Urban legend about Osaka homeless hospitals

Mr. K, a university student who started a part-time job at a caterer in Nishinari Ward, a labor district in Osaka City, went around the customers' premises, such as small town factories and construction sites, to collect the used lunch boxes. Only one hospital was included in those customers. He also thought that the hospital that took lunch boxes was uncommon. The staff at this hospital do not eat lunch in the cafeteria, but instead eat the lunch boxes delivered by the caterer.

The hospital he visited for the first time stood on the side of the road without a garden. He was told by his seniors, "There is no entrance, so go in through the outpatient entrance." He wanted to do exactly that. However, on the contrary, it seemed that there was no entrance and only a doorway. Moreover, it is guarded by an iron grill. Is this the front door?

He was able to get in at the right time, as a person who looked like a staff member came out from inside. But he thinks. It's not like a hospital. Even if the outpatient reception is open only in the morning, if it is before 2:00 pm, there may be people who have not completed the accounting and usually there are many people in the lobby. No, in fact, there was only a small space that couldn't be called a lobby.

He passed by a woman who seemed to be leaving the hospital as he tried to retrieve used lunch boxes. But the woman, who looks around 50 years old, shook her legs and dropped the paper bag she had in her hand on the floor. Dozens of 500-yen coins spilled out of her.

The friendly K-kun was sorry that he was in the way and helped to collect the 500-yen coins. The woman thanked him and she laughed, but her teeth were missing.

A middle-aged man appeared and said, "You're a new part-time worker at the caterer. Given the cost of collecting the lunch boxes, I think it would be better to use disposable lunch boxes. Well, our hospital costs 7,000 yen for one washbasin."

"What? Is it such a high-class washbasin?" K responds unintentionally.

The man answers. "Oh no. There are so many things in the world, you know? The people who come in here leave the hospital without paying any money.The weird woman just made money and was discharged from the hospital instead of paying, so it's not normal. "

"Huh?"

"People who are hospitalized here usually only have a few tens of yen in their pockets. To put it bluntly, they specialize in people who have fallen over. In industry terms, they specialize in "Koro" homeless people. Well, you will learn the truth of society that you couldn't study at school. Hahaha ".

The man is gone. Mr. K is full of doubts. At a hospital where only people who don't have money come, is a washbasin 7,000 yen? It was strange, but why did the woman just have so many 500-yen coins?

When Mr. K returned to the caterer's office, a senior part-time student approached him. "Isn't that hospital a little surprising? The patients' hospitalization fees are all paid from our tax. I don't pay much tax, though. Those who are, and who are unlikely to have a health insurance card, that is, homeless sick or injured, are brought to that hospital. They are called 'Koro san'."

"What is a 7,000 yen washbasin?"

"If you are hospitalized there, you will be given various tests. Even if you are debilitated due to malnutrition, you will always have a CT scan and a gastrocamera test.

"The inspection fee alone is tens of thousands a day. It costs money anyway. So, the hospital charges it to the national government or the local government.

"The hospital gives every patient a set of washbasins with toothbrushes and towels, and the price is 7,000 yen, which is more than 10 times the market price."

However, even if the mystery of 7,000 yen is solved by this, the mystery that dozens of 500 yen coins spilled from the paper bag of the woman who should have been hospitalized there because she does not have money is not solved yet. .. When I talked about it, his senior grinned.

"I wish you were taken care of," he said, and the momentum was such that laughter was about to spill out from his senior's mouth. "That middle-aged woman seems to be a regular at that hospital, but she seems to be doing business on the roof when she is hospitalized."

"What is business?"

"You look well-bred. Are you still a virgin? That woman usually operates in the corner of a park, but when she is hospitalized, she operates on the rooftop. It's 500 yen each time. It's a one-coin prostitution. "

This is one of the crazy anecdotes of my beloved hometown, Osaka.This isn't really an urban legend, it's a true story I've heard from someone close to me. In Japanese, it seems that some people overreact to this article, which is annoying, but in English, it's probably okay.

Osaka Road Rage with a surprising punch line

About 10 years ago, I encountered an event that many people might have the impression that it was "very Osaka-like."

That night, as I walked out of the underground station to the ground and on the sidewalk, I saw a man popping out of a car that had stopped at a traffic light. He looked like a sumo wrestler or a sea monster, "Umibozu," who weighs 120 kilograms. And he put his hand on the driver's door of the car in front and dragged the driver out.

"Oh! You suddenly stepped on the brakes! Why did you step on the brakes suddenly? Do you want to be killed?"

The driver who was dragged out seemed to weigh about half as much as the Umibozu. However, he is still a typical middle aged man in Osaka. He began to argue with the Umibozu. "Which taxi company is it? I'll contact the company."

Yes, the Umibozu was driving a taxi. Well, it's true that in Osaka, gangster men used to be taxi drivers in the past, but nowadays only elderly people are conspicuous. I, who had witnessed this scene, was surprised that the taxi driver would bite the driver of a general vehicle so radically. I was taken halfway.

However, the Umibozu is even more angry and finally reaches out to the old man. The Umibozu didn't hit him, but he slammed the man, who weighed only half his weight, with one hand. As the man staggers, the Umibozu squeezes further and raises his fist.

At that time, another man watching from the sidewalk called out to the weak man. "Are you okay? You've certainly suffered violence right now. Should I call the police?"

Then Umibozu glares at the man on the sidewalk in a demon-like appearance. "Why are you! It doesn't matter to you!"

The man who called out was actually me. I called out because I thought it was no good to look at the violence that was about to occur in front of me. When the Umibozu came towards me, I was going to run and run away for the time being.

The Umibozu is powerful in appearance. However, by all means, the Umibozu, who is a body lacking in exercise, cannot catch up with me, who was healthy 10 years ago.

When I displayed "110" on the screen of my mobile phone and tried to press the call button, the traffic light turned blue and the surrounding cars started all at once. When the old man who was entwined with the Umibozu saw it, he jumped into the car.

"Don't run away! Wait!" The Umibozu yelled at the old man. However, the old man quickly started the car. Still, for a while, the Umibozu was cursing on the street. There was no sign that he was heading towards me.

This story has a punch line in a slightly surprising way.

A small man in work clothes jumped out of the passenger seat of a white light van that had been stranded just behind the Umibozu taxi vehicle. He was a delicate man who seemed to have no lumps when he was rammed by the giant Umibozu.

However, after glancing at me, the man yelled at the Umibozu. "How long do you intend to stop! Do you want to go! Bokeh!"

The petite man must have had a "winning chance" when the Umibozu came. There were several men in similar work clothes in the light van. Perhaps the Umibozu felt that he wasn't good enough, he got into the driver's seat and started the taxi vehicle.

The petite man slammed the big man and drove him away. However, I don't think it's a good punch line. If the Umibozu went to the men in the light van, a ridiculous ending would have been waiting.

When I witness such an event, I feel that good and evil are a single piece of paper.

What if the weak-looking old man who was dragged out of the car actually had a knife hidden in it and was fighting back against the Umibozu? If the Umibozu was to be stabbed, the weak old man was treated as a thug.

Also, if the men in the light van slammed the Umibozu, the Umibozu would have been treated like a one-sided victim.

Ramen is also popular in Osaka, but be careful: the salt content of ramen eats people

There are countless restaurants in Japan where you can eat at a reasonable price. Above all, ramen restaurants, which have been attracting attention from people all over the world in recent years, are highly active. Osaka has too many variations of restaurants, so it was thought that there were fewer ramen restaurants in Osaka than in other prefectures, and the quality was inferior.　However, ramen restaurants in Osaka have become quite substantial in the last few years. Many ramen shops have been established in the past few years near JR Shin-Osaka Station, which serves the Shinkansen. In particular, the ramen restaurant "Kokokara Sakie" on the north side of Shin-Osaka is one of my recent favorites. The biggest beauty of ramen dishes at this restaurant is that they are not too salty. One early summer day, I got a gem of noodles made by Kyoto's famous noodle factory "Teigaku" in a soup extracted from a round chicken of Nagoya Cochin.

I also added plenty of char siu. I'm refraining from salt, but I drank all the soup.

On another scorching midsummer day, I ate this chilled ramen. The soup taken from Iriko is dyed in the color of soy sauce.

However, the treatment of salt is also careful here, and I can drink all of it.

I usually leave a lot of ramen soup. When you come to Japan, it is highly recommended to leave as much ramen soup as possible. Ramen soup is too salty and often eats the eater's body. I also had high blood pressure, partly due to overeating ramen. Moreover, I suffered from cerebral hemorrhage due to high blood pressure and was hospitalized for more than half a year in 2019. Some Japanese ramen researchers and ramen specialists have died from eating too much ramen and breaking their bodies.

Anyway, "Kokokara Sakie" is a good restaurant. Japanese ramen restaurants have sharp owners and they are often not very friendly, but the owner of this restaurant is as friendly as the managers of pubs in rural towns. The young assistant girl is also beautiful and amiable.

Disappointing local government heads - Coronavirus and Olympics

On July 28, 2021, right in the middle of the Tokyo Olympics, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported as follows.

On the 29th, the government decided to issue a state of emergency to Osaka Prefecture, which is applying "priority measures such as prevention of spread" as a countermeasure against the new coronavirus, and to Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa prefectures. The period is until August 31st. Priority measures will be applied to Hokkaido, Hyogo, Kyoto, Ishikawa, and Fukuoka prefectures. The government told the ruling party executives.

　 Currently, the declaration has been issued to Tokyo and Okinawa prefectures until August 22, but the deadline will be extended to the 31 days.

Prime Minister Suga

On the evening of the 29th, Prime Minister Suga announced to reporters that he would decide on a government response on the 30th after consulting with his relevant ministers at his prime minister's office.

The prime minister said, "We are responding with a strong sense of crisis. We would like to respond firmly in each region while advancing vaccination so as not to cause an insufficient bed availability."

The total number of corona deaths in Japan over the last two years is 15,000. This is not much different from twice the number of influenza deaths each year.

The population of the United States is 2.6 times that of Japan. However, the total number of corona deaths is 610,000.

East Asians are more resistant to the coronavirus. Moreover, influenza is almost extinct. 0731-21

It's not something you can brag about to the world. But politicians should have taken more courage to keep their economy from declining.

Sweden has taken the courage to lift the restrictions on behavior, but the death toll has not risen sharply. In other developed countries, there is a movement to deregulate, although it may be a vaccine premise.

It is disappointing that the heads of local governments such as Osaka ask the central government to issue a declaration as if to escape responsibility. At first I saw the governor of Osaka as an independent person, but now he is a completely different person.

The Reality is that the Rate of Suicide is Higher than the Death from Illness in Corona

When I turned on the TV wide show for the first time in a while, it started with the story of the Olympic athlete's corona infection, and there was a lot of noise about the risk of corona. Isn't it the ultimate risk of death? Then, how do you deal with the problem of suicide risk?

The rate of suicide and disappearance from the world that has become difficult to live in Corona is higher than the rate of dying in Corona. My daughter, who is a nurse at a large hospital in Osaka, was surprised at the large number of suicide attempts immediately after she was temporarily transferred to the Corona Severe Ward.

From Jiji Press Suicide last year, increase for the first time in 11 years Corona effect, serious in women - Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare breaking news January 22, 2021 10:09

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced on the 22nd that the number of suicides (preliminary figures) in 2020 based on the statistics of the National Police Agency was 29,919, which is 750 (3.7%) higher than the previous year's confirmed figure.

Although the number of suicides has decreased for 10 consecutive years, the number of female suicides has increased for the first time in 2 years, and the total number of men and women has increased for the first time in 11 years since 2009 after the Lehman shock. The number of suicides per 100,000 population (suicide mortality rate) was 16.6, the first increase in 11 years.

　 The background to the increase in female suicide seems to be the economic deterioration caused by the spread of the new coronavirus infection. A person in charge of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said, "The number of cases of women due to health, living difficulties, family problems, etc. is increasing. We would like to expand the consultation desk and connect those who are worried to support organizations."

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the number of male suicides decreased by 135 from the previous year to 13,943, the 11th consecutive year of decrease, but the number of females increased by 885 to 6976.

[Consultation desk for those who have troubles] ▽ Hotline 0120 (279) 338 = 24 hours support ▽ Telephone of life 0120 (783) 556 = 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm 0570 (783) 556 = 10:00 am to 10:00 pm ▽ Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Consultation List ▽ List of consultation counters that support life (List of consultation counters by prefecture / designated city)

https://www.jiji.com/jc/article (Japanese version)

It's not welcome that Tsukemen soup is boiling on a hot summer day!

I had been living without lunch for about 3 months trying to lose weight, but I found a new ramen shop in front of Higashimikuni station and broke the ban.

The shop name is "Akinai". It's a Japanese word meaning business. I ordered Tanrei Tsukemen. Tanrei means "light and tasty". Tsukemen means a ramen dish in Japanese cuisine consisting of noodles which are eaten after being dipped in a separate bowl of soup or broth. Somehow, elaborate tsukemen came out. On this hot day, the soup was served in a heated stone pot, and I was stunned to see it boiling.

Moreover, there is wonton in the soup.

In addition, the noodle bowl is filled with kelp water.

The taste was certainly Tanrei. It was an unwelcome favor that the juice was boiling on a hot summer day, though.