So, I'm the Noisy Neighbor?

On a daily basis, I hear my upstairs neighbors going about the business of their daily life. I hear them dropping things, slamming doors, and seemingly tapping on the floor for no particular reason. On a few occasions, I've heard what sounds like someone tripping and falling like a dead weight onto the floor. Strangely though, I never hear any tenant's television, radio or telephone, so clearly only percussive sounds carry through the floor.

Part of living in a less than perfectly sound-proofed apartment is that these things are going to happen. I don't get mad at my neighbors or try to get them to quiet down. I also don't run off and complain to the landlord about it, though I have had to complain about former neighbors who threw dirty water onto their balcony and let it drip down onto my clean laundry that was hanging out to dry. Please note that I live in a 6-unit building (3 on top, 3 on the bottom) and I've only ever had Japanese neighbors. I know they're Japanese because it's the custom for new tenants to introduce themselves to nearby tenants in the same building upon moving in.

At any rate, I put up with daily thumping and banging and I don't moan or whine about it. About a month ago, between 9:00-9:30 pm, I was preparing dinner. On this particular occasion, I was making a chicken dish which required me to pound chicken breasts flat with a mallet. It probably takes about a minute to get each one to the desired thinness. Shortly after I started beating on the third breast, my neighbors started aggressively beating on the floor to let me know how bothersome I was being to them with my noise-making.

The implement of my evil noise-making, a rubber mallet, was actually a gag gift from a former co-worker who told me I could use it to beat some of my coworkers when I was frustrated. Little did he know I had more legal (thought certainly not more pragmatic) applications for his gift.

Not having much of a choice, I continued with dinner preparations and was treated to another round of listening to my annoyed neighbors beating on the floor. While I understand that it was probably no fun for them to endure 4 (separate) minutes of me pounding on something, keep in mind they weren't sitting in my living room (and it wasn't late at night). They are above me so there's a floor and some distance between us. Also, this was the pot calling the kettle black. I don't know what is up with their tapping, but it happens at least once a week for prolonged periods of time. It's like they're hanging hundreds of tiny picture frames on their walls one at a time.

This incident reminded me of something I've mentioned to my husband on more than one occasion while listening to my neighbors do routine things which cause us to hear lots of banging and thumping. I'm glad we're on the first floor. If my using that mallet bunched their tighty-whities, I can only imagine what walking around, dropping stuff accidentally and closing sliding doors would do to them.

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The chicken dish that I made is probably one of which many folks have a version, but I'm going to give my recipe for it nonetheless. It's very good fresh because the bacon gets a bit crispy, but is also good as leftovers. Note that my husband and I make it with American bacon which is saltier and smokier than Japanese bacon. My husband picks up about a four or so 1-lb. packages of Farmer John brand American bacon when he goes to Costco and they last us about 3-4 months. It can probably be made with Japanese bacon, but the taste will be a bit different.

This dish is one of the few things I can make with chicken breast meat which my husband likes. Not only can you never go wrong with anything which is wrapped in bacon, but beating on it to flatten it out makes the chicken nice and tender. I will not be held responsible though if your neighbors complain when you make it. ;-)

Bacon-wrapped Chicken Breasts:

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/2 pound/227 grams bacon (about 8 pieces) cut in half
• ~4 oz./113 grams mild cheese (I used Gouda or Mozzarella) cut into small chunks (about 1/2 inch or 1.27 cm)
  
• 8 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper

The breast on the upper right was the first one. Notice how nice and smooth it looks. They are placed in counter-clockwise order and you can see that my work got shoddier as I progressed. The last one is a mangled lump.

Grease a baking dish and set aside. Sandwich a chicken breast between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound with a mallet until about 1/4 inch/.6 cm thick. Try not to beat it until it tears. Leave it a little thicker rather than thinner if necessary. Mix the flour and spices together in a large, shallow bowl. Rinse one chicken piece at a time and thoroughly shake off the excess water. Dredge a damp breast on both sides in the flour shaking off the excess. Place a piece of cheese in the center and fold the short side in first then the long side. Try to enclose the cheese entirely in the breast. This should form a ball that is closed on the bottom. If it doesn't hold together, secure the ends with toothpicks though be very careful to remove them before eating. Place each completed breast in the baking dish.


Place the half strips of bacon over the tops of the chicken to cover. Covering it will keep the breasts moist through the baking process. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour (or more). Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F./175 degrees C. Bake the chicken (uncovered) for 50-60 minutes or until juices run clear and chicken is cooked through. This makes 6-8 servings depending on your appetite.


For my husband and I, half of one of these along with about 4 oz. (125 gr.) of rice and a vegetable makes a very nice meal, so it's not quite as evil as it may seem from a fat point of view. Half of one is about 2.5 oz. (70 g.) of chicken, 1 slice of bacon and .5 oz. (14 g.) of cheese. Most of the fat will cook out of the bacon and pool at the bottom of the baking dish so I recommend removing the breasts immediately rather than waiting until they get cold.

The Best of Landlords

The day before yesterday, a cable T.V. representative came to our apartment to look at our configuration and decide whether or not they could give us a free upgrade with more channels at a lower monthly rate. During the time the representative was here, we wanted to look into the possibility of getting fully-integrated telephone, internet, and cable T.V. services. Such a package would allow us to get a broadband upgrade and wireless connectivity and pay about $15 less a month than we do now from combined services. It sounds like a pretty good deal but there were complications to be considered that required more clarity of communication than we felt could be had with just my husband and I talking to the cable rep.

Since our landlord was responsible for this proposed change and he has to approve of any alterations to the apartment (such as holes knocked in walls to allow cables to be ran into the apartment), we wanted to be sure of all the details so we asked him to come over and interface with the cable representative. Because we had so many questions and the cable rep. had to keep calling someone else to answer them, the entire meeting took an hour and a half. Our landlord patiently sat on our bedroom floor dealing with technical questions that I'm sure baffled him (he's not a geek) and did his best to help us get it all ironed out for the duration.

At the end of all of this, he apologized to us for the inconvenience. To be honest, given some of our past interactions, I'd be surprised if he didn't give us a gift as that seems to be the pattern when he helps us and we put him out.

I get the feeling that our landlord is a rare jewel in the landscape of Japanese landlords with foreign tenants. I'm sure he must have been anxious to go back to his house (next door to us) and get back to whatever he was up to when we dragged him over to our apartment but he was polite, patient and had the air of someone who was pleased to be helping at all times. In the 18 years we've been his tenants, he has never once conveyed the idea that we're the least bit stupid because we are foreigners and don't know certain points about Japanese culture.

In fact, I'm nearly certain that his wife has silently cleaned up any garbage-related faux pas we've made in the past by squirreling away anything we've inappropriately put out and dealing with it herself at the appropriate time and in the correct manner. I'm nearly certain I once saw her carrying off recyclable cardboard we put out at the wrong time at one point. Rather than come knocking on our door and lecturing us, they spare us the embarrassment and just take care of it though I'm guessing we'd get a polite and meticulously-written note of advice if we did it on a regular basis.

This whole experience reinforces something that I've observed more than once about the general character of Japanese people which you rarely see in the United States. That is that Japanese people, by and large, will mask their impatience or discomfort if they feel displaying it will make the person they are with feel uncomfortable. It's something that some western people mistake for the Japanese being neurotic doormats or not asserting their needs for fear of upsetting the social applecart. It's not about a lack of emotional fortitude but about courtesy and consideration and it takes a great deal more strength of character to hold back on displaying negative emotions than to show them. While there are certainly a lot of Japanese people who fail to hold back and behave rather childishly and are confrontational, as a general rule, most are going to put your feelings above their own.

Cleaning On My Mind

Several things have put cleaning at the forefront of my mind as of late. For one thing, every time I pay the rent, I think about cleaning. Our landlord lives next door to us so we always drop by with the rent money around the 28th of each month. When I go in, I am presented with an absolutely immaculate entryway which leads into what appears to be an immaculate home. Granted, the landlord built a huge, new house about 8-10 years ago so their place is less than half the age of ours but it's definitely about more than age.

Usually, I walk into their spacious entryway (about 100 pairs of shoes could fit in their genkan without overlap or crowding) and hand over the money with a little booklet which they use to keep a record of our rent payment record. Each booklet lasts 2 years (the term of one rent contract) and they write the date and amount of payment on the page then stamp it with their name stamp (hanko). The inkan which makes the hanko isn't stored near the entryway because it's a very important item used for bank and other legal transactions. It essentially functions as a signature in Japan. In fact, most Japanese stamp rather than sign documents. If someone steals your hanko and bank book, in theory, they could take all your money from your bank account. However, I've never heard of this happening. (I may be confusing or misusing "inkan" and "hanko" here because I've sometimes heard "hanko" refer to the whole apparatus and sometimes to only the mark...I'm sure someone savvier than me will step up to the plate if I'm wrong.)

Since the inkan is in a back room somewhere, the landlord or lady always takes the book from me and goes trotting (literally) off to the back room to stamp the book. They always do this after meticulously counting the rent money in front of me. They don't do this because they don't trust me. They do it in order to avoid conflict or misunderstanding in case of any error. While they are in the back room, I have little to do but twiddle my thumbs and look around the entryway. If I could take a picture of it, I would, but it's a bit rude to snap shots of their home without their consent and it'd be just weird to ask.

So, I have had many chances to wile away some time checking out the same area again and again and I can say without hesitation that there is not one nook or cranny of that place with one speck of dust. From the top of the large picture of goldfish on the left to the crevices of a statue with a woven-look on a huge cabinet for shoes on my right to the tops of a long row of closets, there isn't any dirt or dust to be seen. It confounds me and makes me feel inadequate at the same time.

To be fair, the lady of the house spends all her time doing housewifely duties with some part-time care of her grandchild thrown in and I can't see all of the house but I'd wager a fair amount that it's just as clean. I can mollify myself by saying that she doesn't teach part-time or pursue any academic interests or use a computer but that's just a justification. I'm guessing she's an expert at her craft. The energy and time she must put into this amazes me. She's a dynamo.

The other things that have got me thinking about cleaning are a recent post on What Japan Thinks about smells in Japanese homes and Helen mentioning in her blog how her cleaning tends to go unnoticed by her husband. The survey translated in "What Japan Thinks" actually made me feel better since I don't think my house smells like "poo" so I've got to be cleaning better than some Japanese people. ;-) And I tried to console Helen by telling her that my husband doesn't notice my cleaning either and that I think it's a biological incapability of men when it comes to not seeing dirt or disorder.

crushed crap on the kitchen wall

I actually don't mind cleaning and enjoy it at times. The only problem is that it's a minimally-rewarding experience. In Tokyo, the pollution is such that you get a ton of soot and dust all over everything. In the case of our apartment, the crappy wall covering is also constantly flaking off. Literally, within 6 hours of dusting, you can visibly see the tops of furniture pick up a new fine layer. Within a day, it looks like you never touched it.

nubby crap on the bedroom wall

My former boss, who has lived in places more ancient than ours in his history in Japan, also said he thinks living on the first floor is worse for us because people walking around on the second floor causes dust from an old place like ours to constantly rain down from the cracks and crevices. Since little sunlight gets in, I don't often see dust falling. On the odd day when the angle between the buildings and our limited exposure to direct sunlight falls just the right way and a shaft of real light gets in through a window, I can see tons of crap floating in the air in a constant shower of particles.

So, it's pretty much a losing battle but I still vacuum twice a week and dust once a week to keep the level of dust down. If nothing else, it's kept my husband's allergies at bay for the last several years.

More Gifts in Apology

This morning while I was groggily making coffee, I heard something get pushed through the mail slot and saw the note pictured above (click on the picture to see a large one that you can actually read). This note is from our landlord and, while it doesn't state explicitly so, I'm sure this is another gift because of the trouble they feel we were put through because of the renovation in the kitchen.


It was very nice of them to do this, particularly given how special they feel this food is and how troublesome it is to obtain.


My husband and I gave the meatballs a try and they're pretty good though I'm not especially a fan of fried food. They're kind of like a meatball tonkatsu (breaded, fried pork cutlet). They're quite huge and taste a lot like meatloaf inside.

The note and the fact that people line up for these meatballs reminds me of these types of food fads in Japan where there are certain places people line up to get things. I sometimes see T.V. programs about these places where business is booming and wonder how long their popularity lasts.

They Still Confuse Me

After having lived in Japan for 17+ years, Japanese people still confuse me. I try very hard to figure out their take on things and see things from their perspective but some things still take me by surprise.

Today, a repairman came to fix the bathroom door which stopped closing after our kitchen floor had been replaced. He was here for about 6 hours ripping up part of the floor again, moving our washing machine and trying to work out how to get the door to close. There was a lot of hammering, drilling, and all our stuff once again was put in the middle of the floor. It was a hassle but sometimes you have to put up with the bad for the future good and it certainly was no one's fault that we were inconvenienced.

Our landlord and his wife coordinated all the repair as well as paid for it. They took time out of their day to come over and check repeatedly with the repairman as well as communicate with him and us about what was happening. During all this time, they profusely apologized for putting us out. When it was all said and done, and after many more apologies, they gave us a gift. The fairly expensive-looking bottle of red wine pictured above was given to us, apparently to apologize for any way in which we might have been bothered by the floor replacement and subsequent repair.

Unfortunately, we discovered last night that the door still hasn't been properly repaired and we'll have to go another round with the servicepeople. It closes completely now but pops open constantly. :-p I wonder if we'll warrant another gift after all this.

In the U.S., I'm guessing apologizing for any inconvenience a tenant suffers as the landlord repairs something would be unheard of, let alone offering a gift at the end. Most U.S. landlords probably feel they were doing you a big enough favor just by paying for extensive repair. Of course, it's possible that my landlords are just unusually nice people and this atypical even by Japanese standards.

My New Kitchen Floor

Beautiful wood-look linoleum

Starting from 9:00 am yesterday, workmen installed a much-needed new floor in my kitchen. The day before, I had removed a kitchen cabinet and the trolley as well as taken all the dishes and food out of a huge shelf. It was quite a lot of effort.

The landlord said the people who were installing the floor would move everything for us but there was a deadline and I didn't trust them not to break my dishes or to move furniture in such a way as to block access to our bathroom. We weren't going to be able to go all day without using the toilet.

As it turned out, they didn't finish until 7:30 pm. If they had had to move all my dishes and sundry items out of and back into the shelves, they wouldn't have finished until 9:00 or 10:00 pm so I'm glad I did part of it myself. There's no way they would have been as aggressive as me or as slapdash but I had confidence in what I was doing and didn't have to handle things with kid gloves. I carefully stacked everything in laundry baskets with little or no padding. Nothing broke so it worked out alright.

Here is the progression that led up to the final results pictured above.

Original floor with wear and damage.

The weak spots have been cut out and a few extra supports have been added in. You can see the weak spots correspond to where some of the linoleum was cracking in long ridges. One rather shocking thing I discovered was that the boards that comprise the floor are rather pathetically thin and resemble 3/4 inch plywood rather than sturdy support beams. It's no wonder they started to sag in spots where one stood for long periods of time or was forced to step repeatedly. The weakest spots were right in front of the bathroom door, in front of the stove, and in front of the front door.


You can see a few support beams have been installed in the gaps (they're the light, slender beams running horizontally) and some of the old linoleum has been scraped up. You can also see how immensely gappy the support boards under the floor are, particularly right in front of the front door. There is little to support the thin boards for spans of about 2.5-3 feet horizontally and 1.5 feet vertically.

It's rather interesting to watch how they manage to do this while still leaving the refrigerator and a large shelf in place. You can see how the workmen are well-practiced at dealing with small spaces and moving things around as needed without damaging the work they do.

The only unfortunate off-shoot of this was that the shower door now will not fully close. The workmen neglected to replace some screws (which they removed) holding a metal brace for the door in place and I wonder if that's related to this new problem. It is supposed to close tight to keep a decent seal so it doesn't leak out and rot the floor. It never did have a completely good seal but now it actually has a gap in the middle. That's especially bad with a new floor in place because it'll greatly shorten the lifespan. So, we had to go to the landlord and let him know so the workmen can be called back to fix it up.

I'm very pleased though with how much better the kitchen looks now and am thinking now of replacing my living room carpet despite the hassle it'll be. My ancient, crumbling apartment looks a lot better with newer flooring alone so I'll be doing some research and serious thinking about it.

Japanese Manners & the Local Gaijin

I've often been told that the Japanese don't expect foreigners to understand or display Japanese manners while they in Japan. For instance, they will forgive you if you move in to your new apartment and don't go around introducing yourself to your neighbors with little gifts because they realize you are unaware that this is traditional. Today, it occurred to me that this understanding is not entirely one-sided in the benefits department.

I was parking my bike in a narrow alley next to the market and two women were passing in the narrow area behind me. It was an area wide enough for two people to comfortably pass by but one was pushing a bicycle. I was probably occupying about 1/4 of the available space as I eased the bike into a gap, and I certainly was the first one there. One woman, before she had a chance to even bump into the other, asked to be excused and then proceeded to knock into me without a word. It was pretty clear that she didn't feel obliged to exercise any courtesy toward me because I was a foreigner.

I know that a lot of foreigners feel persecuted and that bad behavior is often directed at them as a form of prejudice. I'm not actually saying this was the case though I do know that there are people who treat foreigners badly and have had a few obvious experiences myself. However, it was clear that this wasn't just some rude, pushy woman because she had already displayed overly gracious deference to the other woman while blithely pretending I was an inanimate obstacle in her path.

Effective Propaganda?

the full comic and original picture are at Coal's blog

This morning I ran into my landlord and had a curious discussion. As I posted yesterday, there was concern that I was upset about the cleaning crew that was cleaning the screens and the apartment just above mine. Apparently, the cleaning crew felt that, because I was American, I was unhappy and taking pictures in preparation to take some sort of "legal action." When I reassured the landlord that I would never do such a thing, he said he was relieved.

This conversation was odd not because I think it's inconceivable that a foreign resident might overreact and do such a thing but that my landlord would think I would do such a thing. I've lived in the same apartment for 17 years now. My husband and I have not complained about anything except when about 10 years ago the tenant above us was throwing dirty cleaning water out on her balcony which dripped down onto our laundry hanging on our balcony. We have also never missed our rent payments and pay "gift" money upon every rent contract renewal without complaint. That means we fork over an extra month's rent every two years for the honor of being allowed to continue to pay our regular rent each month for the next two years.

There's a long history of us not getting uptight about things and being decent tenants. So, why, after all this time, would my taking a few pictures result in the absurd conclusion that I was preparing for a lawsuit? And what exactly could I possibly sue about? A little cleaning-related noise? My screens temporarily being removed for cleaning? The guys parking in the street in front of the landlord's house?

After some time passed, I started to wonder if some of the propaganda I read about on Coal's blog is taking root. The full article with translated cartoons is available here but the gist of it is that foreigner's rights, if protected, will result in the Japanese having to tolerate bad behavior. The cartoons essentially say that discrimination is necessary to protect the rights of business owners and landlords from foreign people who will be disruptive and destructive.

I'm not concluding for now that this propaganda directly caused the cleaning crew's suspicion (which then led to my landlord's worries) because there are other possibilities. For instance, exposure to news of some of the more outrageous cases of litigiousness in the U.S. could easily lead the Japanese to believe we're all just looking for any pocket we can legally find a means to pick. I am, however, disappointed that my landlord didn't know better after my husband's and my long and well-behaved tenancy. It points out the sad fact that no matter how we behave, we are, first and foremost viewed as "gaijin" and subject to all the preconceptions and misperceptions that go along with being a foreigner in Japan.

Won't you be my neighbor?

no matter how clean it is, it still looks ugly

This morning I stumbled out into the kitchen to make the elixir of wakefulness (aka coffee) and noticed that the screen covering the kitchen window was half open. This allows a whole host of unsavory crawling and flying creatures to infiltrate my apartment. My husband is particularly peeved about mosquitos getting in and quite rightfully so. He's spent the last 3 days with two bites prominently on display on his forehead causing students to peer quizzically at them or ask about what happened.

I pushed on the open screen to close it and it fell right out of the frame onto the ground outside. I figured someone had broken it carrying something awkward to the apartment next door. I was dissuaded from this notion by a note on the genkan from my landloard explaining that the screens in the front of the apartment were being cleaned today. I wondered why the screens in the back of the apartment, which are so dirty that they give off puffs of dust if you bump into them, never get cleaned as part of the 2,000 yen a month maintenance fee we pay.

I figured out the reason why when I stepped out to go grocery shopping and noticed the apartment above ours (pictured above) had been vacated and was now being cleaned. They were sprucing up the front of the building so it'd look better for propsective tenants. They don't bother with the back because it's gated off and inaccesible.

This reminded me of the often stated (by both foreigners and Japanese alike) that Japanese people are only concerned about cleanliness in as far as it personally concerns them and have little concern for how their actions affect the environment of others. In other words, my landlord doesn't care about how clean my screens are. He only cares about how dirty the ones a possible tenant might see are.

All that being said, my landlord is a very nice person who has been supportive and understanding. He communicates with us in meticulously written notes in English (see below) or speaks to us in English. If I asked him to clean the back screens, he'd probably do it. He just isn't going to do it spontaneously. In fact, the very act of taking a few pictures for this posting made him worry that I was upset about what was happening and he called to apologize for the inconvenience. He's just that considerate.