One of the common effects of visiting Japan on a visitor to Japan is the formation of a series of falsely profound conclusions that seem rather, well, profound: Kanji is SOOO deep. It’s like pictures. Each picture is made up of smaller pictures. It has meaning beyond its meaning. It’s SOOO much deeper than the Western alphabet. (Well, yeah, that’s kind of true, although writing with pictures is actually pre-alphabet and the easier versions of Japan’s four alphabets are slowly taking over, and, well, WHICH Western alphabet?)

Writer/Activist Arudo Debito describes this as Gush and Mush–Gush is Japan rocks; Mush is Japan sucks–and ascribes it mostly to journalists in town for a few days. In my experience, though, Gush leads to Mush.

Gush: Japan is SOOO modern; it has the fastest broadband internet connections and everything is SOOO modern.
Mush: There’s no free wi-fi except in Starbucks and the parking lot of 7-11? Japan is SOOO backward.

I personally believe this a consequence of commenting on results without understanding the causes. (Japan hasn’t needed free wi-fi because people have been surfing the net on their cellphones for over a decade and are used to the expense. They’ve been doing that because landlines were expensive. Etc.)

I bring this up because this is a common reaction to the design of Japanese houses and the way that design impacts the lifestyle of people living in them.

One of the falsely profound conclustions is that Japanese families are closer because they all sit together in one room. Rather than having central air, Japanese rooms are heated and cooled as necessary. “This is SOOO much more civilized than the west and brings families closer because everyone is gathered together under the kotatsu and can talk and share values. This is SOOO much better than the selfish isolationist Westerners who sit in different rooms surfing the internet. Also, it’s SOOO much more energy efficient to only heat the room you’re in rather than waste energy on the rooms you’re not using. West bad. Japan good. I love Japan!” (Gush.)

There’s a lot to unpack in that, but I’ll start with a general tendency for the Japanese to build crappier houses—partly because of earthquakes and partly because the value of land is the majority of the cost of building a house. This leads to a lack of insulation, especially on older houses, and a lack of central air. The only way to heat and cool a room is to buy a heater and an air conditioner for that room. This means it’s cheaper to heat only one room.

As for the notion it’s more energy efficient, I don’t believe it. The one room may be warm, but at least one wall is uninsulated and is up against an unheated hallway or room. For example, in winter, my in-laws hang out in one room. That room has a flimsy sliding door that bleeds heat and energy into a hallway that’s so cold that going to the restroom just down the hall feels like going to an outhouse (albeit one with a heated toilet seat that washes and dries your backside.) In summer, you can feel the heat and humidity from the hallway bleeding in through the door, requiring the air conditioner to work all the time.

As for Kotatsus, well they are great until one’s nether regions start baking. Also, because the kotatsu is baking already stinky feet, I’ve been told that I’m lucky I have no sense of smell. As one of my friends said to the comment that the kotatsu is great “So is insulation! So is central heating!”

Also, that “heating only one room is SOOO awesome” conclusion changes by the middle of winter as the person is huddled under a kotatsu and wrapped in blankets: “I can’t believe my coffee table is heated but my apartment is not. I hate Japan!” (Mush.)

Also, although everyone’s together in the same, they are watching TV whilst teenagers surf the net on their phones. At times, it’s no closer than being stuck with people on a crowded train.