Comments by "Morgan Olfursson" (@morganolfursson2560) on "Brand New Japanese House Tour" video.
-
Super high tech but the house has no soul . It has zero charm and feels like living in a hospital or an administration building .
I am not trolling, i know Japan needs to build very light houses because of earthquakes , and these houses are insanely safe and resistant to quakes , but what they gain in efficiency and modernity they have completely lost in charm and beauty . Compared to a traditional Japanese house like a Kominka or Nagaya , this is hideous. I left Japan after nearly 25 years in the country because i could never picture myself living in one of these modern houses and so far away from nature . I would have loved to have a traditional house in Tokyo o\with a garden , but only a billionaire can afford that , and i needed a house with a soul. Now i am back to Switzerland , i live in a 500 years old house with a view on the mountains and the lake , nature is on my door step and i do not have to worry about earthquakes or pollution and radioactivity .
The realtor is fantastic and i used to meet with many of them just like this guy but when they tried to sell me a house , i always told them what i wrote here, the house is great but it has no soul, no charm , no personality, it is empty and feels empty and sad. And Japanese people of my generation or older, ALL have a nostalgia of the old aesthetic and memories of their grand mother or great grand mother's house as kids , and all the realtors understood exactly what i meant.
Eventually i chose soul over a life in Japan . It was heartbreaking to leave the country after so many years but it was unthinkable to raise my kids in a house like this and turn them into zombies . Our house is part of the family, the kids will grow up in it, it will still be there in a hundred years so their kids and grand kids will enjoy it too . No modern Japanese house can provide any of these memories to kids and families , and those memories are priceless and to my opinion extremely important to keep families together. These modern Japanese houses are not built to last long, they will be destroyed and rebuilt within less than 50 years , usually even within 30 years or less which is unthinkable to me, because when even the house you live in is disposable , you can't really build anything solid in it.
My Japanese better half was raised in a traditional house in Kyoto so we perfectly agree on the importance of raising kids in a soulful house . and in contact with nature . Kids who are raised away from nature and in soulless environment become depressed and can even develop anti social behaviour, sometimes even flirting with neurosis and sociopathic tendencies.
Japanese commit a lot less suicide in rural areas and traditional housing , and i am convinced that there is a correlation between the house people grow up in and the kind of person they become.
10
-
3
-
@blosphere1234 That is because Japan is so adapted to technology that for Japanese this is called average when for someone like me, this is called unnecessarily high tech.
I think technology is great if it makes your life easier so you can have more time for yourself or your family and friends, but in Japan technology helps people have more time to work , which i find so depressing .
I have a friend who is an ex colleague from work and she could start her laundry machine and even microwave from work, so that when she arrived home she just had to get the clothes off the washer/dryer and dinner would be ready, plus she shopped online so she didn't have to worry about wasting time at the supermarket . I thought this was brilliant, until she added that thanks to that she could leave the company at 9;30 pm instead of 7:30 . I felt extremely sad for her . I left the company at 5;30 every day and went straight to meet my friends and have dinner or see a movie or have a walk in the park, get a drink in a pub and still had time to unwind when i got home around 10:30 before getting myself to bed, while my colleague probably reached home at 11pm and just collapsed on her bed .
Japanese .
Japanese are insanely good at inventing technological devices, .....
for all the wrong reasons.
Don't get me wrong i love Japan, i just feel a little sad for most of Japanese people i have met who seem to let life passing them by.
2