My partner and I are planning to buy housing and we have finalized to some options, but haven’t decided on whether mansion or house (一戸建て) is better as we don’t have any preference that prompts us to choose one side or the other. However, we heard that if we live in a house, social interaction with neighborhood can be quite tiring (gomi toban etc.)
My partner and I are both non-Japanese in our 20s and work long hours with no kids, so we don’t really want to get too invested in earning neighbors’ favor.
From your experience, how easy it is for foreigners to keep a minimum interaction with neighborhood? Can it become really tiring if you are not very outgoing type?
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I think it’s pretty easy even for Japanese to keep a minimum-to-low interaction with the neighborhood. In our neighborhood, other than the proper go-aisatsu when we run into each other, everyone is pretty minimal interaction. The most interaction is around passing around the gomi-touban and various kairan-ban.
Every decade or so the baton of being the block leader might fall on us, which is a bit of work. However most of it is around putting together the flyers and whatnot that go into the kairan-ban, so doesn’t involve doing a lot of interacting, sitting in meetings etc.
Also there are a couple of roles in the neighborhood organization that do require sitting in regular meetings, again where you might get tapped once in a decade. But you might be able to get a pass on those if you don’t feel you could keep up with the language, or if work keeps you so busy it’s impossible to attend evening meetings, etc.
Probably depends on where you live. Around Tokyo or 地方
This country has so many hikikomori . At least you might greet people here and there. You’ll be fine . But check the area. There are still some duties often. For example kairan ban. Or manage trash area and gather fees, one year every x years. You probably can ask the estate. Even those areas close interaction isn’t necessary.
We’ve had our house for a few years and have absolutely zero neighborhood interaction. Being foreigner couple maybe helps…? I don’t think it’s relevant tho, all the neighbors seem to keep to themselves. The garbage is picked from each lot in our area and I would have hated to live somewhere with communal collection spot and anything that comes with it.
This is in Osaka.
Besides the generic “(insert current weather condition) ですね” or passing comment with my neighbors I generally don’t interact with them.
Being the Gomi-toban isn’t pleasant on cold mornings, but only occurs once every few months.
Neighborhood meetings are optional where I live but based on the time I did go, it was more of a social gathering/farmer talk.
As others have said it depends where and the type of neighborhood. Where my wife is from (very rural Kagoshima), they are all sorts of strict on attending those meetings. I would think that in the city everyone is working long hours and wouldn’t have time for neighborhood stuff.
there are 10 houses on my street, nobody wants to interact. Just a ohayougozaimasu or konnichiwa, that’s all. There is river cleaning once a month on the third Sunday at 7a.m, i haven’t been in around a year though, i pay 500yen each time i miss it. Prob think im some kind of lazy gaijin, oh well.
You’ll have way more interaction in a mansion. In a house maybe someone will slip a clipboard through your letterbox asking you to maintain the gomi station a couple of times a year and you’ll have to sign it and pass it on to the next house (no interaction needed), and maybe once a year someone will ask for neighborhood fees. Maybe that same person will give out emergency supplies for earthquakes paid for with those fees. If you don’t want to pay, that’ll probably be the last you hear from them.
If I didn’t have kids I probably wouldn’t know anyone near me – but since I have kids, every Tom, Dick and Harry knows us and interacts with us. (Maybe that should be every Tomoko, Daiichi, and Hiro).
Depends on how rural you are talking about. The neighborhood relations in the countryside can be pretty intense, good and bad. But even there you can be pretty hands off, especially being foreigners.
My Japanese husband and I live in a house in a suburban neighborhood. We don’t get that involved with our neighbors but we get along well with them when we’re out, as in walking our dogs. The neighborhood association used to bug us about getting involved with group activities for the neighborhood but they finally gave up because we always declined. All things considered, I’m actually more friendly with our neighbors than he is.
Depends on where. Roppongi or Rausu…
Don’t get spooked by the antisocial people who post here. Tons of Japanese people themselves are antisocial shut-ins, so it’s fine if you don’t talk to anyone.
Depends on the area.
My complex’s 自治会 has a rule that everyone takes turn becoming active member (会長、班長、会計、書記, etc.), but because there are 300+ families where I live, unless I can live past 100 years, this turn will come probably once in my lifetime, or even never.
Gomi toban isn’t so bad, as long as crows don’t mess up your trash area, almost no work other than brush it wash the area.
Other than that, the normal “good morning” if you see them, and if you have no children, even less interactions, as one of the ways adults make friends here is through their children.
I just gave the usual towel packs to my adjacent neighbors + 1 house out, apologized for any noise / trucks in the way during moving (1 car width street), and say hello occasionally when I see them outside.
I’ve got to clean the communal trash area once a year, and that’s about it.
Whether it’s a new build in a planned area of new builds (subdivisions/bunjoo), the size/scope of it if it is, and possibly the location/spot within the actual set of houses can matter. With big new subdivisions you’ll have everyone moving in all at once, and there are usually many families, so there can be lots of interactions because of that. Even if you don’t have kids you might have to interact at one point if your house is in one of the spots that they’ll likely end up being close by to play (so, facing the main inner road rather than a house on the edge). Older subdivisions may also have rules and jichitai in place, that will try to get you involved even if you buy an older house.
Personally, we bought an older house and have 0 interaction with our neighbors. The key is that our neighbors behind and next to us don’t face the same direction as us so we never interact coming in or out, and essentially use a short private road on out own. We literally never see our neighbors and enjoy our inkyo life. I imagine being in or next to a hatazao house (a house located behind another house, that has a long/thin strip of land next to the other house to gain access to the street) leads to more interactions and potential problems.