One of the joys of being a long-term gaijin in Japan is eventually building a house here. Houses in Japan are almost never pre-built by a developer as part of a development project as is often the case in California, or bought “used” from people who have lived in them previously. Instead, at least outside large cities like Tokyo, houses are generally built from scratch on a plot of land you’ve purchased, designed by an architect who will create a layout based on your specifications and budget. For a foreigner living here, this is a great opportunity to go crazy designing the Japanese home of your dreams, adding tatami rooms, shoji paper doors, and perhaps a toko-no-ma recessed area for displaying some ikebana flowers. If you don’t enough money to build a proper Japanese house, you have another option: get a “Canada import house.” There are companies in Canada that pack up everything needed to build a complete house, including lumber, windows, flooring and light fixtures, and ship it to Japan via shipping containers for assembly by a local construction company.
The dream for an expat in Japan is building a Japanese house.
