suburban Japan 2014+
Being Neighbourly in Suburban Japan, 2014+ Not so much a trip, this one, more a life experience…
You may have noticed that Japanese people are very precise. For us, recycling might stretch to a bottle bank outside Sainsbury’s and someone coming round for old newspapers once in a while. Not forgetting the trumpet call of the wounded elephant in yesteryear’s street as the rag and bone man came calling. Anything from a bag of old woollens to a decrepit brass bedstead was accepted. In return you were given an uninflated balloon or two (what?!).
Upon registering at the Mihama Ward Citizen Centre (everyone new to the area had to register) you were given a handy 12-page brochure on the essence of good citizenship and exemplary neighbourliness in Mihama-ku. Eight of those pages were about how to put the bins out. It is so complicated that there were coloured diagrams with pictures of everyday rubbish and lots of arrows giving you a step-by-step guide of what to do with it.
Every bottle had to be rinsed when finished before scrubbing the label off and setting the cap/top to one side. This applied to cartons, yoghurt pots, plastic jars and glass bottles alike. Paper had to be separated from cellophane; cardboard folded, cut into squares then tied into bundles with string. There were diagrams in the pamphlet for the cardboard Blue Peter exercise, including tips on where to get the correct string from. All of this detritus gets stacked in the house ready to go into different coloured refuse bags which you buy at the shops. None of this ‘bung it in the old Tesco's bag and tie it at the top’ malarky. You then had to wait for the correct bag to be put out for the bin men. Green was Tuesdays I noted, also memorising the paragraph which told you that you can’t put the bag out the night before for fear of attracting rodents (rats in Japan – I don’t think so), or you’ll be reported. All of these chores were shared between myself and my other half on a non-50-50 basis.
When we moved in, my boss from work took us to call on each neighbour to introduce ourselves and offer a gift, as is the custom. This involved not a lot of chat but an awful lot of bowing. “Those new foreigners are a bit tidy at bowing dear, I think I’ve cricked my back, mind.” The gift looked like a tin of biscuits but who knows, hidden it its quality wrapping paper as it was - the paper hinted at a higher value than the contents to be honest – guaranteed to impress the neighbours. Our side was all grins and bows, theirs was more bows with a hint of nervous oh-no!
At the community centre we had to sign up for the action teams in our street. When leaves or snow falls the neighbours all pile out into the road in their street clean-up teams. Needless to say, I did not actually make a team and knowingly made myself scarce when a typhoon came, for fear of being named as first sub. My dear wife was in the grass verge cutting team as well as the ‘clean the bin area’ gang – for the latter she received a personal demo of how to do it, before snagging the much sought after (?) Friday slot. I’d like to say that I am envious of all this camaraderie but alas...
We also had the ‘what to do if we have a tsunami-earthquake-typhoon’ ladies call round one evening, there were two of them. They helped me fill in a form which tells them what I will do in the event of each threat. “What’s Japanese for ‘run away’?" I politely enquired. They obliged by showing us exactly where we were supposed to run away to, with our forever suitcase ready under the stairs and packed with handy things like spare undies, plus a 10,000-yen note. It was a secondary school across the road, making sure we bagged some floor-space in the gymnasium upstairs.
Our elderly next-door neighbours used to look on cautiously over their garden gate. They were clearly uncomfortable about having foreigners next door, but they never said anything, just scurried inside if we opened to door to leave the house. We did spot them sniffing our empty wine bottles to see if we have cleaned them thoroughly though. I think we passed. On one occasion I was called into the office at work about a neighbour’s complaint (I think it was them). Apparently, there was ghostly music emanating from our house one Saturday evening – very unsettling. That was Joni Mitchell, I reassured my boss, although I could see where they were coming from.
There was an ATM down the road which was essential in the days when showing a debit card to buy something would have produced a quizzical look. How do you get money out of an ATM when all the things to press are in Japanese and you only get three goes or you lose your card? This is similar to how to get the microwave at home to heat anything up. Options always seemed to produce only ‘raw’ or ‘cinder’.
The ATM reminded me of that game, Whack-a-mole, where heads pop up and you have to bash them down again with a mallet. Trying to withdraw money caused an adrenalin rush as you poked the square buttons excitedly. If there were two of you, you’d giggle as you ran off with your three 10,000-yen notes as if you have won a prize. In time you learn that 10,000 is just ㄉ so it was a case of pressing the blue tab with that on it, not too often mind, and hoping for the best. You remember that old chestnut, “If there is no-one in the forest to hear a tree fall, did it make a sound?” I frequently thought this: “If you read a sign in Japanese and understood not one word of it did you actually read it?” What if it said, “Do not read this sign?” Have you committed an offence?
Strangely, there were teams of older folks who traipsed up and down the streets in the evening banging sticks together. This was the signal that all was safe in the neighbourhood. They looked a friendly bunch and quite possibly not who you would choose as a deterrent for street crime or to tackle some baddies in the act of breaking and entering. Maybe those sticks were nunchakus – what if? What might you steal in our street anyway? Zimmer frames, hearing aids and mobility parking stickers, I suppose. Ruthless baddies of the grandad variety!
Going for a walk of a winter’s evening, down the road, round the park, and past the 7-Eleven, was a routine, almost a daily ritual, aimed at recharging for the next day and helping with digestion. As the weather swirled round – Japan knows how to do weather – not once did we ever cross paths with any of the neighbours – with anyone at all, to be honest. For sure, it was 8.30 pm, so well past bedtime. Japan knows how to do humdrum suburbs. If you left the house at 6.00 am, worked all day then caught the 7.00 pm train home before falling asleep in front of the TV with your bento on your lap, you’d know how to do suburbs too!
As for the actual neighbourhood, it was a 15-minute walk to Kemigawahama JR Station on the Keiyo Line (10 if you had a train to catch or if it was pouring down), and about a 10-minute cycle the other way to the gym next to Inagekaigan JR Station, also on the Keiyo Line. The streets contained rows of unattractive, uniform four-storey blocks of apartments with the occasional (slightly) higher-rise buildings and sections of detached houses for those who had done a little better in life. You couldn't get more suburban if you tried your best with an online town-building game. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the whole area was put together on the original Sim City!
It wasn't all doom and gloom though, the adjacent urban schemes included Makuhari, an up and coming area containing the Makuhari Messe (a convention centre with a 9,000 capacity), the ZOZO Marine baseball stadium (Go Chiba Marines!), a huge Aeon Mall, and many izakayas and eateries. All that was one stop from us and about 30 minutes by train to Tokyo JR Station, but if you happened to say, 'I live in Tokyo,' you would be quickly corrected and reminded that you live in Chiba Prefecture, actually!
You may have noticed that Japanese people are very precise. For us, recycling might stretch to a bottle bank outside Sainsbury’s and someone coming round for old newspapers once in a while. Not forgetting the trumpet call of the wounded elephant in yesteryear’s street as the rag and bone man came calling. Anything from a bag of old woollens to a decrepit brass bedstead was accepted. In return you were given an uninflated balloon or two (what?!).
Upon registering at the Mihama Ward Citizen Centre (everyone new to the area had to register) you were given a handy 12-page brochure on the essence of good citizenship and exemplary neighbourliness in Mihama-ku. Eight of those pages were about how to put the bins out. It is so complicated that there were coloured diagrams with pictures of everyday rubbish and lots of arrows giving you a step-by-step guide of what to do with it.
Every bottle had to be rinsed when finished before scrubbing the label off and setting the cap/top to one side. This applied to cartons, yoghurt pots, plastic jars and glass bottles alike. Paper had to be separated from cellophane; cardboard folded, cut into squares then tied into bundles with string. There were diagrams in the pamphlet for the cardboard Blue Peter exercise, including tips on where to get the correct string from. All of this detritus gets stacked in the house ready to go into different coloured refuse bags which you buy at the shops. None of this ‘bung it in the old Tesco's bag and tie it at the top’ malarky. You then had to wait for the correct bag to be put out for the bin men. Green was Tuesdays I noted, also memorising the paragraph which told you that you can’t put the bag out the night before for fear of attracting rodents (rats in Japan – I don’t think so), or you’ll be reported. All of these chores were shared between myself and my other half on a non-50-50 basis.
When we moved in, my boss from work took us to call on each neighbour to introduce ourselves and offer a gift, as is the custom. This involved not a lot of chat but an awful lot of bowing. “Those new foreigners are a bit tidy at bowing dear, I think I’ve cricked my back, mind.” The gift looked like a tin of biscuits but who knows, hidden it its quality wrapping paper as it was - the paper hinted at a higher value than the contents to be honest – guaranteed to impress the neighbours. Our side was all grins and bows, theirs was more bows with a hint of nervous oh-no!
At the community centre we had to sign up for the action teams in our street. When leaves or snow falls the neighbours all pile out into the road in their street clean-up teams. Needless to say, I did not actually make a team and knowingly made myself scarce when a typhoon came, for fear of being named as first sub. My dear wife was in the grass verge cutting team as well as the ‘clean the bin area’ gang – for the latter she received a personal demo of how to do it, before snagging the much sought after (?) Friday slot. I’d like to say that I am envious of all this camaraderie but alas...
We also had the ‘what to do if we have a tsunami-earthquake-typhoon’ ladies call round one evening, there were two of them. They helped me fill in a form which tells them what I will do in the event of each threat. “What’s Japanese for ‘run away’?" I politely enquired. They obliged by showing us exactly where we were supposed to run away to, with our forever suitcase ready under the stairs and packed with handy things like spare undies, plus a 10,000-yen note. It was a secondary school across the road, making sure we bagged some floor-space in the gymnasium upstairs.
Our elderly next-door neighbours used to look on cautiously over their garden gate. They were clearly uncomfortable about having foreigners next door, but they never said anything, just scurried inside if we opened to door to leave the house. We did spot them sniffing our empty wine bottles to see if we have cleaned them thoroughly though. I think we passed. On one occasion I was called into the office at work about a neighbour’s complaint (I think it was them). Apparently, there was ghostly music emanating from our house one Saturday evening – very unsettling. That was Joni Mitchell, I reassured my boss, although I could see where they were coming from.
There was an ATM down the road which was essential in the days when showing a debit card to buy something would have produced a quizzical look. How do you get money out of an ATM when all the things to press are in Japanese and you only get three goes or you lose your card? This is similar to how to get the microwave at home to heat anything up. Options always seemed to produce only ‘raw’ or ‘cinder’.
The ATM reminded me of that game, Whack-a-mole, where heads pop up and you have to bash them down again with a mallet. Trying to withdraw money caused an adrenalin rush as you poked the square buttons excitedly. If there were two of you, you’d giggle as you ran off with your three 10,000-yen notes as if you have won a prize. In time you learn that 10,000 is just ㄉ so it was a case of pressing the blue tab with that on it, not too often mind, and hoping for the best. You remember that old chestnut, “If there is no-one in the forest to hear a tree fall, did it make a sound?” I frequently thought this: “If you read a sign in Japanese and understood not one word of it did you actually read it?” What if it said, “Do not read this sign?” Have you committed an offence?
Strangely, there were teams of older folks who traipsed up and down the streets in the evening banging sticks together. This was the signal that all was safe in the neighbourhood. They looked a friendly bunch and quite possibly not who you would choose as a deterrent for street crime or to tackle some baddies in the act of breaking and entering. Maybe those sticks were nunchakus – what if? What might you steal in our street anyway? Zimmer frames, hearing aids and mobility parking stickers, I suppose. Ruthless baddies of the grandad variety!
Going for a walk of a winter’s evening, down the road, round the park, and past the 7-Eleven, was a routine, almost a daily ritual, aimed at recharging for the next day and helping with digestion. As the weather swirled round – Japan knows how to do weather – not once did we ever cross paths with any of the neighbours – with anyone at all, to be honest. For sure, it was 8.30 pm, so well past bedtime. Japan knows how to do humdrum suburbs. If you left the house at 6.00 am, worked all day then caught the 7.00 pm train home before falling asleep in front of the TV with your bento on your lap, you’d know how to do suburbs too!
As for the actual neighbourhood, it was a 15-minute walk to Kemigawahama JR Station on the Keiyo Line (10 if you had a train to catch or if it was pouring down), and about a 10-minute cycle the other way to the gym next to Inagekaigan JR Station, also on the Keiyo Line. The streets contained rows of unattractive, uniform four-storey blocks of apartments with the occasional (slightly) higher-rise buildings and sections of detached houses for those who had done a little better in life. You couldn't get more suburban if you tried your best with an online town-building game. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the whole area was put together on the original Sim City!
It wasn't all doom and gloom though, the adjacent urban schemes included Makuhari, an up and coming area containing the Makuhari Messe (a convention centre with a 9,000 capacity), the ZOZO Marine baseball stadium (Go Chiba Marines!), a huge Aeon Mall, and many izakayas and eateries. All that was one stop from us and about 30 minutes by train to Tokyo JR Station, but if you happened to say, 'I live in Tokyo,' you would be quickly corrected and reminded that you live in Chiba Prefecture, actually!
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