Japanese Life Today

Japanese Life Today

Housing
Mr. Katoh : where's the paper?
mrs. Katoh : it's on top of the television
Mr. Katoh : there's a lot of leaflets for flat in it, aren't there?
Mrs. Katoh we've been living here for ten years now. the children are getting bigger and there seems to be less and less room. let's buy a house this year. Masao's starting junior high school next year, too..
Masao (the Katoh's son) : yes, i want my own room for studying soon, too. kazuko's always disturbing me.
Mrs. Katoh: well, that can't be helped. kazuko's only in her second year at elementary school, you know.
Kazuko (the Katoh's daughter) : I'd like a house with a big garden. then I could play in it as much as I liked, and we could get a dog, too, couldn't we?
Mrs. Katoh : That's Right. A house in the suburbs, it would be ideal for the childern, wouldn't it? but if we lived in the suburbs, it would take daddy a long time to go to work, and living in town is much handier for shopping things.
Mr. Katoh : I don't think we could afford a house with garden, you know. you can't get anything under 35 million yen these days. we could probably get a flat somehow or other.
here, look at this advertisement. 28 million yen for a flat with three room, and a living room and a dinning-kitchen near a station.
Mrs. Katoh : You have to pay ten million yen down and then sixty-five thousand yen a month, don't you? that's not much different from the rent on this flat. it looks like we could afford that.

Mr. Katoh is a salaried worker living in the city. he lives with his wife and two children in a rented flat with two rooms and a dinning-kitchen. The children are growing up, and he is thinking of moving to somewhere slightly bigger.
For more than a thousand years, the Japanese lived in natural surroundings in houses made of "wood and paper, " and even now, many people would prefer to live in a wooden house with a garden.
however, as well as wooden houses, more and more houses are now being built of steel and concrete, and the ratio of wooden to ferroconcrete dwellings now stands at 8 to 2. the number of people, especially young people, living in ferroconcrete flats in on the increase.
The housing situation in Japan differs somewhat between the city and the countryside. The the cities are densely built-up, and there many high-rise housing complexes. Of the total population of 120 million, approximately half live in or around on the three largest cities, Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, and this is cause of the extremely high price of building land in these areas.
In the countryside, however, houses can be seen even now scattered thinly in the fields. compared with the towns, there are many more large houses; many have only one or two stories , and most are made of wood.
But however remote there are, almost all houses are supplied with gas, electricity and water. Inside, the houses are modern, and it is much easier than it used to be for housewives to manage their households.
Next, let us take a look at the home ownership ratio.
In Japan, 60% of families own their own house. more than 80% of families running their own businesses have their own house, but more than 50% of salaried workers live in rented accommodation. the average size of a rented dwelling is 40 sq.m., half the average siza of all dwelling in Japan.
This is why, even if they live in rented accommodation when young, many salaried workers buy their own house when they are over forty and the children are growing up. It is said that these workers, owning their own home is like an impossible dream. Compared with the clothing and food situation,the housing situation in Japan is still in need of improvement. Especially in the cities, the problems of high cost, lack of space and distance from the workplace still remain to be solved.
kotowaza= Japanese Proverbs
住めば都
Sumeba Miyako : Theres's no place like home
Sumeba -- sumu : to live Miyako : the capital city of a country
This saying means that however remote or out-of-the-way the place you live in. if you there long enough, it becomes your home and a good place to be. The word miyako (capital) in the saying means the best place to live for you; your own place. when you first move to a new place, you may feel unsettled and dissatisfied, but almost without noticing it, you gradually adapt yourself to your new surrounding and one day realize that you are enjoying life there. Two similar sayings with the same meaning are "Sumeb miyako no kaze ga fuku" and "Sumeba miyako de hana ga saku."

高値の花
Takane no hana : A prize beyond one's reach
Takane: a lofty mountain. Hana: a flower
This saying's meaning is a flower blooming on the peak of a high mountain; in the words, something which is impossible to make one's own however much one wants it. There is a flower at the inaccessible heights of a precipitous cliff, and however hard you try to reach it, you cannot do so. In the same way, something are just too fabulously expensive or too good to be attained, however badly one desires them. for example:
Husband : "what a superb house that is. I wouldn't mind living there."
Wife : "Mmm< me too. But we couldn't possibly afford a place like that." 笑う門には福来る Warau kado ni wa fuku kitaru: Fortune comes in by a merry gate Warau: to laugh. Kado: gate or houses. Fuku: good fortune Kitaru-->kuru : to come.
The meaning of this saying is that good luck will come naturally to a household in which there is always laughter. People cry when they are sad and laugh when they are happy. Similarly, a person who is always moaning or scowling is unlikely to receive much good fortune, while someone who is always wearing a smile will probably get more than his fair share. The saying tells us that it is important to smile and appear happy whenever coming into contact with others, not just when one is actually feeling happy. Other similar sayings are "warau kao ni ya tatazu" and "warai wa hito no kusuri." Both these sayings urge us never to banish smiles and laughter from our homes.