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American Hospital of Paris (4)

Difficulties as the first Japanese physician in Paris (1)

In March 1995, I left my home in Kobe, still struggling with the aftermath of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, from the newly opened Kansai Airport. I was told to make a speech to the Board Meeting of AHP on the day after my arrival. Therefore, I was contemplating on the speech during the flight.
I was struggling to make a good speech. Even sitting in a comfortable business class seat, I was very stressed for 10 hours. At the Board Meeting, I introduced myself in French and then changed to English. I chose the Kobe earthquake and sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway as examples of medical emergencies, both of which were well known in France. Then, I continued, “Japan is not the safest country in the world anymore. I'm so glad to come to Paris.” I heard laughter from the audience. It was a perfect beginning. I ended with “I'll do my best for the Japanese community in Paris.” There was a standing ovation. "Hey, Osaka-style humor is just like that of Paris," I thought!

As I mentioned, I couldn't make any money without a private practice just like other French or American doctors at AHP. In order to practice, I needed a Carte de Sejours (a permission to live in France) and local permission to practice medicine. I started to prepare to obtain these two papers with assistance of Naoko, a Japanese tri-lingual employee of AHP. Because of the pre-arrangements by the executive staff at AHP, I received a letter setting the date of an interview soon after my arrival from a local medical association office.

On the day of the interview I went to the local medical association with Naoko. Two old French doctors received us at the office. The interview was conducted in French. Naoko tried to tell me something as I was searching for the appropriate French expression. The French interviewer warned immediately “No” by a gesture. OK, I was in my mid-40s then, and I went through thousands of interviews until then, some of them where I was the interviewer myself. There is not so much difference in questions and answers between East and West. "I can do it!" So I started to answer in French, slowly with correct grammer, as correctly as possible.

The interview was over in half an hour. Soon after the interview I was told to fill in the personal data in the data file, which meant I passed the test. The permission of practice was issued on the same day. This permission played important role to obtain the carte de sejours. Carte de sejours is required for all foreigners who want to stay in France for more than 3 months. This process was infamous in the maltreatment of applicants at the first reception. Therefore, many Japanese businessmen hired lawyers to do the work for them.
Early one morning, I went to the immigration office again with Naoko. Since there was no reservation at the first reception, we waited in a long line with African and Arab immigrants. While waiting I observed what was going on in the reception window. The reception process was really terrible. A middle aged female clerk was accusing an African lady who spoke barely French of having insufficient documents in very rapid French. She was expelled in 3 minutes. Finally our turn came.
Naoko spoke to the clerk in fluent French. However, one minor insufficiency in the documents was pointed out. I remembered something then. I took out the permission of the medical practice obtained just a week before and told Naoko to use it to persuade the clerk. Naoko was very smart woman. She started her story with the permission in her hand, Doctor Kido came here to save 30,000 fellow Japanese living in Paris. Here is the Permission of Practice. If the issuance of the Carte de Sejours is delayed, those 30,000 Japanese will suffer longer.
” She was persuading aggressively or even threatening the clerk. It worked miraculously and I was given an appointment for the second reception, which was the real procedure to obtain the Carte de Sejours. The second reception was a piece of cake as compared with the first one. A well educated middle-aged lady was waiting for us in a private office at the time of appointment. We brought a Japanese fan, a little gift and all documents were orderly arranged in clear files. It was very easy this time.

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