Extraordinary Ordinary Guy In Japan

DANCHI

DANCHI means a housing complex. You can see the dozens of gray apartments without individuality were built on Japanese DANCHIs. After the WWII, Japanese population increased rapidly and many residences were required. The government organized the Housing Corp and made DANCHIs all over the country. In order to lower the construction cost, the corp purchased the cheap land of the suburbs and built many apartments with the same design. People of those days, who lived in their traditional houses made of wood and paper, yearned to live in those concrete buildings in the Western style, and a large number of people moved to DANCHIs. Consequently, more new DANCHIs were needed and the huge DANCHIs which can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people were built in suburbs of Tokyo or Osaka in the 1950's to 70's. They called those huge DANCHIs as "new town". I'm one of the person who grew up in DANCHI. We played running up and down the stairway of our apartment, dropping spit from the highest floor, or throwing mud balls to the walls. Can you imagine what it's like to live where your classmate lives in the other side of the thin wall? The sceneries of DANCHIs remind me of those days and make me nostalgic. When the children who spent childhood in their DANCHI grew up, they have moved to the apartments in the center of their cities to get more convenience. Some of them have bought their own independent houses. Young people left DANCHI in these 30 years. So, many of the residents of DANCHIs are getting aged now. It's hard to find young people in DANCHI. The rooms which have no lights at night because they lost their owners are increasing. Though the residents used to watch over each other's safety, the decrease of population has made their security low, and it became a serious issue. Those buildings are already antiquated. There is no wonder if you feel lonely from these photos. Some other photos of DANCHI

Mujo

Close to 1,000 houses collapsed in the earthquake which occurred last month, and about 50,000 people are still living in refuges. The sad news has also arrived that several sheltering people dead from fatigue. I shuddered when I imagined that it happened in the center of Tokyo or other crowded cities.

Though it is said that the Japanese buildings are proof against earthquake, the old traditional houses are not necessarily so. The walls of houses had not been thought important for the traditional architectures. In this moist country, to enhance ventilation, the walls were made by lime mixed with grass, and stone was rarely used. The windows were only covered with SHOJI, the framed thin paper, until glass was introduced. That is, the wall did not work to reinforce the structure of a house.

On the other hand, the roofs of those houses were closely covered with the ceramic tiles. The tiles not only prevented rain, but worked as a weight which protected the roof from being blown away by the strong wind. They were very helpful because we have been hit with many typhoons every year. But, since only several wooden pillars supported this heavy roof, the whole house was easy to be crushed under the roof if a heavy earthquake occurred.

The damages from several typhoons and earthquakes in this year made me remember "Hojoki (the Ten Foot Square Hut)". Hojoki was written by Kamo-no-Chomei, the Buddhist in the 12th century, as his reminiscences. Those days, Kyoto was already a big city as a capital of Japan. The crowded town of Kyoto was repeatedly hit by disastrous fires, and suffered serious damage also from earthquakes and typhoons. Chomei looked at people who repeated building and losing of their houses, and realized "Mujo". Mujo means "there is no eternal thing". He gave up having his own house and spent his retirement days in a tiny mountain hut.
And until modernization, other Japanese people who lived in their breakable houses also thought that the place they lived in were always temporary. This mental state of "abandonment" had influenced strongly the Japanese mentality. They were not adhere to things, but liked the simple life.

Today, Japanese people have became greedy, and began to build the concrete houses which cannot be broken easily. But, they will not be able to conquer the natural disasters perfectly. I am amazed that the words of Chomei in 800 years ago are still warning us.

Although the things humans do are all foolish, it is most foolish of all to spend their money and effort in order to build their houses in such a dangerous city area like this.

An English translation of Hojoki can be purchased at Amazon.

Floating under Ground

Tokyo is blessed with abundant groundwater. After the WW2, as a result of industrial development, lots of groundwater had been pumped and many underground hollows which caused land subsidence were made. Though the government regulated pumping of groundwater and land subsidence was stopped, the water levels are going up more than our expectation. When the subway station was built 27m below ground level at Tokyo station in 1972, the groundwater was almost dried up and its levels were 8m below it. Now, the water levels have went up to 15m below ground surface, and the bottom of the station is under water. If measures were not taken, there was a risk of the building collapsing by the buoyancy of the water.

Currently, the station is staying at the same place using the "anchor" just like a ship. The anchor is a wire with a diameter of 15cm fixed to the base rock which is 18m below the bottom floor of the station with concrete. By pulling and lowering with these 130 wires, the building has prevented from coming up. The similar construction was started at the Shinkansen (super express) station of Ueno in this September. The Ueno station is located about 3km north from Tokyo station and the place is also filled with groundwater. The floor of the station had been covered with about 30,000 tons of steel plates for keeping the buoyancy down. But, it was found that these were not enough, and 650 anchors were decided to be driven by spending 3,500 million yen.

Rising water levels in Venice which caused by land subsidence is serious, and it's said that the city may be uninhabitable by 2100. In contrast, buildings of Tokyo begin to float up on the water which overflows from underground.