From the many responses to our April 3 column, "Less-than-fluent foreigners may have trouble giving blood," it seems that Japanese language ability is an issue at some centers, but not all. Other factors sometimes took precedence, such as medical conditions and other rules.
For some, language was clearly the reason for refusal, such as in O.K.'s case:
"A few years back while I was a student in Japan, my Japanese girlfriend and I went to a mobile unit of the blood donation service near Ikebukuro Station, only to be refused because I could not read all the kanji on the page of information they gave me. I asked my girlfriend to read it to me, and I understood it all, yet they still refused.