I have to make an appointment for a health check up for my new job.
I went to the clinic on golden week only to find it closed (it seizes to amaze me, how a place of medical treatment can be closed on a public holiday but anyway), I then went again the following monday only to find out the only except appointment reservations via phone call. I called them, explaining I have the list of things I need to be checked for. They asked me if I can FAX them the list.
I didn’t say this, but instantly my mind just went, “what year is this again”. Like WTF. And I asked them if I can email them the list and they said no, for whatever reasons. You know
I love Japan, but sometimes in seizes to amaze me.
“Do you have a fax machine” and “we dont accept emails” are two sentences I never thought I would hear in my life, especially in one of the most advanced nations in the world
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Convenience stores can be used to fax stuff, the multifunction copier/printer/whatever machine. It will cost a few 10s yen.
You can fax with a laptop can’t you?
Agree it’s odd 🙂
Chances are they only accept cash!
In all my years I have never been in a situation where I actually needed to use a fax machine as a consumer. I have worked in companies where faxes where used for specialized correspondence between companies like putting in orders where using fax machines were de facto
My wife had to send a fax today, so I knew she was popping out to 7/11. Public holidays mean things are closed and Japan isn’t half as bad as some countries in this regard. Specifically in this case, the “clinics” that offer health checkups are often literally just that, they offer health checks and little else. Most are not places that see sick patients. Employees are perfectly happy to take time off work once a year and feel like a cow heading to slaughter, as they get processed through. Be sure to make vampire jokes at the blood withdrawal station, usually a tough audience.
japans technological advancement is a myth/remains from the bubble years in the 80s…
> seizes to amaze me
I think you’re looking for [“it *never ceases* to amaze me”](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/never%20cease%20to%20amaze).
I have a fax machine.
Yeah it’s odd. But you don’t need a fax machine for this. Just go to random convenience store.
It’s not about the nation is developed or not. It’s probably owned by a old guy still living in their 80s, has no meaning to change their way of live until the day they die.
I’m more amazed at how little original thought there is in your post.
> “So, I had to go to the doctor’s office in Japan the other day, and of course, it was a public holiday, and the office was closed. But here’s the kicker, they still wanted me to send them some documents by fax. I mean, come on, Japan, it’s 2023, can’t we come up with a better system? What’s next, carrier pigeons? Smoke signals?”
> “But seriously, I had to find a fax machine, print out the documents, and then wait until the office opened again to make sure they got them. It was like a real-life scavenger hunt, except instead of finding treasure, I was just trying to get medical attention.”
> “Why not just use email like everyone else? Oh wait, I forgot, this is Japan, the land of tradition and fax machines. Maybe they should start a museum for outdated technology or something. At least then we can all have a good laugh while we’re waiting for our medical attention.”
Congrats, you’re about as insightful as ChatGPT, and it writes better than you. Post in the complaint thread next time, yeah?
Hope you ain’t an English teacher bruh lol
Actually it never ceases to amaze me either, but medical facilities here as actually well-known to be one of the last bastions of fax machines.
I don’t know I’ve always thought it pretty cool a futuristic that there’s a machine that can send copies of documents across long distances instantly. Sounds like future tech to me. Lol.
Like E-mail is so 1990’s man. I mean really using a computer? To like type stuff? That I need a program to read? Pssh, super lame. Why not just use this rad machine that lets me send a handwritten note electronically over the telephone! Like it prints off the other end and there’s no programs needed to read it and no character set conflicts or anything.
(Which if we want to get into the real reason why faxes became so popular here I think it has a lot to do with the difficulties of encoding Japanese, kanji specifically, into 8-bit data sets since a single byte character only allows for 256 values and there’s a lot more Japanese characters than that in common use, the memory requirements to display Japanese characters on older hardware was significant hence why fax machines were a more appealing option for longer, and there was little economic or practical reason to switch to E-mail once they were ubiquitous)
🙂 I figured out asking my local pub to fax something for me whilst I have a beer works well!
> And I asked them if I can email them the list and they said no, for whatever reasons
Even in other countries like the US and in Europe, in medical situations fax is perceived as “secure” since tapping of phone lines is uncommon, where as since email is normally completely unencrypted (and usually not even hosted on-site) it’s seen as “insecure” when it comes to patient secrecy.
Fax is still heavily used in medical in places like the US and Germany for this reason, and it took a massive effort to get UK hospital to quit faxing (it was supposed to be over in 2020 but that deadline was extended for obvious reasons)
*accept appointments
They worked so hard to introduce this revolutionary technology to the masses that when they finally got it introduced into society they refuse to ever let it go.
The Japanese method: continually add to a systems complexity, but never simplify and never ever eliminate what’s obsolete.
Just get a dirt cheap fax/modem USB dongle from Amazon and you can start sending faxes from your Windows 11 just PC like you send emails.
Surprise surprise, faxing from Windows is still fully supported to this very day.
> “Do you have a fax machine” and “we dont accept emails” are two sentences I never thought I would hear in my life, **especially in one of the most advanced nations in the world**
it’s not
I also had to fax my application to the clinic the other day. That was my very first and only experience with fax machines. It wasn’t anything difficult, it took less than a minute.
It’s also worth calling to confirm they’ve got your document.
Fax is considered more secure. Email is considered not secure for medical things. It’s the same in many other countries, fax is still heavily in use for medical, because it works and it is secure.
Much of this is par for the course here, but if the rest is any indication, I’d cut my losses and find another clinic. There’s no shortage of places offering your standard company health check, so there’s no real reason to put up with the difficult ones.
> it seizes to amaze me, how a place of medical treatment can be closed on a public holiday
Aren’t most non-emergency medical services closed on holidays in the majority of counties?
Coming from Canada, I’m surprised how many clinics are open on Saturdays and Sundays in Japan.
Just find another clinic, no biggie. Btw I even get my health checkup results via email! Where are you in Japan?
Why does everyone hate fax machines so much? Its not like they require you to take a 5 year study course to learn how to use them… is it so hard for you to buy and use a fax machine? Like is there something physically preventing you from using one?