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| Some typical stairs in Japan |
Let's say you've come to Japan either to study, to work or as a tourist, and you fell madly in love with this place. Or you felt like this was home to you.
You want to live here.
So you do the necessary paperwork, you find a decent job here that'll pay and treat you well (more on that in the future) and you even managed to get yourself an apartment (maybe more on that in the future, too).
Now what?
How do you get in good with the locals of your area so that they feel actual sadness should you ever decide to move? How do you become a model neighbor here?
Here are some tips.
New to the neighborhood?
You just moved into a new apartment, and you want to get off on the right foot.
Buy small gifts
All supermarkets have a section for little boxed gifts. Pick out some generic ones (senbei rice crackers and such). Have one for any neighbors living beside you, one box for the people living above you and one box for the people living below you.
Go say hi
If you can't speak Japanese, you can at least attempt to convey your warm wishes to the neighbor by smiling and giving them the small gift with a bow. Gesture toward your apartment and say hello. Do the best you can, and your efforts will be well received.
If you can speak Japanese, tell them you just moved in, here's a small gift, and apologize for all the noise and fuss you've either brought or will bring when moving in. It's noisy and annoying hearing people haul a fridge up a set of stairs so apologize for it. Also apologize for any future transgressions you may have while in the apartment, such as leaving music on that's too loud or, if you have children or pets, anything they might do.
Say hi to them when you see them
If you see a neighbor getting their mail or something, take the time to say hi to them. Talk about the weather for a minute, if you can and they seem open to it, call it a day.
If you get extra food, hand some around
If there's a neighbor who seems really friendly or nice, and you happen to have some extra food or something, offer it to them. Does one of your nice neighbors have kids? That means they don't have as much time or energy to cook, so if you happen to have extra food, take it over to them. Make sure you tell them what it is, of course.
Be nice
Have an elderly neighbor? Stop by every now and then on your way to the grocery store and offer to pick them up something. Help carry their groceries and stuff. Help them get up the stairs if they look like they need help.
Just try to act like a decent human being with your neighbors, basically. Don't do it expecting anything in return, just do it because you want to be a model neighbor.
Don't be loud
College kids will never understand just how obnoxious they are.
I know the world is your oyster at that age and you figure your travels to Japan where you puked in the streets and continued karaoke night all the way back to your apartment or dorm have little impact on anything since you can leave it all behind when you go back home.
I know you think that, but you are wrong.
College kids fail to take into account, of course, those expats who are honest-to-God trying to live here.
Japanese people lump every foreigner into the same category, and when you see way too many foreign college kids or random tourists being loud and obnoxious, you start to equate foreigner with obnoxiously loud person.
Why is noise such a curse?
Reason:
Japan is a small island, and space is an issue, especially in Tokyo. If you live out in the middle of no where and you have no neighbors whatsoever, then none of this applies to you. Just don't have frat house parties unless you don't mind the entire town gossiping about you.
But again, Japan is a small island nation with everyone crammed into the big cities. This makes space and personal privacy sacred, and you violating something so sacred by being loud and obnoxious is completely unforgivable.
This means you will be branded as loud and obnoxious before you even get the keys to your apartment.
You must dispel this assumption by being the opposite.
Test out your walls
Find five minutes in the day when you know your neighbors are home, and listen. Can you hear them talking? If you can hear them, they can hear you. A lot of the walls in Japan are very thin (with older and cheaper apartments, this is basically a given).
Don't yell
Just make it a habit of yours to not yell so much. I know fights with loved ones and such can lead to yelling, but make those the exceptions rather than the rule. If you want to be loud because your soccer team or baseball team did something right, go to a nearby izakaya pub or a sports bar and yell along with people who would like to hear you get so riled up about sports.
Keep your music and TV down
Even if your walls are thick, try to keep music at a reasonable volume. When it gets past 8 p.m., try not to listen to music even at a reasonable volume. Same goes for the TV.
Don't clean past 7 p.m.
That basically means don't run your washing machine or vacuum past those hours. Just don't do it. Also, don't do any construction (nailing things into walls) past 3 p.m. basically.
Don't be noisily drunk anywhere near where you live
If you feel the urge to be drunken and obnoxious, do it somewhere far from home, then hail a cab that will take you right up to your apartment and try you best to make it all the way into your home without puking or talking loudly.
Don't violate trash laws
I know in America, at least, people can be pretty blase about trash. It all can just go straight into the same bin (although I know people who have their own compost heaps, too).
Japan's prefectures all have different ways of dealing with trash, and even cities within the prefectures differ. Whatever the rules of where you live, follow them. Worship them. Stick them on your fridge so you never forget.
I know from one homeowner that the homeowner's association (which everyone who owns a house nearby must join) has people in the neighborhood take turns being monitors of the trash. If someone fails to separate properly, and it could be anyone, the trash collectors just won't pick up the garbage. The person in charge for that time then must look through all the trash and figure out where someone went wrong, fix the problem and hope the garbage collectors will actually pick everything up next time.
So if you stick your Coca Cola bottle into the burnables trash and leave that trash with all the others, your Coke bottle will be the reason no one's trash got picked up. This is not a good way to make friends.
Apartment complexes vary in terms of strictness, but this is the number one complaint you'll likely see against foreigners living in Japan - their inability to sort their trash.
Reason:
Again, Japan is a very small and very overcrowded nation in its urban areas, which makes trash a huge, huge problem.
Here's what you can do
Just separate your trash
If your area states plastic bottles (they're called PET bottles here, which is more scientific than calling them plastic bottles) and burnables should be separated, then separate them. Places like Yokohama have trash days for plastic bottles, plastics in general, and burnables. Separate those out, then.
Burnables?
This definition varies per city, but the guidebook on trash you usually get when moving into an apartment comes with illustrations for each category. Burnables is basically everything that doesn't fit into the categories listed in that guidebook. (There is usually a category for glass, metals and larger stuff like busted radios.)
Old or broken furniture? Call to get it picked up.
You will sometimes hear this slow-moving truck with a loudspeaker blaring about something, and these are people who come and pick up your busted fridge and washing machine - for a fee. But it's illegal to just dump your fridge on the side of the road, so don't do it. Flag down the slow-moving truck, instead.
Figure out your garbage days
Burnables, since it's the most common form of trash here, usually has two days of the week where people come and collect it. Rarer stuff like old batteries are once a month, usually. Check with that handy guidebook and figure out those dates. Don't bother putting out your trash one day late because the entire neighborhood will silently fume at you over it as the trash sits there...wasting away. Leave the garbage in your apartment, instead, until the next trash day.
Take the trash out early.
Don't take out your trash the night before. Take it out bright and early in the morning on the day it is to be picked up. And make sure you put it under the blue net or else the massive, massive crows of this country will have a field day.
Be polite and friendly to all
Everyone will be curious about you, so be as polite and friendly as humanly possible to absolutely everyone around you in that neighborhood. Always say good morning or good afternoon to people you regularly see (In Tokyo, there's no need to greet absolutely everyone you pass on the street. In small towns, greet absolutely everyone.).
There will be times when you're having a bad day, but still take time away from your bad day to greet people. You don't have to pretend to be happy, but still at least say hi.
When you take your trash out and you see someone nearby, say hello to them, too. Japanese people tend to just live in their apartments or houses without really meeting people around them too often, and taking out the trash is one of the few times when you can stop and say hello to someone you otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to.
Be nice to the dry cleaning people. They tend to know everyone nearby. Be nice to your doctor's and their receptionists because they know everyone, too. Just be polite.
