Linger in the East

I remember my first living arrangement in Japan very well. It was the very small and honestly speaking quite old and smelly International House of the Shinshu University where I was studying abroad. While the size of the apartments wasn’t very different from the standard housing in Japan, it did have some amenities especially for foreigners and seen as oddities. Like for example a central heating system, or a bed included in the furniture.

So I was a bit surprised when my fellow students talked about their living arrangements; regular Japanese housing. They were talking about sleeping on the floor, about the lack of heating and about things such as DK or LDK. Little did I know back then, but over time the things my fellow students taught me would come in handy when looking for different places to live.

To start: of course there are a lot of types of housing in Japan. There are just rooms that come with a toilet (if you’re lucky), but also castle-like villas. There are old farmhouse and modern day apartment blocks. Some apartments come empty, others are fully furnished.
What I will write about below is the content I came in contact with on a personal level: at first a single student living in Japan, over a home stay in the countryside, to evolve to a married life as an average salaryman without kids.

WHAT'S WITH THE NAMING?

First off, for people who understand the English language, nomenclature in Japan is straightforwardly confusing. Apartment (アパート) doesn’t really mean apartment, just as mansion (マンション) doesn’t mean a mansion.
Mansions are apartment blocks that an English speaker would rather call an apartment block. This usually means a common hall (however small) and elevator are included. An elevator is mandatory for buildings of 3 floors or higher. Many of the more recent mansions have an auto lock service in the common hallway to keep shady people and salesmen (are they the same?) out.
Apartments on the other hand are in most cases two-storied buildings with separate living units. To put it simply: it’s an apartment block, but not higher than 2 floors – so in most cases without elevator and common hallway.


Talking about floors, in Japan people start counting from the 1st floor and don’t use the naming ground floor. When going underground one starts counting from B1. This B stands for Basement, but obviously doesn’t always necessarily mean basement. It can be just as well be a crawling space as the food level of a department store.

MONEY MATTERS

I don’t have experience with buying property in Japan, so I’ll just be talking about renting.
Everywhere in the world one needs to pay a monthly fee. Almost everywhere in the world one needs to pay an insurance deposit, named shikikin (敷金) in Japanese. And at some places, like in Japan, you pay “gratitude money”, reikin (礼金), a lump sum of 3 to 6 months wort of pay to the landlord. This is money that you’ll never see again, as opposed to the shikikin.
Most foreigners think it’s ridiculous to pay such an amount of money to a landlord that you probably never even will meet, and recently Japanese nationals seem to follow that way of thought. More and more agencies offer rental housing without any reikin fee.

AND NOW THE FUN PART

Or at least, this is what I find fun.
When looking at ground plans of a rental housing in Japan, one can get easily confused if you don’t know the terms that are being used. Actually, most apartments and mansions share the same old regular basics, which are as follows:

● Sizes are measured in tatami (jo). Tatami are mats traditionally made from straw. This doesn’t mean that the whole place only has straw mats, just that the space are measured in a tatami-unit. The problem is that a standard tatami has a different size depending on the region you live in. In the Kansai area where I live it is 0.955m x 1.91m. In Kanto it’s 0.88m x 1.76m , while near Nagoya it’s 0.91m x 1.82m. Very strange, very confusing.

A lot of the time you’ll see abbreviations like DK or LDK, maybe an R here and there, or the less known MB et cetera.
The most used are

● K = kitchen. This simply means a cooking stove.  
● DK = K is often combined with D, which means Dining & Kitchen. Usually it means that behind the kitchen there is a little space that can serve as a dining room. Don’t expect anything fancy though. 
● LDK = an L indicates Living Room. So an LDK is a big room that should be big enough to serve as dining and living room while also having a kitchen nearby. In more recent buildings the kitchen is regularly separated by a low kitchen counter, but it can as well be part of that 1 big space. ‘Big’ means big for Japanese standards of course.
● R = R is only used in combination with 1 and means room. So a 1R place simply means that your place only has 1 room. It will probably have a very small kitchen in the room, and usually a unit bath.

Talking about unit baths, this is a typical combination of a bath, shower and toilet in 1 room, usually made out of the same bland pvc-like material. Anyone who has ever stayed in a Japanese hotel will know what this means. In the somewhat bigger places the toilet is usually separated from the bathing place though.

Some other details that are often found on a ground plan:

● Genkan (玄関): this means entryway or hallway. Here you have to takes off your shoes. Yes, in EVERY living place you take of your shoes in Japan. ● Washitsu (和室) & Yoshitsu (洋室): Japanese room as opposed to western style room. Many places in Japan with more than 1 room still have 1 Japanese style room where the flooring consists out of tatami mats. ● Oshi-ire (押入れ): this means closet. Usually one that opens with sliding doors. ● Mono-ire (物入れ) or CL: this also means closet, but rather with regular opening doors. ● MB: meter box. ● Balcony (バルコニー): indispensable. Not for morning coffee in the sunlight, but to dry your laundry.

So let’s see what all this actually means. Below are 2 maps of places I’ve lived in over the past years.


This first plan hasn’t much writing on it. It’s what is recently called sha-maison (シャーメゾン), a quite modern form of an apartment. This was designed for singles and was actually quite modern and cozy. I really liked it there if it wasn’t for the big road and crossing next to it.
The place is a very simple 1K, which means 1 room + kitchen. The toilet is apart from the bathing place which is rather unusual for such a small place. The room is 8jo, or 8 tatami’s big and is western style. The 洗 (sen) symbol shows that you can place a washing machine at that spot. The WIC means walk in closet, which was rather big for a single guy who is barely interested in fashion.

What was pretty unusual at this place was that it came with an air conditioner. In all places in Japan there is a place foreseen for airco, but usually you are meant to bring your own. In the part of Kansai where I live an air conditioner is really indispensable though.



This second plan is where I moved after I married. Goodbye single mancave, hello cozy curtains and cutesy wallpaper.
As you can see it’s bigger and it has 2 rooms on top of a large living space, which makes this a 2LDK. There is 1 washitsu with tatami flooring of 6jo big and 1 yoshitsu which is 5jo big. The 洗面 signs literally means washbasin. The 収納 which means storage space and is nothing more than yet another way to describe closet.
Note that the washitsu is connected to both the hallway and living space with sliding doors.

Sometimes when I get bored I just check these popular sites in the search of that one apartment that stands out.
http://www.chintai.net/
http://suumo.jp/