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The annual spring shuffle is in full swing. The new fiscal year sees people across the country starting new jobs, entering new schools, being transferred to new posts, moving into new housing – which makes, of course, for new neighbors. This can be good or bad. Mostly it’s bad, writes comedian Kimimaro Ayanokoji in Shukan Post (May 7-14).
His anecdotes are funny rather than bitter, with a suggestion that human beings wreak their havoc in all innocence rather than maliciously.
Case in point: A college co-ed moves into an apartment building, next door to a couple in their 40s. The husband works for a food company. The girl makes the rounds of the immediate neighbors, introducing herself and extending the customary greetings. The husband is impressed by the girl’s manners. “You can immediately tell a well-brought-up child,” he remarks to his wife, “from the way she expresses herself.”
The following Saturday the husband, getting ready to leave the house, says, “The girl next door wants to go to a department store but doesn’t know the neighborhood, so I thought I’d drive her over…” Well now, that’s strange, thinks the wife; he never offers to drive me anywhere.
The next day: “She’s going to a class reunion; I’ll just drive her over to the station.”
“If this is going to happen every weekend,” the wife thinks to herself, “I won’t put up with it!”
Does the new neighbor end up wrecking an old marriage? Fortunately, it doesn’t come to that. The very next weekend nips the drama in the bud. Seeing her husband sitting disconsolately in front of the TV, the wife says, “You’re not taking her anywhere today?”
“No,” the husband replies glumly, “she says her boyfriend is coming to pick her up.” Then, indignantly, “She’s been in Tokyo all of two weeks and already she has a boyfriend! How was that child brought up?”
Another of Ayanokoji’s stories is of a new neighbor at the office – a construction company employee transferred from Osaka. His family having remained at home, he finds himself reduced in Tokyo to temporary bachelorhood. Sympathizing is the 37-year-old employee at the next desk who invites him home for dinner – “my wife’s a great cook.” The wife, also 37, sees a button on her guest’s shirt about to come off and offers to sew it for him. The guest is duly grateful.
Two days later he returns while the husband is working late. “You told me I shouldn’t hesitate if I needed something.” What he needs is his laundry done; he’s carrying a paper bag full of it.
The wife says nothing ungracious, but later, when her husband comes home, she gives him an earful. “I should have flung it back in his face!” she shrills. “Oh, do it just this once,” says the husband, “for the company’s sake.”
“You always were a weakling,” fumes the wife. “You prove it in bed every night, don’t you?”
Where will this end? Unfortunately, the story breaks off there – deliberately, no doubt, to stimulate our imaginations.
© Japan Today
19 Comments
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Cyborg009
Hhhmm, this is an interesting article.
Sarge
"She's been in Tokyo all of two weeks and already she has a boyfriend!"
What took so long?
kirakira25
We`re about to move too. I pity the people on the 16th floor (beneath us) - we have 3 kids under 7 and the people we are buying from are all adults! Something tells me this is going to cost me a LOT of gift-snacks over the next few years....
goddog
I had new neighbors move in with a yapping dog, all day long, and they were not there. The dog is gone now. I fixed it when they got home.
bobbafett
what a lame article full of hypothetical scenarios that are mere meaningless unsubstantiated myths at best. I loved it!
usaexpat
Funny stories, in my neigborhood no one ever moves in. It's all the same Obasans that have lived here since my wife was a little girl. It's pretty nice, people watch out for our house and yell at the kids if they're doing something stupid. It's kinda like living in a neighborhood full of your favorite grandmas and great aunts.
Pukey2
When I moved in here, the whole block was full. It's not a large place. However, the apt on my left has been empty for a year, and so has the one above me. The person living below me moved out 2 months ago. It's getting lonelier here.
As for troubles - a year back, the idiot two floors down decided it would be a good idea to start 'singing' (I first mistook his voice for a tomcat) in the middle of the night. 2am Saturdays would have him playing his damn guitar too. I had to complain to the landlord twice before he stopped. The worse thing now is that certain people across the road (who have their own houses) seem fit to burn every damn piece of garbage during the weekends. I mean, come on, isn't that why we pay to have garbage men come here every morning - to take the garbage away. That, and the horrible grilled fish smell really ruins my laundry. Idiots.
Tessa
The worst neighbors I ever had were a married couple who had violent drunken fights every Saturday afternoon. They were really noisy. I couldn't have any friends over on the weekends.
tkoind2
When we moved I thought the late night dance parties, wild rendevous with cute neighbor girls in the hallways and 5am tuba practice would cause some problems with the new neighbors. But thankfully their all weekend fetish parties, tractor pull Saturdays and drug infused fighting took all the attention away from us.
This article is meaningless fluff and no more real than my paragraph. Bottom line, moving in Japan usually means getting a new place, maybe meeting neighbors if they are ever around and living in the same disconnected isolation as most of the people in Tokyo. No new friends and rarely anything particualary bad.
I have been in my new place for two years. I have met one family, one neighbor girl I say good morning to as we both leave around the same time. She looks terrified of me most of the time. And the owner's mom who is the only friendly soul in the building.
"Absolutely nothing" falls short of explaining just how little impact our moving in seems to have caused.
herefornow
“You always were a weakling,” fumes the wife. “You prove it in bed every night, don’t you?” Now that's funny. Rest of the article is nonsense, but this one quote made reading it worthwhile.
Seawolf
Well if I would have to prove myself every night to the same woman, that would weaken me too.
Anyway, no young single woman nowadays will go around to greet the neighbors when moving into an apartment block, because of fear one of them could be a freak, or a stalker in waiting etc. They will even write only her family name without the first name on the door, or might add a fictive male name to it.
thepro
Ummmm I guess the comedy of it was lost in translation...
usedtobeanyr
I just wish more parents realized that, NO, we don't all wish to hear your dumb kids scream for hours every day. Or, NO, your stupid little yap dog in the cart is not cute when he starts bariking at 5:00 AM when you walk him throug the courtyard so all 300 residents can be awoken! get a grip people it is not all about you! Seriously, how cab people be so clueless?????
Good_Jorb
If you have that much of a problem with noise, don't live in an apartment or leave in a "mature" apartment, that doesn't allow families and has strict noise restrictions.
A dog has to do his/her business, and sure parents would prefer that their children don't scream for hours. Get a grip it is not all about you, nimbyism is slowing killing community spirit.
chotto
Hehe! This made me smile!
“Oh, do it just this once,” says the husband, “for the company’s sake.”
Revealing.
“You always were a weakling,” fumes the wife. “You prove it in bed every night, don’t you?”
Good comeback!
jason6
I would prefer NO neighbors around me so I could be as loud and as late as I want, but since I have all four directions occupied I've learned to be civil, somewhat. Favorite "being a bad neighbor in Japan" memory: having my garbage returned to my doorstep because I hadn't sorted it well enough. Great welcoming gesture by the locals!
morriconelover
The second story seemed so strangely put together that i didnt really understood what it was about.
bdiego
In case someone missed it, these are stories told by a comedian. The delivery gets thrown off in translation. I'm sure it was much funnier originally. =)
gaijinfo
My neighbor has the longest, sexiest legs. I've seen her come home from work (at what I can only guess) at 6 AM sometimes by taxi, all dolled up in her work outfit, clearly demonstrating her nice figure.
I also run into her husband and kid on occasion.