[island101]

About: Beth, From San Francisco, California. Living in Tokyo, Japan for a year working as a teacher.

The school I teach at in Tokyo requires mandatory annual medical exams for all teachers. The school schedules the exams for us at a nearby medical facility. My exam was scheduled for this morning and I got the day off from school. The place was huge and confusing to get around from area to area. They gave me a piece of paper with 7 different exams I required and each took place in different areas of the facility. Everything had gone well for me with the first six tests. Basic tests such as blood, urine, vision, hearing, etc.

When I checked the sheet for my seventh and final test I was directed to the gynecology department. It took me about 15 minutes to find the department and check in. When my name was called they asked me to go to a small room with a desk and chairs. It wasn’t a doctor’s office, but an interview room. After waiting for 10 minutes a doctor and nurse walked into the room. The nurse looked almost too young to be a nurse. She was probably in her mid-twenties, but looked like she was still in high school. The doctor was the opposite. He was probably around fifty, but looked more like he was seventy. The doctor had a binder and was going through a list of questions for me to answer. It was the typical questions about periods, my sex life and other private things I wouldn’t normally discuss with an older man I didn’t know.

After I answered the questions, the doctor told the nurse to show me to the exam room. We left the interview room and walked down a hall that had numbers on the doors, 1 to 10. She told me to go into door #3 and wait for her and the doctor. I opened the door and walked into a very small room with a mechanical chair and a curtain on the other side of the room instead of a wall. I wasn’t completely surprised, as my friends told me about the procedure in Japan and how you sit in the chair and it moves to position your legs on the other side of the curtain where the doctor is. It is supposed to spare you the embarrassment of having to look the doctor in the eye while his eyes are on your vagina. One of my friends who has lived in Japan for a long time told me this option is better than her first exam here. She said for her first exam in Japan 20 years ago they examined her in an open area where doctors and nurses were walking about. They gave her a small towel to cover her face to save her from embarrassment while she was examined within eyeshot of anyone walking by.

My happiness for this improved setup was lessened when I heard talking on the other side of the curtain. I decided to be adventurous and walk through to the other side of the curtain to see what it looked like. When I saw what was on the other side it shocked me. On the other side was an office area with desks and medical staff. People were moving about like they would in any other office. Unlike most offices there are ten adjoining rooms like mine hidden by ten curtains, and if there were patients being examined in all ten rooms you can look over from your desk and see ten sets of spread legs undergoing gynecological exams. I’m not sure how they can concentrate on their work, but I guess they get used to it.

While I was checking out the other side of the curtain I started to realize it was a big mistake crossing the line to the other side. There is a certain anonymity that comes from staying on my side of the curtain which makes it a little easier to flash my crotch to the room. I was starting to get looks from the medical staff at their desks, probably taking note of whose privates were about to be on their side of the curtain in room #3. There were also two guys who were definitely not medical staff, but were on a ladder working on the lighting 15 feet from my exam room. As I was thinking about how surprising it was they had maintenance guys in this room during exam hours one of the guys saw me looking over at him and smiled politely and nodded his head to greet me. I gave him a head nod back and went back to the safety of the other side of the curtain.

A minute after I stepped back to the private side of the curtain I heard the nurse’s voice tell me to take everything off from the waist down and sit on the mechanical chair. After undressing and sitting my bare ass on the crinkly paper on top of the chair it really hit me how much more embarrassing it is now that I know what is on the other side of the curtain. Ignorance is bliss. If I hadn’t stepped to the other side I may have gotten some curious looks given I’m a natural blonde, but at least they wouldn’t be able to put a face to the vagina.

The doctor said it was time to start the exam and the chair started to move, putting me in more of a lying position while it spread my legs and then moved my legs under the curtain. My bottom half was now exposed to the doctor, nurse and anyone else in the room. I was then poked and prodded by fingers, speculums and internal ultrasound devices. After the exam was over the chair reversed course and moved my legs back into the private room, closed my legs and lifted me from a reclining position to a sitting position. The nurse told me to get dressed and meet them back in the original interview office. When I got there the doctor who had just exam me was sitting at the desk and told me everything looked good, and I would be sent the lab results in a few days.

Since I had the day off of work I decided to go to a small drug store across from the hospital to buy a few items I needed. As I was walking through the vitamin aisle I ran into the maintenance guy who was working on the ceiling. When he saw me, it was obvious he recognized me from the medical center as he greeted me like an old friend with konnichiwa and head nod like before. Feeling obliged, I greeted him back as my face turned red. I’m not sure of the proper etiquette in this situation, but it would have been better if he acted like I was a complete stranger. I don’t need him acknowledging he was within eyeshot of my exam. If you ever find yourself in Japan in my situation, ignore your curiosity and stay on your side of the curtain.