All praise to Japan till now, here we go a bit sarcastic. This phrase was conveyed to me by a friend: A lucky man is one who lives with an English house, American Salary, French cook and Japanese wife. (This is again praise to Japanese people!)
Then the unlucky man lives with an English Cook, American wife, French Salary and Japanese house! (This one may not be praise!)
Though little exaggerated, the above phrase reflects the traditional belief that Japanese houses are just enough to live. When I entered to the apartment allocated to me I realized it. People with 6 feet height can raise their hands and touch the ceiling. We don’t need to search for a stool to change the lights for example.
Traditional Japanese houses are simple, neat and beautiful. Japanese houses are built with a bedroom with Tatami. The meaning of Tatami in Japanese is ‘folded and piled’. Tatami mats are a traditional type of Japanese flooring. Tatami floors are made of woven soft rush straw, and traditionally packed with rice straw.
The modern Japanese technology uses sometimes styrofoam though it is not widely accepted and not considered traditional. Tatami are made in individual mats of uniform size and shape, bordered by brocade or plain cloth. I am not sure of the exact dimension of Tatami mats, but my boss when he took me to the apartment first time during February 2008 told me that Japanese building standards use different Tatami sizes and bedrooms are identified with the number of Tatami used in a bedroom.
Then the unlucky man lives with an English Cook, American wife, French Salary and Japanese house! (This one may not be praise!)
Though little exaggerated, the above phrase reflects the traditional belief that Japanese houses are just enough to live. When I entered to the apartment allocated to me I realized it. People with 6 feet height can raise their hands and touch the ceiling. We don’t need to search for a stool to change the lights for example.
Traditional Japanese houses are simple, neat and beautiful. Japanese houses are built with a bedroom with Tatami. The meaning of Tatami in Japanese is ‘folded and piled’. Tatami mats are a traditional type of Japanese flooring. Tatami floors are made of woven soft rush straw, and traditionally packed with rice straw.
The modern Japanese technology uses sometimes styrofoam though it is not widely accepted and not considered traditional. Tatami are made in individual mats of uniform size and shape, bordered by brocade or plain cloth. I am not sure of the exact dimension of Tatami mats, but my boss when he took me to the apartment first time during February 2008 told me that Japanese building standards use different Tatami sizes and bedrooms are identified with the number of Tatami used in a bedroom.
When I changed to a new apartment at Higashi Ojima, my boss accompanied me to select the house. Foreigners may often face problem to find a house in Japan. Many house owners turn their face against foreigners. If approached through a real estate agent, foreigner’s application may be turned down. I have heard of such problems in Japan, where it is difficult for foreign people to find a suitable apartment alone. Many of the house owners have problem in communicating with foreigners.
The language barrier is one of the biggest problems. Also the house owner thinks that due to improper language communication for day to day living, the foreigners may trouble the neighbors. Foreigners come from different background and may not be aware of the garbage disposal procedures and other social gatherings on which Japanese people mix together and contribute to the cleanliness of the building. Japanese house owner is more worried about the interpersonal relationship of the foreigners with local Japanese. Very often this attitude of Japanese people is highlighted as discrimination and racism of Japanese people towards foreigners. If we meet this land owner individually, he is very polite and nice talking and may not have any false prejudice inside. He just wanted to avoid complications (communicating in English with foreigners is a complicated thing for many Japanese people – true!)
Anyway, coming back to our discussion on Japanese houses, the Tatami laid Japanese houses represents Japan’s simplicity even at the height of technological advancements and achievements. Tatami reminds us the nature’s presence inside a Japanese house. Finally at night, for sleeping, we withdraw ourselves from all the modern life stresses and interpersonal strains and go back to the nature! That is a great idea behind Tatami.
Tatami were a symbol of luxury item for the wealthy at a time when lower class people’s houses had mat covered dirt floors. Tatami were gradually popularized and finally reached the homes of commoners around 300 years ago. Otherwise my house won’t have built with a Tatami floored bedroom!
House rent is high in Tokyo. The house rent for my dwelling is $1150 per month, including the maintenance charges. This home is just enough for my family with two kids. In Japan, it is tagged as 1LDK. This means the house is with One bed room, one living room, one Dining hall, one Kitchen. Kitchen is always a part of extension of the dining hall. If we go for more comfort, half of the salary will be consumed by the house owner!
The language barrier is one of the biggest problems. Also the house owner thinks that due to improper language communication for day to day living, the foreigners may trouble the neighbors. Foreigners come from different background and may not be aware of the garbage disposal procedures and other social gatherings on which Japanese people mix together and contribute to the cleanliness of the building. Japanese house owner is more worried about the interpersonal relationship of the foreigners with local Japanese. Very often this attitude of Japanese people is highlighted as discrimination and racism of Japanese people towards foreigners. If we meet this land owner individually, he is very polite and nice talking and may not have any false prejudice inside. He just wanted to avoid complications (communicating in English with foreigners is a complicated thing for many Japanese people – true!)
Anyway, coming back to our discussion on Japanese houses, the Tatami laid Japanese houses represents Japan’s simplicity even at the height of technological advancements and achievements. Tatami reminds us the nature’s presence inside a Japanese house. Finally at night, for sleeping, we withdraw ourselves from all the modern life stresses and interpersonal strains and go back to the nature! That is a great idea behind Tatami.
Tatami were a symbol of luxury item for the wealthy at a time when lower class people’s houses had mat covered dirt floors. Tatami were gradually popularized and finally reached the homes of commoners around 300 years ago. Otherwise my house won’t have built with a Tatami floored bedroom!
House rent is high in Tokyo. The house rent for my dwelling is $1150 per month, including the maintenance charges. This home is just enough for my family with two kids. In Japan, it is tagged as 1LDK. This means the house is with One bed room, one living room, one Dining hall, one Kitchen. Kitchen is always a part of extension of the dining hall. If we go for more comfort, half of the salary will be consumed by the house owner!
If you are looking for a rented home: http://www.propertyworld.com/_Japan
Nice post. The attitude of fudosan (real estate) really depends on.... I do not know what. Here is my own personal experience. While I was in Tsukuba I lived in the same house for seven years. After every two years, I had to renew my contract with the fudosan. For six years I had absolutely no problem. Somewhere around my sixth year of stay in that house, the fudosan changed their policy, that is no-foreigners rule. The secretary of the place where I worked confirmed with the fudosan that it had nothing to do with me personally, like no noise, no garbage problem, no language problem, no payment problem.... So my boss (Japanese), who was my guarantor, took this as a personal insult and the fudosan company had some hard time with my boss :). My boss is a very well known physicist and used all his power(!!!) to try to stop such practice of no-foreigners. It worked for me but I am not sure how much the fudosan are actually following it. I guess I acted as a coward and took boss's help instead of doing anything myself. So you see, such anti-foreinger thing, as sad as it is to hear, does exist. But I guess it is really very very less, and is compensated by a lot of very nice Japanese people around. My boss was a superb man. Some of my best research output was while working in his laboratory. That is possible only when we feel the sense of belonging. My hubby, for that matter, is also a Japanese. It had taken me 8.5 years of living here in Japan to experince such a negative attitude towards me. But overall, I have had wonderful experiences here.
ReplyDeleteI have to accept when you say this. I have very few experience with Japanese people and I am yet to meet some Japanese guy who hates foreigners.
ReplyDeleteI believe, the negative feelings against foreigners or outsiders is not only limited to Japan. It is there everywhere in the world, even in India within Indians themselves. I had hard time in Aurangabad, Maharashtra searching for a room when I was a bachelor and employed far away from my state. Why to blame Japanese attitude only? Unfortunately some section of every society keeps this attitude towards outsiders.
Is it not worst in English dominated countries like Australia, US, South Africa, Britain etc. That is the reason I wrote in one post that it was not so deep in the history that British people proudly hung a board in front of their houses with "No entry for Indians and dogs".
So, let us accept the fact that discrimination and racism are part of some section of every society. I stress only on one point that Japan is fairly good to foreigners compared to many other western nations, at a time when Japan have many things to feel proud of themselves. That proud feelings and resultant prejudice breed racism and discriminatory feelings against other nationalities.
So far I have not faced any direct or indirect discrimination only because I am a foreigner. If I encounter such racist or discriminatory attitude, I will not hesitate to declare it through this blog.
Well, I also wanted to stress the point that it is a very minor issue and can occur in any society. But while writing the pervious comment, I forgot to write it and the comment became too long....
ReplyDeleteAnd I really do not think Japanese people (if at all) have 'hatred' towards foreinger. It is more like mistrust. Well, we foreigners are known to do a lot of misdeeds here and do not follow the society rules:(
If we wish to stay here, we might as well follow their socity rules instead of imposing our rules here.
And it is true why blame them, we have a lot of such problems in India itself. I just wanted to say that it takes all kind of people to make a society, anywhere in the world. By the way, I love Japan.
Well, I do not want to sound rude or anything. But I just want to be extremely honest. It is not exactly true that Japanese people have some sort of prejudice against foreigners. To be exact, almost every race has a varying degree of prejudice against Indians. Even in my country, our people do not have an entirely positive impression of the Indians (which I think is stupid and immature).
ReplyDeleteProbably it is part of the human nature to discriminate people in terms of skin color, wealth of country, physical appearances and whatever comes infront of them as difference.
ReplyDeleteWhy to limit the Indians get discriminated by foreigners!! In India itself, Indians are desperately discriminated in the form of castes by some sections of Indians and some of them have been treated not better than animals even today.
We as Indians can deny the facts of discrimination within our own country, but truth prevails. Veritas vos liberabit. Let us admit that truth a million times till it becomes a burning issue in peoples' mind. As you the Anonymous friend told here, "Even in my country, our people do not have an entirely positive impression of the Indians (which I think is stupid and immature)" shows some degree of bias. It is quite natural and psychologically justifiable.
But as far as my experience goes Japanese people's attitude towards Indians are better than their attitude towards people from Europe/US/Australia/NZ or other East Asian countries. It seems their prejudice is not based on skin color, but on many other factors which includes culture, history, and ofcourse looks.
I am not much sure. Somebody has to correct me here. expert comments please!
hi jaya-san, do you really think racism is too strong in Japan? I am a Malaysian who lived 5 years in Tokyo. I feel Indian people do not face any kind of discrimination in Japan. Infact, Indians have good reputation in Tokyo as the Indians in Japan are mainly highly skilled engineers and professionals. Their pay is also much higher than local Japanese people when they work for multinational companies.
ReplyDeleteCompared to the discriminations based on skin color that Indian people may face from some criminals in other south east asian countries, living in japan is a good experience for Indians, I feel. what is your opinion?
Not so recently, you also might have heard of the some sections of migrated indians in Malaysia went for some kind of political aggressions due to the feelings that they are discriminated in Malaysia. Whatever be the truth behind those issues, as a Malaysian that also having Chinese roots, I have observed while I was in Japan, Japanese people have special preference to Indians.
I am not sure what are the political reasons for this favor. I heard from some of my Japanese friends at that time that Japan supported Indian people to fight against British military and formed a temporary government. As you know Japan was eager to colonize south east asian countries during second world war, but they helped Indians to fight against British. Japan never tried to capture India. The difference is there. The friendly attitude of Japanese people towards Indians is obvious. Is that due to the influence of Buddhism?
If you can give some historical clues, I am interested to know.
Hey Jay,
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Since I am looking for an apartment I can confirm that it is a daunting task.
Cheers
Amod
Great blog post! I don’t understand how long it will require me to obtain through all of them!
ReplyDeletehouses for sale in vaughan