Tatami & Shoji
I just moved into a new place in the middle of Tokyo. It's a room in a big gaijin (foreigner) guesthouse, so we share all the common areas.
I have a traditional japanese room (peace room in Japanese), with tatami mats and shoji sliding doors. Tatami mats are the thick straw mats about 1m x 2m that cover the floor (my room is 10 of them; that's how they measure things here). Shoji screens are the sliding doors with a thin wooden grid across them (each square is about 6 inches wide), covered in rice paper. They slide to the side and open up to an indoor porch looking out into a garden with trees and semi-artistically placed rocks. (it's a rental, so you only get semi). It's really nice, but the tatami and shoji aren't very good for keeping the room warm, and the room is a little bit too big for the AC unit to keep up.
I like it, though. It's nice to live in someplace more traditional, instead of a giant faceless apartment building (also common here).
The house next door is deserted, apparently because one of the Aum cult families used to live there (the Aum Shinrikyo cult was responsible for the Sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring 6000), so no Japanese want to live in the house now. Kind of spooky, and quite a contrast to my "peace room".
These kinds of gaijin houses are quite popular with short term foreigners, because the Japanese housing market is awash with rules and regulations. For instance, in order to rent an apartment, you need to have a Japanese guarantor who can be financially responsible for your rent. Most of the hassle is actually just the way they do leases, rather than any particular rules. Unlike the states, almost all leases have identical lengths and terms. In order to rent an apartment, you have to commit to a 2 year lease, put down two months of "key money" (shikikin - similar to a deposit, although you probably won't get any back), pay one month's rent for the rental agency fee, pay the first month's rent, and pay one month's rent as a "gift" to the landlord. Since housing is very expensive in Tokyo, this can be quite a bundle, especially when you're just moving into the country.
Given how much hassle renting involves, plus the fact that gaijin guesthouses come furnished, it's no wonder they're so popular here.
I have a traditional japanese room (peace room in Japanese), with tatami mats and shoji sliding doors. Tatami mats are the thick straw mats about 1m x 2m that cover the floor (my room is 10 of them; that's how they measure things here). Shoji screens are the sliding doors with a thin wooden grid across them (each square is about 6 inches wide), covered in rice paper. They slide to the side and open up to an indoor porch looking out into a garden with trees and semi-artistically placed rocks. (it's a rental, so you only get semi). It's really nice, but the tatami and shoji aren't very good for keeping the room warm, and the room is a little bit too big for the AC unit to keep up.
I like it, though. It's nice to live in someplace more traditional, instead of a giant faceless apartment building (also common here).
The house next door is deserted, apparently because one of the Aum cult families used to live there (the Aum Shinrikyo cult was responsible for the Sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1995, killing 12 people and injuring 6000), so no Japanese want to live in the house now. Kind of spooky, and quite a contrast to my "peace room".
These kinds of gaijin houses are quite popular with short term foreigners, because the Japanese housing market is awash with rules and regulations. For instance, in order to rent an apartment, you need to have a Japanese guarantor who can be financially responsible for your rent. Most of the hassle is actually just the way they do leases, rather than any particular rules. Unlike the states, almost all leases have identical lengths and terms. In order to rent an apartment, you have to commit to a 2 year lease, put down two months of "key money" (shikikin - similar to a deposit, although you probably won't get any back), pay one month's rent for the rental agency fee, pay the first month's rent, and pay one month's rent as a "gift" to the landlord. Since housing is very expensive in Tokyo, this can be quite a bundle, especially when you're just moving into the country.
Given how much hassle renting involves, plus the fact that gaijin guesthouses come furnished, it's no wonder they're so popular here.
posted by Don at 11:00 PM
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