Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Random Thoughts: Moving

This was our living room within days of our departure from Japan. Four suitcases were all we took back with us. We didn't ship anything. It was just 4 suitcases. Here is what it looked like before we started tearing it apart.

My husband and I lived in Tokyo for 23 years and we did not move once. It wasn't because we had a great landlord, though we did. It wasn't because we liked our apartment, though we did. It was mainly because of "location, location, location". More than ever, in Tokyo, where you live has an enormous impact on your quality of life and I don't mean living around a bunch of trees or near a park, at least not in our case.

One of the things that we were happy about living where we did in Asagaya was that it allowed for a very short commute to Shinjuku and both my husband and I spent the majority of our time in Japan working there. It was 12 minutes on the subway or 9 minutes on JR. Though we had to walk to the stations, the total commute time was never more than a half hour even with all of the walking. Very few people are blessed with such short commutes and it has an immense impact on quality of life. Time not spent being jostled about by strangers on a super crowded (and often super hot) train is time spent relaxing in the comfort of your own home.

Many of my students and coworkers endured extremely long commutes, sometimes as long as 90 minutes one way, in order to have a different lifestyle. Sometimes, they lived with their parents (generally in the case of office ladies) and sometimes with their families in houses they could only afford to buy if they lived in the outer suburbs (like Saitama).

While I didn't begrudge them these choices at all and certainly empathized with the economic realities, sometimes I felt that they would have been better off getting smaller places or paying a little more and living closer. That being said, the way that Japanese companies move around to different offices or shuttle employees out to different offices makes picking a location and living in it permanently very difficult. If you want to buy a house, you pretty much have to accept the high likelihood that you're going to end up commuting for a fair amount of your free time on weekdays sooner or later.

Moving has been much on my mind lately because I've done it 5 times over the last year after not having done it for an extremely long time. It has been one of the most exhausting and difficult experiences of my life and I don't even own that much stuff. Compared to most people, we live a spartan existence. We only own 7 pieces of furniture(kitchen table, desk, sofa bed, printer stand, corner shelf, rolling coffee table, dresser) and 4 chairs (2 office, 2 kitchen). Most of our packing involved kitchen implements and various necessities as well as what few mementos we brought back from Japan. Yet, even with so little, it's an arduous task moving around so often.

After all of the hassles of moving, my husband and I thought about what it would have been like had we decided to move in Japan. The truth is that things are done rather differently there. Most of the time, people just pay a service to come in and do everything for them, at least in the big cities. Here, we've borrowed a moving truck to put our furnishings in public storage while we reside in a furnished place for the next 3-4 months and done all of the work ourselves. We've also loaded up our small car and ran back and forth between places.

In Japan, this would never be done this way because most people don't own cars and it would be very hard to manage the logistics (parking, carrying furniture though narrow doors and corridors without taking out a door frame). Also, frankly, I'm not even sure if public storage exists for private individuals in Japan. It probably does, but not at the rates or at the same volume as it does here. I see public storage facilities all over the place in northern California. I don't know if everyone is moving most of their worldly possessions into temporary storage like us, but I doubt it. I think most people are storing the overflow of crap they can't keep in their cluttered homes into another space because it's relatively cheap and plentiful.

I didn't really need a reminder of how lifestyle is dictated by surroundings and economics rather than by true choice, but moving so much since we got here and moving so little in Japan gave me one anyway. You can have more here in America because it doesn't cost much to have more. You can move here more often because, though it is incredibly hard and exhausting, it doesn't require nearly as much money. That being said, I still miss my life and lifestyle in Japan and the ease and lower expense of certain experiences in here don't really make me miss it any less, but those are thoughts for another day.

9 comments:

  1. I purposefully bought a house near my workplace to avoid a long commute, but then my company moved to an office in the boondocks. There's little public transportation where I live, so I'm stuck with a long drive, just so the company can save money on my behalf. Short commutes are definitely a blessing.

    I don't understand storage units. Sure, if you're between houses and need to put things there for a week or a month, I get it... but to have one long-term? If you let stuff sit for more than a couple of months and don't miss it, you probably don't need it.

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    1. I think that there may be some reasonable explanation for storing items for some people. For instance, they may have seasonal items that they like to use that do not fit in their apartments (camping or skiing stuff). Other than that, I'm completely with you. If you let it sit around and don't miss it, you don't need it.

      Thanks for your comment!

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  2. I feel your pain when it comes to moving. But I still demand the freedom that comes with renting. I have been in my dinky apartment for 5 years, which is the longest I have lived anywhere since leaving home. The only reason I am moving this time is because my hubs' son is coming to live with us. I have stayed where I am because of location... close to work, fun and family.

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    1. I think that, for a lot of people, renting really is a better option. Unless you know where you're going to be for the remainder of your life (or have a pretty good idea), it's absolutely best not to buy a home. I'd hate to end up with an enormous commute because it was too hard to move!

      Thanks for you comment!

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  3. When I first started living with my wife, it was under the assumption that we would be moving to Japan in a year or two. This meant that we really kept our household purchases to a minimum (2 plates, 2 sets of utensils, bare minimum of furniture, etc.). It also started me on the path of divesting myself of a lot of unnecessary 'stuff' I had been hanging on to.

    Due to our employment situations improving however it has become increasingly clear that we will be staying where we are for the foreseeable future. The funny thing is, I have become accustomed to (and even enjoy) our spartan, minimalist existence. I really don't miss having to deal with a lot of extra junk, and actually find it quite liberating.

    It's to the point where I now somewhat dread Christmas and the inevitable gifts i need to find a place for (not to sound ungrateful). It is hard in modern society to get out of the 'aquire' mindset, but having done so it suits us just fine. The bonus is that we end up having additional money available for travel, which I personally find much more rewarding.

    (Sidenote: You mentioned that "most people in Japan don't have cars" which is absolutely true in the large cities where having one would actually be a liability. But for most of the inaka folk like my in-laws, a car is pretty much a necessity.)

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    1. We started simplifying about 10 years before we left, maybe a bit more. I went through a phase of living more in line with the simplicity movement because I was tired of living with tons of stuff we rarely or never used. I also got used to not acquiring things and letting things that were useless go. That being said, I do like to cook and we had a lot of useful cooking implements to store. I'm one of those people that has an immersion blender, regular blender, pressure cooker, etc. and actually uses all of those things. This is actually a lot of stuff and I sometimes wish it wasn't so useful!

      Fortunately for us, we're not in gift giving relationships so we don't get more stuff during the holidays... at least not yet. ;-)

      Thanks for your comment!

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  4. Since this is my first comment I'd like to thank you for your wonderful blog. You have a great eye for the details of Japan.

    We are in the process of moving, in fact we are following you to the South Bay as my husband is being transferred to his company's San Jose office. So I am interested in your transition from Japan to the US too.

    I've been in Japan for 14 years (my husband is Japanese). We've moved four times, around the Tokyo-adjacent prefectures. Luckily my husband's work at large electronics factories means that we can live far out of Tokyo and enjoy a cheaper cost of living, and he doesn't have to commute far(our first apartment was a 5 minute walk from his job).

    Out here most people have cars, although our moves have been handled by moving companies as you said. And yes, moving is SO expensive, what with large deposits and fees to pay to rental agencies. There are plenty of storage units in the deep suburbs, but like apartments they're a hassle to rent, requiring large deposits and guarantors, and a unit the size of a closet will cost about 9000 yen a month.

    You're right about it being hard to pass along still-useful things that you don't need over here. How I'd love a big donation box to drop things off at right now! It's a seemingly never-ended process trying sell and give away as much as possible before our move. We have two kids and all the clutter they amass, plus living way outside of Tokyo means we can afford a big (by Japanese standards!) house to fill with stuff.

    So not looking forward to the South Bay cost of living - the rent will be about 2.5 times what we're paying now, plus we'll need two cars to get around. Yikes.

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  5. I seem to recall seeing something on youtube or somewhere on the internet that in the big cities (most likely Tokyo but I'm unsure) there were places that offered clothing storage for out of season clothing, but nothing about storage units as I know them. Heck, we have one (US) about 3 minutes down the road from us by foot!

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    1. One of my students told me that her dry cleaner offered seasonal storage of clothing. It was a two-for-one service in which they'd clean them and store them together.

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