Taiwan Comes With Dental

Coming as we do from Australia there is much to be found that is different in our new surroundings and culture. Some good… some not so good.

For example sewerage pipes and restaurants. Sometimes it seems in Taiwan that there is some obligatory local council regulation that requires that any sewerage pipes in the vicinity of the front entrance to a restaurant must have some kind of fault or defect.

The purpose being to ensure that the smell of the aforementioned sewerage outlet is clearly and unmistakably detectable to the human nose.

Disturbingly, after a few years of being exposed to this, one begins to develop a kind of strange mental association between the smell of raw sewerage and the presence of food. “Hmmm… smells like shit, must be some good eating around here somewhere!”

Of course in the case of the sewerage outfall / restaurant presence closest to my house it is not such a strange occurrence because it’s a McDonald’s and the whole “poo equals food” thought process makes more sense… but I think you get my drift.

Anyway the other day my wife decided that I needed to go to the dentist. Of course what that really meant was that my wife felt guilty about not having gone to the dentist herself for a while so in her mind somehow this wrong would be corrected by her sending me to the dentist.

Having been married for many years now and knowing very well to choose my fights wisely I obediently agreed to go to satisfy the requirement that someone had to go to the dentist to balance the great dental cosmic karma that oversees such things.

Going to our dentist is a little like going to your mother’s house. Regardless of the fact that I am a 50 year old man who has fully proven himself able to support his family comfortably as soon as I sit in that chair I am instantly transformed into a ten year old child incapable of cleaning my own teeth. My dentist is a nice lady… but very stern and very serious about teeth.

Apparently my crime this time was that I have spent a lifetime incorrectly brushing my teeth… who knew? The result of these years of abuse was that the gums were being pushed back and that I would need to have reconstruction work done.

When any dentist starts talking “reconstruction” I start to worry with thoughts of injections, massive excavations being done and a total loss of dignity as I dribble and mumble incomprehensibly on my back.

So, an appointment was made for dreaded reconstruction and it was decided by my wife that the thirteen reconstructions could all be done at once by organizing a double appointment.

Now here’s the part that is just so cool about Taiwan.

I arrived for the work. It involved each tooth being prepared and the dentist applying a veneer of of some substance to each gum margin. She then had to set it and polish it off to a smooth surface. The whole process took about half an hour and the work was perfect.

Imagine the cost in almost any western country of that kind of dental work.

In Taiwan the receptionist apologised for the cost explaining that after all it was a double appointment. The damage? $200.00… no I am not talking U.S.$200.00 nor am I talking Australian $200.00 I mean $200 Taiwan. That translates into about U.S. $10.00!

You gotta love a country that comes with a dental plan!

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Tags: Cosmic Karma, Dentist, Drift, Food Thought, Front Entrance, Hmmm, Human Nose, Living In Taiwan, Local Council, Mcdonald, Old Man, Pipes, Poo, Presence, Rants, Restaurants, Strange Occurrence, Surroundings, Thought Process, Vicinity

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 1:24 am and is filed under Kultcha. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.