The House of Gaijin-san

[emperor]

Photographer Yutaka Otsuka has been interested in "guest house" style accommodations since he traveled around Asian countries as a backpacker.
Now his photo subjects are guesthouses or "Gaijin houses" in Tokyo - rooms, tenants, atmosphere, and the culture of the foreign community.

He has visited several Sakura Houses, and taken photographs for his future publishing and exhibition.
Here are some of his artworks. Jump to each premise's page to see more and larger photographs.

...Tokyo, is not a very comfortable city for foreign people.
Things are expensive, and not many people speak English. But still, many people stay here for various reasons.
We have many hotels, but just as other things, they are expensive. For most people, it's not easy to stay long...

http://www.sakura-house.com/y_otsuka/gaijin_san.htm

das photo:
http://otsukayutaka.com/english/vol.5/harajuku0000.html
(right side for forward, left for back)
and links for more houses

can you guess what this guys job is?

[72hw]

Regarding the photo:

I love it. Tiny little room, tiny little stereo - GIANT fucking TV

[Taro Toporific]

Regarding the photo:

I love it. Tiny little room, tiny little stereo - GIANT fucking TV

Sheeeee-it. That's a fuckquing huge room for a gaijin house, a very spacious ceiling design and standard flatscreen everone here owns* who has bought a new TV in the past couple years. K-cool, neh?!


*The standard Japanese TV is now flatscreen (they hardly sell CRTs here anymore for family use) and more than 30 inches. The flatscreen pays for itself in 3 years of electrical savings here in Japan.

[emperor]

..That's a fuckquing huge room for a gaijin house, a very spacious ceiling design...

odd pricing structure in some of those houses:
in some cases you pay an extra Y2000 a month for nearly 150% the space of an adjacent room ?!? (so 79,000 for 4.5mats vs 81,000 for 6.8mats a month)

maybe the bigger and cheaper ones come with a 'catch' or *several* of them?

they seem to charge an extra 20,000 standard if youre sharing with an extra person, is that normal practise?
they dont do that in ireland, you just pay your rent and thats it:
although there were scandals a while back when a building burnt down which had a ridulous number of philapino nurses crammed into the same rooms together..

[72hw]

Sheeeee-it. That's a fuckquing huge room for a gaijin house, a very spacious ceiling design and standard flatscreen everone here owns* who has bought a new TV in the past couple years. K-cool, neh?!

I should have been more clear about my intent, instead of merely thinking it to myself... lol!

My comment was more to point out no matter how different we might seem, when ya get right down to it we're all happy just so long as we have the basic nessecities of life: Shelter, Music and Huge Screen To Look At Shiny Things On!

[drpepper]

I liked this profile:

"Sanna was Swedish and worked as a photographer in France. It has been three months since she came to Japan. She is to stay here for one year. Ben, who was visiting her room by chance on that day, also works as a photographer."

If she was Swedish then WTF is she now??