Things I won't: Insulation

Cold in the winter, hot in the summer.  It's the story of life in the 'Pan, indoors and out.  Japanese are peculiar in that they are quick to brag that Japan is a country with four seasons, often going so far as to doubt anyone else claims their own country can boast the same.  At first I was puzzled as to why any culture would brag about something so trivial; akin to Foot Locker hanging a sign out front announcing "OUR SHOES HAVE LACES!"

But, like Squanto, many summers have I seen, and wiser am I for it.  I also have smallpox.

And after all this time, I've finally discovered the rea reason Japanese brag on their country offering four seasons: because indoors in Japan, there are only two.  I call them "Frigid" and "Ballsy."

Frigid is, as the name might suggest, a rush of arctic hospitality greeting you at the door after a long day at work. A nutsack-shriveling walk from bed to the bathroom at 3AM.  A bleak, hollow presence that hangs like a nightmare, or perhaps that girl in The Sixth Sense who threw up a mouthful of Jif, stealing away any trace of warmth your space heater bravely putters into the room.

Ballsy, is, again as the name might suggest, akin to spending six months in the jock strap of the world's least hygienic Yokozuna.  Hot.  Humid.  Vinegary. 

Miserable.

The existence of both can be attributed to a common source which can be found in the title of this entry and cannot be found anywhere else in this country with "four" seasons: insulation.

It wouldn't be so bad if the heating and air conditioning units weren't so God damn puny, while simultaneously being outrageously expensive.  Or if people in Japan thought "central air" was something other than an airline.

But alas, no.

You know those rice-paper sliding walls in The Last Samurai or actually good movies set in Japan?  That's apparently as far as wall technology ever got here.  Yeah, it might look like drywall, but it's about as good at blocking out sound or the elements as a mosquito net or similarly bad object at those things.

Given its utter inability to actually, you know, insulate your home from extreme heat and cold, you'd think that, at the very least, the walls of your apartment might afford the occupant a bare minimum of peace and privacy. Again, no.  Through those flimsy walls, you can hear, in crystal-clarity, your neighbor watching a bunch of washed-up, talentless failures scream and flail uselessly in front of a couple hundred slack-jawed idiots... but enough about the Hanshin Tigers.  In all seriousness, they should figure out how to make headphones out of this material--audiophiles would eat it up.  Because a food source is yet another thing walls in Japan are better at being than walls.

I'll be candid: I've lived in extreme temperatures before.  I lived on the infamous "heat or eat" budget in college.  In the summers, the air was off. In the winters, the heat was set to a balmy 55F, just enough to keep the pipes from bursting. So I've been through the shit.  While my minimum-wage part-time job was certainly good for stealing food and putting pounds on my waist, my paychecks were stretched a little too thin for luxuries such as heating, air conditioning, or maintaining a climate capable of sustaining life.  My bed wasn't so much "where I slept" as it was "the most comfortable place to succumb to heatstroke" or "the least troubling place for my loved ones to discover my frozen corpse, if tomorrow I do not wake up."  None of it even comes close to the two-season tag-team that comprise a year in the 'Pan.  Allow me to introduce our champions:

The Two Seasons:
Frigid
Weighing in at six months even and hailing from October to April, the Cold-and-Flu from Tohoku... FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGID!

This one's a son-of-a-bitch.  It's bad enough that it gets dark around 5PM and freezing drizzle is about as common as takoyaki stands in Kansai (writers note: takoyaki stands are very common in Kansai), but that's actually the good part!  It's once you go home and settle in for the long night ahead that the shit really starts.

The lack of insulation in the walls means that the cold outside devours any semblance of ambient heat down to the last degree.  Every night I'd come home, throw on some sweats, then throw on another set.  Then, time for dinner: a nightly ritual of heating up some convenience store bento in the microwave and racing thermodynamics to see who could ruin my meal worse as I alternated between stuffing piping-hot noodles down my throat and frantically chugging the nearest liquid available before the burns go from "severe" to "life-threatening." As a lifestyle, it totally sucked. As a performance art, however, my perfected routine was a stunning display of raw willpower and esophageal elasticity that would put former World Champion Hot Dog Fellationist Kobayashi to shame.

After that, a long night of watching videos and surfing the Internet, occasionally interrupted by plunging my hands down my pants.

To warm them up.

(because friction produces heat)

Ballsy
From May to September, also weighting in at six months, the Sauna from Okinawa, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL-SYYYYYY!

I saved the worst for last.  And boy, is it ever.

As bad as spending the night in an ice box is, at least you can save yourself some coin by leaving the refrigerator unplugged (seriously).  And if you don't mind the bulk, you can always throw on another layer of sweats.  But when the weather gets hot enough to discover the adhesive properties of scrota (that's the plural of scrotum), there are only so many layers you can take off.

Nowhere was this problem more evident than when I attempted to use the small air-conditioning unit that was provided in my first apartment in Osaka which, seemingly in accordance with the laws of douchebaggery, regarded having an automatic three-hour kill-switch as a "feature." That you could never turn off.

See the problem here?

Again, the problem boiled (see what I did there?) down to a lack of insulation (I'll get to that later).  During the day, I could kick the thing on when I got tired of sitting naked in the dark surrounded by a tepid pool of my own sweat, and, once the thing had an opportunity to rev up, it could be fairly comfortable--dare I say, even pleasant--in my room.  Once the kill switch hit, if my reflexes were good enough that day, I could just turn it right back on before all the cool air could rush out through the useless, useless walls (I'm seriously talking seconds here).

The ladies don't call me "Quick Draw" for nothing.

I remember one summer I got up to take a particularly influential aristocrat (a mighty duke, if you will).  Couldn't have been gone more than five minutes, but in the time I was gone, the automatic shutoff kicked in and my room's coolness disappeared faster than acid-wash jeans.

Perhaps I wouldn't have been as frustrated if I had been better rested.  But alas, the three-hour limit ensured only three hours and one minute of uninterrupted shut-eye every night.

My fellow 'Mericans, you don't know how good you've got it.

And so Japan, sucks to your (lack of) insulation.  And your two seasons, too!