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Strange neighbourgood stuff


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When we moved in to our new house, we met with the neighbourhood top dog and he went through some of the rules and 'traditions'.

 

One of the latter was... if someone dies in the village area, everyone is expected to attend the funeral and pay 2000 yen -----> even if you don't know the people, never even heard of them or seen them before you hear they are dead.

 

We've had two already! The guy came round last night with info on the funeral and details of the 'shuttle bus' that is supposed to take us all to the funeral ceremony hall - about 15 minutes drive away.

 

Is this a common neighbourhood thing here or just a regional quirk?

 

Interested to hear of any others too.

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While they do announce deaths over the tanoy system here only people close to the deceased or people who want to attend go.

I have never heard of the whole street or block having to go.

I would say no to this one.

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My old neighbourhood wanted us to pay for the gomi station/collection and the local school festival.......wtf do I pay city tax for if the gomi collection isn't included and in a year and a half of living there, I hadn't seen one school festival of which of course I have no kids who actually attend.....I declined....perhaps the wife paid, I dunno

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We pay (a lot) into the "kodomo no kai" every year. It's a bit of a carnival for the local kids and is pretty good fun. Well, I just found out that the "beer and Sake fund" for all the old dudes to get drunk for the two day event comes out of the fees... Next year...I'm going to show up and do some shaming.....assholes...!!

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We don't get tapped up for funerals but there is a regular monthly fee for festivals and events. I usually drink my fill and come home with cans in my pockets, so its better than the other taxes I pay!

 

I think we all chipped in when a girl in our neighbourhood went to the Vancouver Olympics, but she didn't make it this time and we weren't asked to contribute for the other Hakuba competitors who did.

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Seems the lady took care of this, poked her head in and gave the 2000 yen.

Got a nice big box of manju in return which probably cost just over 1000 yen.

As silly as it seems, I suppose to 'fit in' in the neighbourhood and create a good impression, it's a small price.

Oh yeah, and as long as it's her dealing with it not me!!

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That's the flip side for sure, Bags. Here the sense of community is one of the main reasons Japan hasn't descended into social chaviness like most of our countries......I do remember, as a child, each house in our tenement would wash their staircase in turn, my mother out scrubbing the common stairwell landing with a scrubbing brush n bleach when it was her turn. Now, if I went into the same tenement it'd be filthy, stinking of piss and rubbish and junkies living in the houses

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Same here very friendly nicr people but everyone leaves each other to do their own thing.

Last week we all joimed in to clear the snow and all had breaks and a chat and that was fun actually getting to know the neighbours better.

After we all finished it was back to doing our own thing.

What makes this area good is no one here are originally ftom the area a lot are ftom Tokyo and surrounding areas one is from Iwaki some from Nagano and some from Kofu so you havent got this conservative stuck up situation here which is great.

Kofu was conservative and almost all the people living where we lived were born in the area really quite different.

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