One evening when we were playing Monopoly for kids on the floor, there was a ping-pong on our intercom. Normally no one except delivery drivers ring on our intercom so we were wondering who might be calling late at night. On the screen we saw an elderly woman and through the speaker I heard her explain that she came to tell us about wanting to buy a house nearby. Or so I thought. But let me back up a bit before I continue my musings around house buying.
Giving gifts is very popular in Japan. When you go on a trip you bring back some food souvenirs to family or colleagues, during new year or summer, you often give gifts to thank people who have been importantly to you during the year, when you move into a new neighborhood you give gifts to your neighbors when you say hello. And when you are going to build a new house or tear the old one down, you give gifts to the neighbors to apologize for the inconvenience you are causing them.
Back to our visitor. We went outside to great her and she was apologizing for calling and handed over a small box of Japanese sweets to my wife. They started to talk and I tried to listen while keeping my son happy (which meant not much listening). The few words I caught affirmed my image that this was about buying a house, and when we came inside and I asked my wife about how the gift was connected to house buying, both she and my son started to laugh. As it turns out, the pronunciations of ”wanting to buy” and ”demolition” are the same. And since I had never heard of (or did not remember I should probably say) the Japanese word for demolition, I had made up a house buying story all by my self to make sense of the conversation.
It became a fun night for all of us, especially so my for my son who explained to me time and time again that the lady was apologizing to us for the imminent demolition of the old house nearby that has been standing empty for many years. Now I will never forget that word. And after we had finished the sweets, it turned out that we could use the inner box to arrange all the small parts of the Monopoly game. What a great gift!
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