Saturday, December 22, 2012

Surviving Winter in Nippon

Contrary to popular belief, Japan is NOT futuristic in many ways.  From fax machines to giant cell phones, trains that stop running at midnight (not just here in the inaka but also in Tokyo) to no insulation\central heating.  Coming from Canada, I think this last one was the biggest shock.  Sure, I come from the prairies where the temperature can easily reach -60 with the windchill, but one of my favourite things about winter is coming from the refreshing, invigorating cold air into a steamy warm house.  It's quite the opposite in Japan; usually walking into my apartment at 10:30pm after working all day, the temperature is colder inside than the air outside.  My apartment this year seems to have some insulation as it doesn't seem as bad as last year, thank God.  I actually saw inside the wall of my apartment last year (don't ask why!) and there was NOTHING in it.  I remember walking out of the only heated room in my apartment and being able to write my name on the condensation on my fridge door.  However last year my bed was raised up and because hot air rises and cold air sinks it wasn't too bad.  This year, however, I sleep on the floor in true Japanese fashion and am freezing the majority of the time.  I've asked several Japanese people why they live like this and have gotten a variety of answers: money (to install, plus Japanese houses aren't made of stone and those don't last several hundred years), they like to 'wait out' the winter, it's not that bad (stop starting every conversation with 'Samui desune?' then!), the summer is too humid for insulation (it would get mouldy), etc., etc.  Instead of getting with the times and installing central heating and insulation, Japan has come up with a few ingenious and not so genius solutions to the answer, my favourite being the kotatsu.

I just got my first kotatsu last weekend and as anyone who is familiar with them knows, nothing has been done in my apartment since.  It's definitely something I'll consider sending to wherever I head next.  A kotatsu is really a pretty awesome invention and I'm surprised it hasn't come to Canada.  Wait a minute, no I'm not because I can move freely and warmly aboot my house all winter!  A kotatsu is basically a low table you sit on the floor at with a heater underneath.  You place a think futon between the two panels of the tabletop and BOOM!  Ridiculously cozy warmth that you never want to leave....the perfect setting for eating mikans, drinking hot sake, and watching anime. The newer ones have a cage around the heater so you don't have to worry about burning your legs, but it's still not recommended to sleep under one.  Plus it can be used as a regular table in the summer and I did need another table, only problem is, my tiny apartment is now full. The original idea of a kotatsu (the kind built into houses wear you sit and hang your feet over burning coals) was that the heat enters at the bottom of the traditional Japanese robe everyone used to wear, travels up the body, and exits at the top of the robe, warming the whole body.  I also like to stick my pet fish Ponyo chan under the kotatsu every now and then to warm him up...talk about multipurpose! I hope I don't forget about him and kick the bowl over or have him fry to death sometime...

Before my kotatsu, the only way I warmed my apartment was through my air conditioning unit which can be set to a heater as well.  Luckily every apartment I've lived in in Japan has been new and had one of these bad boys so I didn't have to buy one.  It cools the room down well in the summer but in the winter, all the heat tends to stay at the top of the room which is pointless in Japan, considering I spend 90% of my time on the floor.  To get it warm enough on the floor, I had to turn it up as high as it would go and leave it on all night, but then the electricity bill is ridiculous, especially considering costs were just raised another 8% in the fall, 'due to Fukushima'.  Plus the kanji on the remote is ridiculously hard to read, even for Nihonjin.
Another extremely popular method of space heating in Japan is a kerosene heater.  I really can't wrap my head around WHY anyone would use this.  Sure, it's cheap, but you have to constantly buy kerosene (which sucks if like most foreigners you don't have a car to go buy it), isn't exactly safe (fire wise or fume wise), and is a bit pointless considering you have to open a window to let the fumes out (considering there are no vents in the houses) so they don't kill you, thus letting cold air in.  Can you say oxymoron? Why not spend the little bit of extra money on an electric heater, be warmer and safer....surely your life is worth the extra $50?

And then there are the heated blankets, carpets, foot warmers, underwear and what not....basically electrically heated anything you can think of.  Other methods of temporary warmth include a ton of blankets, more layers of clothing than you would wear in a Siberian winter, cute panda humidifiers (Japanese winter is extremely dry and the Kitty chan one was too expensive!) to try and hold more heat in the air, hot baths or showers, hot water bottles, kairo (little heaty uppy packs you can put in your pocket that generate more heat than you would expect and for a surprisingly long time!  Or the adhesive type to stick all over your body.  Plus you can get cute kairo carriers, they are extremely cheap for the disposable kind, or you can get the kind you use over and over.  I have a reusable one in Canada and never thought to bring it...however it was from a Passion Party!), weather stripping, or winter proofing your windows (unless the only windows you have are your doors to your balcony and you need to open them periodically....or you're one of those with a kerosene heater who has to open your windows), moving to Hokkaido (land of heated sidewalks and insulation), or hanging out on the overly warm trains as much as you can (preferably local lines rather than shinkansen to keep the costs down).

Basically, Japanese winter, especially here in the Guch where it rarely goes below 0 isn't that bad, but it HAS turned me into a giant wuss.  Stay warm and be happy you have double paned windows! I'm also glad I'm not at a public school and turning on the heating in the rooms is my responsibility!