salaryman ethos doesn’t play a big rold in that too; suffice to say that the three times I’ve had jockitch here, the two times I went to a urology clinic the doctors tried very hard to get me away from my wife so that “we could speak more frankly”, as one doctor quickly explained while she was in the bathroom (my wife that is). A bit tired of saying 10 times on both occasions that, no I hadn’t, the next time I chose a skin clinic, and went by myself because my Korean was good enough by then. So there was no language barrier, so that doesn’t explain why the doctor never automatically assumed that I must be getting some on the side, and, as he explained that you could get jockitch or have it exacerbated by sex, then not doing so wasn’t modesty either. Ergo, I think that guys with monogamous itches go to skin clinics, whereas urology clinics are for those with STDs. Prove me wrong.

I’ll go into much more detail about the salaryman ethos later (edit: here it is) In the meantime, now that some of you know what “비뇨기과”s are, you will notice them absolutely everywhere. But no matter how tempting (or correct) it is to suppose from that there must be high infidelity rates in Korea, it has to be said that its not just urology clinics, but clinics of all kinds. So the numbers have got to be some inherent feature of the Korean medical industry itself. Lest you think I’m exaggerating, let me show you what I mean:

These pictures were all taken from the moment I left 남천/Namcheon subway station, the one closest to my apartment, going along my normal 10 minute walk home, to just before I arrived in my apartment complex. Sure, the route I took is not a sidestreet, but its not exactly the heart of the Busan metropolis either, and you’d have to walk a whole 500m or so to get to a neighborhood with just as great a density of clinics. Also, I’m aware that armed with these photos crazed fans can now get to the serious business of stalking me, but I don’t mind, I like the attention, although come to think of it after my Lee Hyori posts I probably don’t have too many female visitors to the site left.

This is the first building that greets me when I leave the station. Sorry this and all the other pics are a little dark by the way, it looked light at the time and nice and bright on my desktop (with the camera software) loading them all up, but either my laptop or wordpress dulls them or I need to start using the night setting on my camera towards sunset.

Anyway, in this building, from top to bottom I can see “유니온 피부 & 성형외과”, or the Union (just a name) skincare clinic and plastic surgery, 박후근’s “내과” or internal medicine clinic, a “치과” or dentist, an “인후과” or ear, nose and throat clinic, and 류태욱’s “정형외과”, or orthopedic surgery. And you can’t see it, but there’s a pharmacy under all that too (there invariably would be in a building like that).

In all the buildings to the right of that, I can see 유성종’s plastic surgery (the long pink vertical sign in the foreground at the top), the 소생/Sosaeng “한의원” or oriental medicine clinic (vertical blue sign), another clinic in the distance I can’t make out exactly (long vertical green sign), another oriental medicine clinic (short burgundy sign), and I suspect one more clinic, but I can’t make out the sign either. I also see an institute or 학원/Hagwon, also ubiquitous but the subject of a later post, and finally a massage clinic, which I’ve walked past for over 3 years but had no idea was there. Well, with all those signs, you learn to ignore them too. It’s probably not what leaps to mind though, but no, I’m not going to check.

Across right across the road from the last shot. Only a dentist, with a sun-ish logo next to the Lotteria sign, and more institutes. Sorry to disappoint.

And to the right of that building, the orange sign on the building on the left of this picture is another oriental medicine clinic, under that in blue is a “산부인과의원” or gynecologist (or “mountain wife clinic” a literal translation that I prefer). And wedged between those too signs you can just see a vertical pink one for a skincare clinic. In the building right of that and in the distance, there is a dentist and I think just a general clinic but I’m not sure, because the word “예진” in its’ name “예진클리닉” also means “in advance”. Seeing as its in the name for the dentist too, it’s probably just a name.

This road looks just like any other in any city in Korea, but one of the good points about Busan is that the beach, or at least the sea, is 500m to the right. Makes a huge difference.

And here I’ve turned my full clockwise circle and am looking back towards the subway station exist from which I came. In the foreground I can make out another dentist, another pharmacy “약”, and an optometrist “안과” with an opticians selling glasses “안경” underneath.

Turning 180 degrees again, to get back to my original starting position, and then turning left and walking along the road, you come to this 바둑/Baduk institute, more commonly known as Go. Not technically on subject sure, but interesting for me because, as a geek, I’m an extremely good chess player. But as Koreans are the best Go players in the world, then the sorts of people who would be into chess here are into Go instead, so there’s no chess clubs I can join. On top of that, not only is Go or chess not considered geekish, but Korea is the land of the professional computer games player, with two TV stations devoted to it, and top players are as popular and recognized on the street as are popstars. Why, oh why, can’t they be into chess and let me have my chess groupies too?

Seriously though, if any readers are up for a game, let me know. But I have a rating of 2100 by the way, so if you’re keen but don’t know what that means, then thanks, but no thanks sorry, as you suck.

But on with the show.

100m further along, we have 2 more dentists and a general clinic (you can just see the cross) where I got my finger stitched up after slicing it on a glass lamp shade last year.

You can see another cross for that clinic on the left much better now. There’s an orange pharmacy below that. In the distance above the 7Eleven, there’s another dentist (blue sign) and another oriental medicine clinic (white sign with black letters under that). (update; Ironically, 2 weeks after I put this post up I had to go to a dentist for the first time in 5 years; this post helped us learn that the one with the blue sign was closest)

To the right of that car with its brake lights on, my I present the best kimbap store in the world, 24 hours and only 4 mins from my apartment door. Seriously, after 7 years here and eating it everyday I am very discerning, and while their tuna kimbap alone is worth forgoing the cornflakes and slogging across the road for at 2am on a winter morning, their beef kimbap is simply divine. Make sure to visit it en route to or from your way to Gwanganli Beach.

To the right of the 7Eleven, there is another white sign with black letters for an oriental clinic (seems to be a trend), sandwiched between a butchers and a bar on the first/ground floor. The antenna-looking thing is actually a church, also everywhere, as Koreans were the 2nd most successfully converted heathens in Asia after the Philippines. Lacking space, their churches are usually floors in ordinary buildings, and may have been, well, clinics previously. At night their neon crosses on top are all lit up (the antennas, not the Christians), and when I staggered out of many bars in my first year here, seeing them all lit up in my drunken state led me to believe I’d fallen into a theocratic parallel universe. Or maybe that was just me.

In the next building to the right I can only see a pharmacy on the corner (and 2 more churches). What’s wrong?

None on the other side either….

Aha! 5 floors of clinics! What a relief! Actually quite good, and I went there 4 weeks ago when I sprained my ankle and 3 years ago (sans techno-looking new exterior back then) when I got skiers thumb and had my first ever cast.

And finally, the red building on the right is a 하나여성병원, or Hanna Women’s Hospital, very convenient to have across the road when your wife brings this lovely thing into the world, now a year old:

Sorry to the sad sacks who want a stronger focus on Korean sociology, but then anyone who isn’t smiling right now can just fuck right off.

Anyway, there are more clinics on the left side of the road, but I think I’ve made my point. Why are there so many? Ironically, I think I’ve figured it out from one of my ESL lessons…turns out that they’re not a complete waste of time, at least for me.

One of my two jobs is pressing the play and pause buttons on a tape recorder for 50 mins teaching English listening to 재수/Jaesu students. These are freshman-age students not in University, either because they flunked their crucial 수능시험/Sunung Shihom (University Entrance Exam), or are smart and didn’t, but didn’t do well enough to get into the University they wanted (much much more on that in a later post). Each chapter in the book I use consists of 17 conversations, which we listen to one by one on the tape, and after listening to a question they have to select the correct multi-choice answer out of 5, and then I have to explain which answer is correct and why, then we listen to the next question. Seeing as all 12 classes use the same book (at varying paces), and I only see each class for 50 mins a week, then I have little preparation to do…the biggest problem is keeping myself amused after going through the same damn chapter for the 4th time, let alone the 12th.

In one question covered recently, a student is letting her professor know that her paper will be late, and when he angrily asks why she tells him that her father had to go to hospital. He reacts like a Westerner would, and its instant forgiveness. This (pleasantly) surprised me, because in my experience of using this excuse with Koreans, no matter how valid, its been as effective as saying the dog ate it. Recalling this as I played it in class, I tried to account for the discrepancy, this what I came up with:

Prior to 2000 when I arrived, I think (but am pretty sure) that if you wanted medicine for minor ailments like headaches or period pain (I like using that in a mixed class of Korean 19 year-olds, because if I don’t start start treating them like adults then no-one else will (link here on why that’s important when I write that post)), then you could get the medicine you needed at either a pharmacy, hospital or clinic. So Koreans npicked up the habit of going to a hospital or clinic simply to get medicine if they were sick, and naturally this meant that they would probably see a doctor while they were there. Sure, like the Lonely Planet says, Confucian acceptance of doctors’ authority and never questioning his or her diagnosis played (and still plays) a role too, ensuring that there weren’t too many people (other those who couldn’t afford it) thinking that a doctor and/or medicine could do squat about their cold, for instance, and that they shouldn’t bother going.

Given Koreans’ puritanical attitude to drugs, like I explained in my last post, I love using that example in particular, because I’ve never met a Korean that knows that cold medicine is merely weak speed, information which I myself was ‘lucky’ enough to learn and then abuse from one of my lecturers.

Then in 2000, I remember that there was a big doctor’s strike (huge at the time, and indirectly resulting in a few patients’ deaths), because then Korea moved from doctors diagnosing you. and then making money selling you your treatment. to doctor’s only being able to give prescriptions. I remember talking about it at the time in class with my adult students, and arguing that it was better, because now untrained pharmacists were no longer dispensing medical advice in their stores to people who probably weren’t prepared to be as frank as they should have been about their condition with the whole village in line behind them.

So now Koreans have a system not unlike what I was used to in New Zealand, and its been around 7 years, which means my students’ experience makes them largely disagree with me. I think that that is partially because, regardless of nationality, no-one likes having a foreigner know more about their country than them and make them realize they were wrong about some aspect of it, but their experience is valid. But then I teach them the phrase “Old habits die hard”, point out that the Korean’s record low fertility-rate means that its population is aging extremely rapidly, and then they accept my argument that anyone over 40 here is very used to going to hospitals and clinics for every sneeze or cough, and there’s not enough of my young students to change Koreans’ overall habits anytime soon.

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