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I've lived in Japan for quite a while, and to the degree I can judge (I'm not an architect or a civil engineer... :), the housing stock seems pretty good on average. While obviously there's a wide range of examples in all countries, certainly modern Japanese housing seems to be of far higher quality and far better finished than "equivalent" modern U.S. housing (U.S. housing from 100 years ago is a completely different thing).

It is very true that there is a somewhat different conception of what housing should be like, with Japanese housing being relatively small, compact, and lightweight (though there are those heavy tile roofs on more traditional houses...). The concept of "insulation" seems to be rather unknown in Japan, which is a real shame given their energy issues (I don't know the amount to which home heating contributes to energy usage though).

I think it's a mistake, though, to conflate all this with with a lack of quality, or to dismiss the cultural differences. Granted, if you, as a European, are trying to find housing, you're going to want what you want, not what the average Japanese wants, but your post does have a whiff of condescension about it ("These poor Japanese, how ignorant they are of our superior European practices!").

[I'll note that in my experience living in Japan, it's much quieter than urban living in the U.S., despite the higher densities and relative lack of insulation, simply because people take more care to not be obnoxious. There's some noise but it's more likely to be quiet conversation on the balcony next door, or children laughing as they play, and not so much douchebag-practicing-his-electric-bass-at-3am. The urban U.S. is noisy.]

I once visited a fairly wealthy Japanese family who had a big, newly built (and very cool) house in the countryside. It was a fairly cold windy winter's day when I visited, but the whole family was sitting in a small room with multiple glass doors to the outside wide open, with the wind blowing in, huddled around a portable electric heater watching TV...

I also totally disagree with your dismissal of the kotatsu; it's a fantastic invention (right up there with bathtubs you can easily completely immerse yourself in, with a friend), and there's very little more cozy and wonderful than snuggling up under a kotatsu on a cold winter's evening.... also, cats love kotatsus!! :] [and heating an insulated 0.5m^3 space is a lot more efficient than heating a whole house!]

I for one would prefer apartments to provide enough isolation that one could practice their electric bass at 3AM without bothering the neighbors. Society is prejudiced against night owls enough already ;-).

It's an electric bass, not a trumpet. Why not just use headphones?

Why not use a bicycle instead of a car? Headphones are a substitute for speakers in the same way a snorkel is a substitute for a submarine, or a spoon for an industrial mixer.

The movement of air by a speaker is not felt the same way as headphones. Your skin is responsible for picking up some frequencies. For this reason, most gigs have massive subwoofers and line array speaker stacks instead of a plethora of headphones :-)

I am a bass player and I sometimes have to use in-ear-monitoring to stop going deaf, and it isn't the same as hearing the sound from the speaker, particularly if you are counting on the response of the amplifier + speaker combination for sound. Try telling an electric guitarist to use headphones - half of the sound they get is from the combination of amplifier and speaker and the interaction between the two (amplifier sag, speaker cabinet resonance, angle of speakers etc.)

Yes but you don't need to be choosing your tone at 3am, surely you can practice techniques/write music without you guitar sounding 100%. I do

Again with the anti-nightowl-ism ;-). Society's prejudice against sufferers of DSPS and non-24-hour sleep cycles must end! That, or we can just build soundproof apartments and let us all choose our own schedules.

It's more anti-"being woken up by your neighbor being an asshole"-ism. I'm sure as a night owl you wouldn't appreciate having your neighbor play trumpet at 7am after your late night of jamming.

No, I wouldn't appreciate it, but if I complained about my neighbor being noisy at 10AM and someone else complained about their neighbor being noisy at 2AM, I'd get more strange looks.

I'm sure most of us could stand to be more considerate of our neighbors, but I'd prefer if soundproofing became common enough that we didn't really have to.

The same reason people prefer comfortable cars to bicycles (I commute by cycle myself).

Headphones are alternative solution to receive the sound with a pile of sacrifices, with the only advantage - not disturbing neigbhours. That is not a lie, you can feel the sound.

I actually understand your point of view, but I have a strong belief it is culture influenced (see side story).

If you want to save up, go for paper-thin walls. Some, like me, would rather pay extra for the comfort.

Side story: I spent my childhood in late soviet constructed building. These had impressively thick walls inbetween rooms and flats. Sadly not sound insulated, but by a degree better of what I have seen in UK so far.

Being a music lover, I would listen to a high quality (even had some of the rare DVD-Audio disks) on East EU-acceptable/West EU-loud volume every evening.

In a contrast, last five years I have been living in UK. Fully detached houses are heavily rare, people love to save money and go for semi-detached houses with thin walls. Being polite, the best I can hope for is watch movies with just enough volume to recognise the speech. In my hometown, I could get close to cinema (sound wise) experience without stepping out of home.

You would ask why I do not watch movies in headphones?

1. As mentioned earlier, low frequency soundwaves are received by the body, not ears.

2. That would be an awkward experienced watching a movie with (girl)friends, everyone wearing headphones.

3. Comfort of not having a piece of technology attached to your body.

4. I was exposed to a greater quality sound already.

England would be a hell, if everyone had loud speakers and used them at night. So, I am thankful and respectful to english-men prefering headphones.

My experience as a Westerner living in Japan for many years is so obviously different than yours (I never had sound issues when I lived in apartments, my new house is shockingly well-built and designed when compared to the American houses I'm used to, I've never seen a non-electric powered kotatsu outside of a museum, etc.) that I think we'll just have to agree to disagree for the most part.

However, regarding the lack of central heating in Japanese dwellings, I think that's a true cultural difference between Japan and America. It's strange for an American to wake up in a cold room or have to turn on the heat (or AC in summer) when we move into the bedroom after dinner--but it's equally strange to a Japanese person when they see we're heating an entire American house 24 hours/day. It some ways they're right: when the entire family is in one room watching TV or using computers, why should you waste energy heating the entire rest of the house when you could just heat one room--or even just heat up 6 or so cubic feet of space underneath a kotatsu or electric blanket?

I also used to live in Japan. Construction has to follow guidelines to ensure they comply to earthquake standards and Japan is one of the leaders in earthquake - proof technology. Part of this may come in the compromise of 'thinner walls'.

This in part also explains why tearing down a house and building a new one is desired, as you would want the most modern earthquake proof property.

I haven't lived in a place in Japan that wasn't double glazed and central heating is not really required since most of the year heating is not required (at least in Tokyo).

Without trying to sound 'patronizing', you sound a bit like a foreigner who hasn't yet fully adapted to Japan.

chile also has earthquakes and seems to be completely different (the buildings i have lived in have had thick walls - they help keep the building cool in summer - and there is a strong second-hand market). so i don't think earthquakes explain this.

If what's he's saying is right, it doesn't matter if he's a foreigner who hasn't adapted.

There are many other earthquake-prone regions which don't rely on thin-wall, disposable architecture.

What you generally will see is an aversion to unreinforced masonry construction -- stone or brick. Where you do see these they've generally been substantially reinforced with either internal or external metal skeletons (or you live in a region with poor building codes and the structures were erected since the last big temblor).

I'd suspect that Japanese construction methods follows engineering to some extent, but is also strongly influenced by tradition.

Without getting into the general argument here, I'm just going to dispel a few misconceptions about earthquake engineering:

No one (basically) who is involved in earthquake engineering would ever use the term 'earthquake-proof' to describe one building, much less an entire country's construction practices. Instead, we generally design buildings to not require any repair after earthquakes which occur more frequently than once per century, and design buildings not to fall down after earthquakes which occur more frequently than once per 2500 years. There is always a chance that an earthquake will occur outside of those limits, and nothing is designed to withstand those.

While you are correct in assuming that adding weight to a structure (all things being equal) will increase the seismic forces it experiences, the contribution of sound insulation to the weight of the building is pretty insignificant. And for lightweight structures it is much easier to increase their strength than to decrease their weight.

Third, earthquake resistant 'technology' [re: design practices] is not as ever-changing as you might think. While there are some examples of innovative solutions like putting water tanks at the top of skyscrapers, for low-rise structures there really isn't that much to it. If you take a 100 year old house, screw some plywood sheets between the floors, and bolt it to the foundation, then it will be 90% (estimated) as safe as a brand new house. Earthquake resistance is not so much about technology, and is more about making very sure that all of the force generated in the house can make it to the ground without breaking anything (though physicists would say that the force goes in the other direction from the ground to the structure). This means that earthquake safety is fairly proportional to the amount of time and money spent on construction, which is very much not incentivized by disposable construction.

I've lived in Japan for 11 years now, and have the complete opposite experience from you. While older houses (30~10 years ago) were horribly insulated, houses now are sturdily built, with good insulation (mine has fiberglass and spray-foam composite) and are pretty well put together. If you buy a cheap house, then yeah, you'll have a cheap house -- but that's anywhere in the world.

> If this doesn't sound crazy enough, there are a lot of carbon monoxide related deaths every winter in Japan because many people (especially elderly people) use an ancient heating system called /kotatsu/, where they burn coal under a small table that's covered with a blanket.

Umm.. Kotatsu do not produce Carbon Monoxide. They're usually electric, and you're the first foreigner I've ever seen who has complained about them. (I love them, my wife hates them because once inside, I never leave)

Carbon monoxide poisoning usually comes from eldery in older house where they use kerosene heaters (touyu) for heating. Almost all kerosene heaters have a 3-hour timer though, so it is a little safer than you make out.

> This is an absolutely amazing 1st world country with 3rd world construction practices. The earthquake in 2011 probably showed that Japanese houses are built quite sturdily.

Older houses did not have insulation, but insulation has been the norm for a while. I've moved several times in the Tokyo area and the apartment I've had that had thin walls was an olden wooden building that's about 40 years old now. And I'm not living in expensive places either.

There is definitely an irony in shoddy construction being done in an earthquake prone country.

I think part of it may also be that the construction companies form a strong political lobby.

Poor quality and earthquake resistant are not mutually exclusive.

Peeling wallpaper is not going to affect the structural integrity of your house.

Sounds like Southern California.