At the drugstore in Japan: describing symptoms, reading the box, and the words for a real emergency

By the Wabi-Sabi Japanese team · Last updated: July 28, 2026

You will probably never need this page. Most trips to Japan involve nothing worse than a sore throat on day four, or the particular stomach that arrives after three days of konbini onigiri and one ambitious izakaya. But a drugstore is a bad place to improvise vocabulary, because staff cannot simply hand you the strongest thing on the shelf — for those items the law makes them establish what is wrong first, and that is exactly where the conversation stalls.

The ceiling here is low, though. Japanese drugstores are everywhere, they stay open late, and the chains deal with tourists constantly. You need about six sentences: what hurts, since when, whether you are taking anything else, and how many of these you swallow. Everything past that is pointing, and pointing works.

The other half of this page is the part nobody wants to read and everybody should: 119, 110, and what a Japanese building sounds like thirty seconds into an earthquake. Those exchanges are short and scripted, which is a mercy. The operator asks a fixed set of questions in a fixed order, and if you have heard the first one before, you will not freeze on it.

Do I need a drugstore, a pharmacy or a clinic?

Three different places, and picking wrong costs you an hour. A ドラッグストア — Matsumoto Kiyoshi, Welcia, Sundrug, Tsuruha — is a shop. You walk in, nobody asks you for anything, and everything for a cold, a headache or a wrecked stomach sits on an open shelf. A 調剤薬局 is a dispensing pharmacy: it usually sits beside a clinic and exists to fill prescriptions, so wandering in without one gets you a very polite dead end.

For an actual doctor you want a クリニック, and the thing nobody mentions is the timetable. Many run a morning session and an afternoon session with a two-hour gap in the middle, and close entirely on Sundays plus one weekday. Out of hours, the word is 救急外来 — a hospital's emergency department.

How do I describe my symptoms in Japanese?

Japanese is unusually kind here. Almost every symptom is a noun plus ga arimasu or ga shimasu, and any body part becomes a complaint with ga itai desu. Nothing needs conjugating. Name the symptom, say when it started, then stop talking and let them ask.

Two things worth knowing before a box lands in your hand. Japanese over-the-counter doses tend to run lower than what you are used to, so medicine working gently is normal rather than an invitation to double up. And powdered medicine is genuinely common — a paper sachet you tip onto your tongue and chase with water. If that idea appals you, say so; there is almost always a tablet version behind it.

One limit is worth naming out loud. A drugstore is for things that are unpleasant, not things that are frightening. Chest pain, trouble breathing, a fever that will not come down, blood where there should not be any, or pain bad enough to stop you standing up are clinic or 119 territory, and going straight there costs you nothing worse than an afternoon. Nobody in Japan will think you overreacted.

What do the words on Japanese medicine boxes mean?

The fastest route through a drugstore is a silent one. Aisles carry a hanging sign naming the symptom, so if you can match six kanji shapes you can walk to the correct shelf before speaking to anyone. The shelf edge also carries a class number: 第2類 and 第3類 you pick up and take to the till yourself, while 第1類 is the stronger category and legally has to be handed over by a pharmacist — which is why that shelf sometimes shows an empty display box rather than stock.

On the back of the box, the dosing line is the bit to photograph and feed to a translation app before you swallow anything.

What happens when you call 119 in Japan?

119 is fire and ambulance together; 110 is police. The ambulance itself is not billed to you, which is why nobody in Japan agonises over calling one, and neither should you.

The call opens with a question that sorts you before anything else happens, and it is always the same one: kaji desu ka, kyuukyuu desu ka. Answer that, and the rest follows a fixed order — where you are, what happened, your name and number. Many fire departments can bring an interpreter onto the line, but it takes a moment, so say you need English plainly once and then wait instead of repeating yourself.

If there is a Japanese speaker within arm's reach, the fastest thing you can do is hand them your phone. Konbini staff and hotel front desks do this without blinking. It is not a failure of preparation; it is the correct move.

What do I say at a police box if something is stolen?

110 is for something happening now. For a wallet left on the Yamanote line, the nearer institution is the 交番 — the small lit police box outside almost every station, normally manned around the clock, and the reason Tokyo has a police presence you can walk to rather than phone. If one looks empty the officers are out on patrol; there is usually a phone or intercom inside that reaches the station, or you try the next one.

Japan's lost property system is unreasonably effective and things genuinely come back, so report it rather than writing it off. One wrinkle: items left on a train usually do not reach a police box for a day or two. They go first to the railway's own 忘れ物センター, so tell station staff on the same day as well. Either way, ask for the paperwork — an insurer will not pay out on a story.

What do I do — and what will I hear — in an earthquake?

Most quakes a visitor feels last a few seconds and end with everyone in the café glancing up and then returning to their coffee. Before the shaking, every phone in the room may shriek at once. That is 緊急地震速報, the early warning, and it is deliberately unpleasant and largely un-silenceable.

What to do is short. Get low, get under something solid, protect your head, stay away from glass. Do not run for the door mid-shake — outside is where the falling tiles land. Lifts stop by design, park at the nearest floor and open, and are not an evacuation route afterwards. When it stops, watch the staff; they have drilled this since primary school and the room will move as one.

Three signs are worth knowing on sight: 避難場所 is the open-air evacuation area, 非常口 is the green running-man exit, and in coastal towns 津波避難ビル marks a building tall enough to climb. Below, the left column is the announcement or the staff member; the right is your line back.

What catches travellers out about medicine in Japan?

The medical side of a trip goes wrong in a small number of predictable ways, and most of them are decided before you leave home.

• The medicine you packed is not legal here. Ingredients sold openly elsewhere — pseudoephedrine in cold and sinus tablets, codeine in cough syrup — are restricted or prohibited in Japan, and stimulant medication for ADHD is prohibited outright. Read the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's own import guidance rather than a forum thread.
• You brought a lot of a prescription drug. Above a published quantity, and for anything injectable, Japan wants an import certificate — 薬監証明, yakkan shoumei — applied for in advance. The certificate itself is free, but it is not issued over a counter on the day, so it is a pre-trip job rather than an airport one — start it well before you fly.
• You expected your brand. It will not be here. If you are particular about a painkiller, bring it in its original box, with the prescription if it has one.
• You paid and forgot the paper. Without Japanese insurance you settle the full amount on the spot, cash more often than card. Ask for a receipt, and if you saw a doctor, ask for a 診断書 too — chasing one from another continent is a bad month.

Two things are worth doing before you fly, and both take a minute. Screenshot the aisle words, so you can match kanji to shelf without needing a single sentence. And say kaji desu ka, kyuukyuu desu ka out loud once, so that if you ever hear it, it arrives as a question you already know the answer to rather than as noise.

Everything else here you will read once and never use. That is the intended outcome.