The Impact of Limited Space in Tokyo

 

If you have ever looked up the statistics on the world's largest cities, then you would understand that Tokyo is the largest as well as most populated city in the world by far with close to 38 million people. In land area comparison, Tokyo is about the size of Puerto Rico or the U.S. state of Connecticut. With this huge population comes the issue of finding property for the purpose of meeting with groups of people. Often times housing for living purposes or business purposes though expensive can be used for meeting places. Naturally, the further one moves away from the city the cheaper properties become. Sometimes it is possible to find cheap places to rent or even abandoned places to buy, however these properties have their issues as well. With cheap places comes a lack of space, far distance from public transportation for access, and lack of parking for vehicles. Often times to even have one parking spot is very fortunate. With abandoned places comes extensive regulations for remodeling, various taxes, as well as further regulations for what the property can be used for. All of these various issues become such a nightmare that often times abandoned properties are left alone indefinitely. However, with God's help these obstacles can be overcome.

When it comes to church many times people will meet in their homes, away from the city, or buy an expensive property and building to meet in if allowed by regulations. The Japanese church that we were working with paid one million US dollars to buy a parking lot area (for a patch of dirt about 30 small car spaces), and another million to build a building. Often times Japanese will not allow for foreigners to own property let alone use it for a church, which is where some challenges come in. In Tokyo most community center areas have a lot of space, but will not allow for any religious use for any reason (unless for culturally specific Japanese religious type practices). Because Japan has many cults, they are very skeptical when it comes to anything that they consider an outside religion. In Japanese thinking there is no difference between a cult or a religion that is not “native” to Japan. Even though Christianity has been in Japan over 200 years (some evidences show that it even arrived before Buddhism) it is still considered foreign. Often times, only through established relations with people can trust be gained to rent a property. Many times in Tokyo start-up ministries will come and go taking a high risk approach of renting an expensive building and trying to fill it up with people only to have to abandon the project when people do not come or will become successful enough to continue. In a country with close to 1.2% “Christian” (including all that are considered Christian by broad defintion) population the risk is high since it takes a lot of time for Japanese to consider God. However it is not impossible. With such a low percentage of Christians most of the ministry work here consists of planting and watering spiritual seeds. A lot of “harvest” occurs with Japanese after many years of ministry or with foreigners who are not part of the native culture.

These are some of the perspectives that we have gained from living here for years, and is one of the reasons why we have opted to take the approach of building a core group of believers first before acquiring or renting a property strictly for church use. It may or may not work out as Japan has traditionally been a hardened nation to the gospel. However, God is good and is always working even when we cannot see it. Fortunately, we live in an area where we can meet people in person in public places or over the internet to establish relations with. Please pray for this nation as many like-minded missionaries attempt to reach the people here!

The Japanese Danchi System

 

A key component to the Japanese city, the Danchi system, exists a network of government housing complexes built to keep up with the demands of a once-growing urban population. After World War Two during Japan's rebuilding process a shift took place to move away from the traditional small multi-generational home living setup to a large apartment complex living situation focused around the “nuclear family” household. These new housing units became the envy of the nation when they debuted since they came complete with a television, refrigerator, and washing machine! With a greatly reduced government subsidized rent these apartment complexes became very popular in the 1950s through 1970s. Even today many new Danchis are built across Japan's major cities.

However, the Danchi system also has an unfortunate dark side to it as demonstrated in-detail by this New York Times article. Since the 1990s Japan has been experiencing an economic decline which has in turn developed into a population decline with a disproportionately high percentage of elderly. Before this system was in place many Japanese people lived in multi-generational houses where they took care of their aging parents. After the Danchi system went into place, the shift to the nuclear family encouraged Japanese people to live apart from their parents. Living in separate places, many of these now elderly people are left isolated, alone in these Danchi apartments. Each summer and winter many die alone and are not discovered until much later making a lot of Danchis a potentially dreary place to live. On a more positive note in recent times many of the low-paid Japanese together with immigrant families have been moving into the Danchi system housing across Japan.

Why talk about the Danchi system? If you visit any major Japanese city you will immediately notice many Danchis in the horizon. They are truly a key component of the Japanese city. Since returning to Japan I have decided to focus on getting gospel literature into these Danchis for a few good reasons. First, they are large and easy to mass-distribute literature to without harassment. Second, they have many retired people who often have a lot of free time to consider things as opposed to the generally hyper-active time-strapped culture at large. Third, many of the poorest of Japanese people live in the Danchis, which means they are more likely to consider the gospel than others in a proud tier-based society. Please pray for salvation for the many different peoples living in Japan's Danchi System!

Moving in Japan

Living on a densely populated island slightly smaller than the American state of Montana certainly has its challenges when it comes to living space. Fortunately Japanese society is diligently organized in such a way as to have a unique process when it comes to moving. As many Japanese people do not own a car, nor the time to move their possessions to a new location, a moving service is of the utmost importance.

For many working as salary-men the company will determine when it is time to move as well as where they must move if they want to keep their job. Japanese business culture is one of unquestioning dedication, so much like American military, they will move without question to their new location. Many companies will not give them much time to move, or require it to be on their own time, which leaves them in a hard place. The solution is hiring a moving service. Services such as Moving 123 will come to your house, label everything, pack everything, move everything, and unpack everything in your new location for a negotiable price. The service can cost anywhere from US $1500 to $5000+ depending on the terms of the contract. Generally, from my experience, Americans tend only to hire a moving service if they are going across country and even then will often pack and unpack everything themselves. However, in Japan it is almost expected that you hire a service to do everything for you. Services are preferred because Japanese housing is challenging to move objects in and out in a certain amount of time. With a specialized system in place it is seen as more efficient to hire a service.

What did we do? After living in Japan for a combined 12+ years we have accumulated a lot of stuff, even after living minimalistically by throwing things out constantly. We looked at a few different services and could not justify the high moving costs given that the end of March is the busiest time of the year for moving. We were able to find an independent contractor through a friend to do it for a fraction of the price with us doing most of the work. It took about a week to pack up 50 boxes, and two days of driving back and forth to unload everything. It then took another week to unpack and organize everything. Quite a project! I could only image what it would be like if we had to maintain salary-man hours, so I could understand why they would want to pay more to deal with the entire hassle of moving!

Safety Country

 

Known by many as an overly cautious country, Japan has a sizable bureaucratic culture ready to closely observe the every need of its readily compliant citizenry. For many foreigners this system may seem highly unusual. For example to receive a chart in the mail detailing the types of human excrement that exist, what each type means, and how one can have proper bowel movements may seem as an example of extreme government oversight, however for Japanese these seeming encroachments upon life are heartily welcomed. The Japanese as a people have no guiding objective morality system or much emphasis placed on critical thinking processes, but rather tend to rely upon an overly burdensome system of bureaucracy with many loop holes and subjective interpretations based upon local groups for guidance. These often confusing webs of bureaucracy interwoven into society seem to exist to help create a sense of peace and safety through human control.

For instance, recently when we arrived into the country via airplane (with only 27 other passengers) we were carefully guided on a long journey through the opposite ends of the airport to complete various tasks set in place by the Japanese government to ensure that the Covid-19 virus would be contained. Before arriving in country we were required to take official Covid tests within 72 hours. Through multiple check points over the course of four hours we completed paperwork, presented our passports, and presented our negative Covid tests over and over while being greeted with friendly Japanese faces. As we walked from station to station across various parts of the airport covering at least a mile on foot we eventually took new Covid tests, signed any remaining rights away, installed a phone-tracking app (as well as required to rent a phone if you didn't have a smart phone), and waited at the end to get our test results which turned out negative. Throughout this process we came in contact with at least twenty to thirty Japanese people as well as various other passengers who may or may not have been infected with Covid during this process. On the surface this type of bureaucracy seems illogical to outside observers as there were multiple points of exposure that would appear to be counter-productive in containing a virus, however in the Japanese mindset this type of setup was the best way to ensure safety of the population from potential contamination! The Japanese people have come to expect this as normal and willingly submit themselves to all kinds of bureaucracy as a normal part of life believing that it is for the greater good.

In a country with a vast majority of people (199/200) with no knowledge of God, government defacto becomes God to them – complete with all of its imperfections, inefficiencies, controls, and precautions. Still even in a country with all needs considered and lives planned there is a great emptiness. Mankind cannot find peace apart from God.