I want to be a good neighbor. But I really don’t understand the method to do so. And I feel like I have created drama in my ‘hood already.
Japan’s neighborhood associations – called kumiai – are based on groups of a dozen (give or take) houses in proximity to one another. Traditionally, these were the families that shared tools, helped one another with roof thatching and rice harvesting.
In the city, these associations are active organising festivals and such. They feel a lot like Western neighborhood associations; not a requirement, low commitment until you decide to participate, etc.
In the countryside, they have a lot more sway. There are work parties to cut the grass in shared spaces and to clean community property. I don’t even know everything they do, because I’ve not been a member of one yet.
When we moved out here seven years ago, our foreign neighbors suggested we not join the kumi. “It’s a lot of work and really inconvenient” and “as a younger person, you’ll get saddled with all the hard tasks” and “just wait until they start asking you for English lessons and free translations, urgh.”
So we didn’t join. We were renting and expected our stay here to be temporary. But now, moving up to 555 in a permanent way, I feel the need to be a member of the kumiai, even if it’s inconvenient and I give a way a lot of free copywriting and editing work. Mutual support and being a good neighbor make life in the countryside more bearable, for sure.
But I have already gotten off on the wrong foot (which in Japanese is 出だしで失敗する) I expected that the jotoshiki, as a celebration and party, would be a great way to meet the neighbors. At least for anyone available at 4 pm on Friday which would probably not be that many, since everyone works. We’d get to show them the new house that will be in their midst soon and satisfy their curiosity with a bit of hospitality.
We reached out to Kawasaki-san for his help, asking how we could invite the neighbors. Maybe we should go around to the houses one by one? The kumiai is a mystery; I don’t even know which houses it encompasses.
But I clearly did not read the air very well. Kawasaki-san is so soft in his communication style that I sometimes miss his signs of “no” and “this is a bad idea.” I can usually pick that up from Mrs Kawasaki, who will give a little side eye or a tiny face-scrunch as a tell, but she was in the kitchen making tea while he and Tod talked.
Before long, Kawasaki-san was on the phone to the head of the neighborhood association and initiating the go-round phone network that starts with the kumiai leader and travels from one household to the next.
And afterward, I learned a new phrase, yagi-san yuubin, 八木さん郵便 which means the Goat’s Mail and is about responding without reading/understanding the message. There’s a song:
Relevant because in all of this I misunderstood several things:
- The jotoshiki is not a celebration the way I think of them;
- There is a lot of social inertia in our kumi and many layers of power;
- As kumiai outsiders, we really shouldn’t communicate through them;
- Invitations through the kumiai network are seen as an obligation.
Yesterday morning, one of the kumi members came by to drop off a sake gift wrapped and labelled with his name. He had a conversation with me that I didn’t fully understand, though it seemed genial enough. But I wonder if I forced a social interaction and started a chain of obligations – the dreaded gift exchange that never ends.
I’m not entirely sure what to do now. Communication is usually the cure-all for social gaffes, but Tod’s not here and my Japanese communication skills are really poor unless I am perfectly at ease. The jotoshiki is in three days and I am concerned that I am getting off on the wrong foot entirely. I hope that my desire and this drama can find a good resolution one way or another.
