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When on tour, I often get questioned about my apartment and the housing condition in Japan. ‘Capsule hotels‘ and ‘Manga Cafés‘ have led westerners to believe that the Japanese live in shoe boxes. While it is true that, on the same income, Japanese workers settle for less space than their fellow westerners, decent living standards is still affordable. With this in mind, if you ever invite your Japanese friends over, please make them feel at home:
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Like most Japanese, my wife and I went through a local real estate agency to seek for help on our quest for a love nest. At first, odd features endemic to Japanese houses lead me astray. For example, tatami mats are now seldom found in modern buildings; yet they are still commonly used as unit of measurement. So how big is a 3×6 tatami mats apartment? Hard to say when the size of a mat depends on the region you live in!
Eventually, finding a place you enjoy living in is no different over here: it’s a very, very tedious task. Already accustomed to the country’s overall taste for efficiency, I was shocked when I realised how incompetent brokers are in Japan. The fundamental part of their job is to draw the floor plans but even this seems to be arduous work. There even is a book compiling all those plans made by staff half asleep from agencies around the country: ‘hen na madori‘.
