The difference between physical therapy in the US, Japan and the Philippines

I’m a trader mainly trading stock index futures. I have no idea about physical therapy but a friend of mine in Japan is a student of physical therapy. He always complains about the standards of physical therapy in Japan. He said, “Physical therapy in Japan is 10 years behind than the one in the US.” And he asked me “How is physical therapy in the Philippines?” Of course, I couldn’t answer. Then, I researched a little about physical therapy.

First, I looked over physical therapy in Japan.
I found this website about Japanese Physical Therapy Association.

And this is their PR brochure.

They emphasized on how they make their patients enjoy the therapy. It seems that they consider good attitude and dedication very important.


Next, I looked over physical therapy in the US.
And I found the website of American Physical Therapy Association. However, their website doesn’t emphasize anything.

Here is a slide presented by APTA.

They presented “Practice Based on Evidence” in the slide and seemed to consider that skills and technology are important.


I found a short report written by a Japanese physical therapy student.

The opinion of the student is the same as my friend’s. The student also complained about the standards of physical therapy in Japan. He said that physical therapists (PTs) in the US use computers when they crunch and encode data from patients, and then programmed robots help patients exercise. He also questioned the legal system of physical therapy. PTs in Japan can’t start their own hospitals. They are just like nurses but PTs in the US can. The student suggested that the difference between the legal systems might affect the PTs' motivation for upgrading skills and technology.


Then, I had a trial lesson at HLCA, an ESL school specialized in medical English.

I asked the teacher how physical therapy in the Philippines is. She answered as follows:

The standards of physical therapy in the Philippines weren’t bad. Although she wasn’t sure which one is better, in Japan or in the Philippines. However, it has problems. Most Filipinos are so poor that they cannot afford physical therapy but only few the rich can. That’s why PTs have fewer job opportunities.

Her friend’s mother is a physical therapist but she almost stays at home as a housewife because she only has few assignments on physical therapy. One of her friends studied physical therapy in college but is trying to change his career into medicine. Most PTs want jobs abroad.


The Philippines is a good place to learn medical English even for physical therapy. However, just like Japan, it also has its problems. I hope those problems will be solved.

My grandfather

One day, I had a dinner with my Filipina girlfriend and her family in Davao. Her grandfather asked me at the dinner, “Was your father a soldier?” I answered, “No, he was just a boy during the Second World War.” He said, “My father fought against Japanese soldiers and got injured. He received a pension from the government.”

I’m a Japanese. The Philippines fought the Pacific War against Japan. My girlfriend’s great-grandfather fought against Japan. That’s why her grandfather was interested and asked me about it. My father was just a boy during the Second World War. My grandfather had never been a solider either. But he had been an officer of the Interior Ministry.

My grandfather was born in a prefecture in Japan. He was a policeman. I don’t know the details, but he moved to Tokyo and became an officer of the Interior Ministry. He visited Myanmar once as an officer during the Second World War and never visited other countries.

His mission was to suppress and to survey the people’s belief in Japan. He interrogated Japanese communists. He wrote a report on how common Japanese thought of the war. The report concluded that common Japanese detested the war. I supposed half of the report was what my grandfather felt.

After the defeat of the Japanese empire, my grandfather and other officers burned the documents to keep it from the US forces. The record of interrogation of communists was part of them. But, my grandfather didn’t actually burned his report on how common Japanese despised the war. 

The US forces (General Head Quarters) came to the Interior Ministry and found my grandfather’s report. They appreciated his report and asked him to cooperate on their occupation. To occupy Japan, they need to know what Japanese thought and his report was useful to them. He accepted. In return, he got reward from them. Most of the Japanese starved right after the defeat of the Japanese empire. But my grandfather and his family didn’t.

My grandfather became a policeman once again after the dissolution of the Interior Ministry. He got old, retired from police and died.

My grandfather didn’t like war. But he joined the war of aggression by suppressing people who were against the war. Despite the circumstances, his honesty and conscience remained clear because of his report. It saved him and his family from starvation later on.

We should keep our honesty and conscience clear even in an extremely difficult situation. Honesty and conscience will save us.

Cebu City is no longer a good place to live.

Cebu City is no longer a good place to live. There are too many people. Congestion of both roads and the internet are getting worse. I don’t think those would be improved in a decade.

I’ve been to the mountain region to the north of Cebu City by motorcycle in May. I found that there are so many people living there. I suppose their population is increasing and they will come down to the city area of Cebu City. They use cellphones, motorcycles, cars and landlines. It surges through both roads and the internet. The consequence of population growth always exceeds improvement of the infrastructure in Cebu City.

I think the time will come to move to Davao sooner or later.
The Advantages to live in Davao is as follows.
(1) There're fewer vehicles on broader roads.
(2) Both LTE and landline internet connection are fast.
(3) Water from a tap is drinkable.
(4) Jeepneys don't smell so bad because of the emission tests of exhaust gas.
(5) Davao is safer than Cebu City.

Sexism in Japan June 24 2015

This blog post is a revision of “Sexism in Japan 23 Sep 2014”. I wrote the previous version as a material for an ESL lesson. However, I was not able to use it. ESL tutors I met liked Japan and Japanese. I hesitated to show them the negative side of Japan.

But one day, a Filipina friend mentioned that she read my blog. So I became eager to complete it.

I am a Japanese. I had ESL lessons from Filipina tutors in Cebu City. I talked about sexism in Japan in a lesson with a tutor. There was a discussion question “Are women and men are equal in Japan?” I answered “They are equal in Japan.” The answer came from my experience.

I myself have never seen sexism in Japan, but it is a reality that stiff sexism exists in my country. I realized it from a research by Akira Kawaguchi and Chizuko Ueno.

The research revealed that some (most?) Japanese companies benefit from sexism. The employment system discriminating against women allows the companies to employ women temporarily on low wages, even if the women have excellent skills. The discrimination against women is a rational attitude for companies which pursue profit.

However, this unfair employment system prevents the companies from employing productive women, because excellent women can leave a sexist workplace for a better one. And it makes the companies' productivity lower in the long term. That sort of unfair company will be defeated and will withdraw from the market, especially the global competitive market.

Some people claim that there is no sexism in Japan. I suppose they have never seen it.

I write about my experience relating to sexism here.

My mother died when I was 4 years old. I had been raised by my father. I have never seen sexism at home.

I had worked as an engineer for several companies. I saw a skilled female engineer was promoted, but I have never seen something that looks like the “Glass Ceiling”. 

The “Glass Ceiling” is a political term. It means an unfair system or set of attitudes that prevents some people (such as women or people of a certain race) from getting the most powerful jobs. 

For an engineer, skill is more important than gender. And I was so impatient that I quited my jobs too quickly to observe the “Glass Ceiling”. Of course, female and male engineers got the same wages for the same jobs in my observation.

I suppose that some people claiming that there is no sexism in Japan have experiences similar to mine.

Sexism has various aspects. The research sheds light on one of them. We Japanese need to overcome this issue.

参考文献

上野千鶴子 ネオリベと女性差別が少子化を生み出した 文藝春秋オピニオン 2013年の論点100

上野千鶴子 比較ジェンダー・レジーム論の構想 ジェンダー社会科学の可能性 第1巻

私は川口章さんの「ジェンダー経済格差」を読んでません。上野さんが言及してるのを読んだだけです。

Margin FX trading overview

Margin FX trading overview

FX is the abbreviation for Foreign currency Exchange. FX trading is similar to exchanging currency at money changers. However, an exchange fee from an FX company is so cheap that we can earn money through it.

Suppose the exchange rate is 45 pesos to the dollar and I deposit 5 million pesos in my account (Actually, I deposited Yen because I’m a Japanese), I can buy 100,000 dollars for 4,500,000 pesos. I can ignore the exchange fee because it is very small. If I sell 100,000 dollars when the exchange rate moves up to 46 pesos to the dollar, I can get 4,600,000 pesos. This means that I will earn 100,000 pesos.

Margin FX trading allows us to buy a greater amount of currency than what we have deposited.  If the FX company offers me a maximum leverage rate of 20 :1 and I deposit 5 million pesos when the exchange rate is 45 pesos to the dollar, I can buy 2,000,000 dollars. If I sell 2,000,000 dollars when the exchange rate moves up to 46 pesos to the dollar, I can earn 2,000,000 pesos, which is 20 times as much as leverage rate of 1:1.

If the currency rate moves to the opposite way of my forecast, I lose money.

The advantage of margin trading is that I can earn greater returns on my trades. However, I may incur greater losses as well.

self-introduction May 14 2015

I’m Koichi Ishida, but you can call me Tony. Tony is my English name.

My hobbies are watching movies and riding a motorcycle. To watch blu-ray 3D movies, I brought a Playstation 3 from Japan. And I bought a motorcycle in Talamban.

I have lived in Talamban, Cebu since April.

I’m an individual investor. I mainly invest my money in margin FX trading. FX trading is similar to exchanging currency at money changers, but an exchange fee at an FX company is so cheap that we can earn money from it.

Earning money from FX trading is quite difficult. Most FX traders are losing their money but, I’m making profit.

My strategy is that I don’t look at charts of currency rates so much. Instead, I read a lot of business news, grasp global economic trends and choose currencies to buy or sell. 

Reading news takes so much time that I can do nothing else. So I said to myself, “What if I hire a Filipino assistant? He will read the news and write reports about economic trends. I can save time.”

Then, I looked for someone who has economic knowledge. But I realized it’s so difficult to find such a person. My plan hit a wall.

Sexism in Japan 23 Sep 2014

I am a Japanese. I had have English lessons from Filipina teachers in Cebu City. I talked about sexism in Japan with a teacher on a discussion question in a lesson. I answered that women and men are equal in Japan. The answer came from my experience.

I myself have not ever seen sexism in Japan, but it is reality that stiff sexism exists in Japan. I realized it from a research by Akira Kawaguchi and Chizuko Ueno.

I will have English lessons in Cebu City again. I write this essay to be a material for the lessons in the future.

The research revealed that some (almost?) Japanese companies have got profit from sexism. The employment system discriminating against women allows the companies to employ women as temporally staff on low wages, even if the women has excellent skills. The discrimination against women is a rational attitude for companies which pursue profit.

However, this unfair employment system prevents the companies employing productive women, because excellent women can leave a sexism workplace for better one. And it makes the companies' productivity lower in long term. That sort of unfair companies will be defeated and withdraw from the market, especially the global competitive market.

Some people claim that there is no sexism in Japan. I suppose they have not ever seen sexism in Japan like me.

My mother died when I was 4 years old. I had been raised by my father. I have not ever seen sexism in home.

I had worked as an engineer for several companies. I saw a skilled female engineer was promoted, but I have not ever seen something that looks like a glass ceiling. An engineer is required her or his skill rather than gender. And I am so impatience that I quit my jobs too quickly to see a glass ceiling. Of course, female and male engeneers got the same wages for the same jobs.

I suppose that some people claiming that there is no sexism in Japan have experiences similar to mine.

Sexism has various aspects. The research sheds light on an aspect of sexism. We Japanese need to overcome sexism.

参考文献

上野千鶴子 ネオリベと女性差別が少子化を生み出した 文藝春秋オピニオン 2013年の論点100

上野千鶴子 比較ジェンダー・レジーム論の構想 ジェンダー社会科学の可能性 第1巻

私は川口章さんの「ジェンダー経済格差」を読んでません。上野さんが言及してるのを読んだだけです。