They Stole My Blood

"My blood was stolen just now."

one of my classmate,

when explaining to Mr Paul on why he was late to class.

.

Please laugh, it is a joke.

You will get this card when people steal your blood in Japan.

What my poor classmate wanted to say was that he was having blood donation before that, and that was the reason he came late to the class. I have gotten used to this kind of Engrish after living in Japan for a while. That is however, not the main thing in this entry. Not a distance back, I saw a poster saying that there would be a blood donation campaign to be held in my college, but I didn't bother to look at the dates because I wasn't thinking about giving away my blood. That doesn't mean that I'm a selfish person that will never donate his blood. The first and only time I had done it was during my three-month stint in the National Service programme four years ago. I didn't know what made me decided to do it for my first time back then, but I am glad to have done it because I know it could have saved someone's life.

I started watching a hospital drama recently and I noticed that I began to have some interest in medical field. Well, I'm not saying I will quit my current course and switch to a new course, nevertheless, I could now stand watching the gross scenes from the operation theater already. Watching the drama, Iryu - Team Medical Dragon made me realised that human's live is so fragile and it can be taken away anytime; also how vital the blood we donate to the people who undergo surgeries. As we all know, each individual can only receive blood from a certain blood group. That prompted me to participate in the blood donation campaign this time, besides having seen one of my senior, Andrew who had his seventh time in Japan not so long ago. That inspired me and made me think, "Why not I have a go as well this time?"

It seems that nobody is willing to donate their blood.

But I was one of the exception.

Cut the story short, the Japan Red Cross Society of Niigata Prefecture came to my college last Thursday for a blood donation campaign. Upong seeing my friend who I mentioned above having his blood stolen, I wanted to join in as well. Someone up there must have read my mind because I had fifty-minute break before my Japanese class starts. After I was told that it would take around thirty to forty minutes for the whole process of donating blood to be done, I immediately took the form and filled in my particulars, as it was my first time doing a blood donation in Japan. As I'm not a Japanese, they made a double-check from some list to make sure that my origin place (I told them I'm from Kuala Lumpur, because I doubted they will know where Taiping is) is listed as the region which is safe from contagious diseases. Upon seeing my height and weight, the guy asked me whether it is okay if they take 400ml of blood from my body.

I told him back, "Why you so greedy wanna take so much of my blood?"

Anyway, I later proceeded to the awaiting doctor to check on my blood pressure. Again, he told me that my body is in great shape for them to steal my blood. The whole process from filling the form until the check-up by the doctor took just less than fifteen minutes and I walked outside to board the awaiting bus. I am serious, we have to board a bus when we are donating blood in Japan.

The line behind the bus says, "Can you let me steal your blood?"

Told you already I am not bluffing. I got into the bus which can fit four donors at one time and saw three pretty nurses inside, inviting me into the bus with a broad smile on their faces. I felt shy and ran out straight away, but was pulled back by one of them.

The first nurse took 5ml of my blood using a slim needle to have a pre-test first. She asked me whether I know my blood group and I proudly told her that my blood is O-positive, which was confirmed later by the test she did moments ago. One main reason I didn't consider to take a medical course is because I cannot stand to see a large quantity of blood. Ironically, it is alright if it is my own blood. That is why when she was poking the needle into my arm, I looked away.

How the interior of the bus look like, with the two of the three friendly nurses there.

After it was done, I sat on one of the bed and came another nurse holding a big fat needle with her. It was a bit slimmer that the one used during my first time in Malaysia, and I decided not to look away this time. She told me what she was doing for every process, from putting anesthesia up until she took out the needle from my arm. It got done rather faster than I thought initially, because 400ml of my blood was sucked out within six minutes, if you minus the time I was doing something else with the nurse there.

I asked her is it is okay to take pictures inside the bus, and she seemed to be more than happy for me to do it. I guess from her reply, she was telling me to spread this around, and that is exactly what I am doing right now. If you are in a good and healthy condition, try to participate in any blood donation campaign you see. People sometimes give excuse that it is pain to have the fat needle into their arm, but isn't it more painful to see someone passed away due to insufficient of a certain blood group that that person needs urgently especially during a surgery?

I know there are a lot of believes and myths especially among the elderly, that tells you donating blood is not a good thing as it could give you many kinds of complications. But as much as I know, the worse is that you will gain some weight after donating blood, as your appetite will increase to replace the blood you have donated, although it is just temporary. A human body has around five liters of blood, and donating 400ml (that's just 8% of the total amount of blood) of it won't do any harm to you body. Your blood could save the life of someone's loved one.

Free meal to anyone who can guess which test tubes are mine.

A few times when the blood was flowing out of my body, I could feel some pressure as if there is something which is sucking my blood out. The nurse told me that there is indeed a machine that sucks the blood from our vein once in a while to make the process finish faster. Unlike in Malaysia, the bag of blood was placed inside a container that moved the bag of blood slowly in order to avoid the blood from clotting.

While having my blood getting sucked, I did something as usual.

I had that satisfying feeling after I came down form the bus, and having the nurses and medical staff to thank me afterward made me feel that I have contributed something to the society, although it was just a small deed. I proceeded to another desk and was given my blood donation card with a blueberry flavoured cream brown rice snack and a bottle of tea. Unlike Andrew, the snack bar I got this time tasted really good although I only realised it after biting on my second piece.

Speaking of this snack bar, Joann had one of it too when I told her I went for a blood donation earlier. When I told her I was O-positive, guess what did she reply me?

That snack bar tastes really good.

"Eh, isn't that if the blood is positive, it means that person has AIDS?"

Midnight Chat After A Badminton Tournament

Nine out of ten times when you play a badminton game with a Japanese, you are almost certain to win the game.

What a contrast in terms of height between my partner and myself.

This is not my attempt to be arrogant here because to the majority of my classmates, shuttlecocks and rackets look alien to them. Anyway, that wasn't the reason why the badminton tournament was held. In fact, we somehow felt like playing badminton two nights ago and incidentally, a few Japanese students asked us if we wanted to play together. It is not often that students from so many countries play the game together as the same time. This time, we were joined by Sodo and his girlfriend from Mongolia. Well, Sodo is studying in our college while his girlfriend just came to Japan last summer and has been staying here all this while.

I am not saying that I am good in badminton. Neither am I good in ball game. Whatever it is, I consider myself an average player. But one thing that I wish to improve has to be my backhand strokes. It lacks power and accuracy. If Calvin senpai is reading this, I am sure he will be laughing away because he is very proud of his backhands. Never mind, I will make sure that one day, I will be as good as him. "Merajuk king" (it's an inside joke), you just wait for that day. Anyway, I began to notice that my backhand stroke is getting better than before last night.

We tried to make as much teams that have a mixture between the international students and the Japanese students. By doing that, it would balance up the strength for both pairs indirectly and make the game more interesting to watch.

Saisu and Joann.

Me and Nigorigawa.

Shimotori and Yan Kuang.

Sodo and Bororu.

The only thing is that we don't play with the Japanese so often, and the understanding is not that good as when we have our own friends as our pair. It is undoubtedly much easier in terms of communication and we are able to shout out whatever we want to signal to our pair. On the other hand, if we have a Japanese as our pair, by the time we think of that word, the shuttlecock could have landed on our forehead.

There were so many occasions where I flew myself on the parquet floor, when I was trying to save the point for my team. The truth is, I just wanted to make it look more dramatic. When I fall onto the floor, I would slide for some distance subsequently because of the smooth surface. Do this on the cement floor back home and I shall find myself being wrapped with bandages around my whole body.

Time to tidy up the place.

Taking off the net.

After using the court, we would have to clean the floor with extra-sized mops as usual. Even during this time, we wanted to fool around and we sort of had a bet on who will finish the mopping the fastest. Super childish, nevertheless we had great fun that night.

Mop race.

Hehe, I was leading the whole pack.

My usual sleeping time is around midnight to one but yesterday, due to my assignment due the next morning, I went to look for my Japanese classmates to confirm my answers with them. It took me less than ten minutes to check with them but amazingly, I stayed there after that and chatted for more than two hours. I am surprised myself because I do not do that usually. To spend such a long period of time talking crappy stuff with them is something new and actually, it changed my perception I have for Japanese all this while.

If you might notice, I always note that it is very difficult for us the gaijin to blend with them, mainly because of the way they think and also the level of acceptance they have towards us. It doesn't apply to all Japanese, but I would say the the majority of the Japanese usually prefer not to mix with alien species like us. If you don't start the conversation first, you can almost forget about having a conversation with them. However, the four Japanese classmates I chatted with last night were somehow quite okay with us and we talked from one thing to another, like it was not going to end.

We talked about our future plan after graduating from the college, whether to pursue our degree or step into the working world, what we did during the last summer holiday, love and relationships, the first time I met one of them in Malaysia early last year, and not forgetting the time where we broke the dormitory rules by smuggling in several cans of beer and drink them in our rooms with the door locked. My tutor Tanaka confessed that he puked later that night on his own bed, but the worst thing was that he slept straight away without cleaning up the place first. I pity the guy who is using that bed now. But the most interesting part was some slots that were sparred for guy's talk. You know what I mean.

You girls can have your own girl's talk, we can have ours too, right?