More than half of this season's Japanese dramas have been broadcast, and if there is no accident, the ratings of the people's broadcast station and the Douban rating "Double Material Champion" will "flower" Kitagawa Keiko and Shota Matsuda starring in "The Counterattack of the Woman Who Sold the House".
In stark contrast to the "big hit" that the show is expected to win the ratings season championship, Japan launched a "screen brushing" new policy of "unlimited nationality, free delivery" at the end of last year.
Is it that house prices are too high and incomes are too low to afford?
Free delivery? Why are the Japanese not impressed by this "pie in the sky" thing?
In the play, why would an old lady with abundant savings prefer to live in a comic Internet café rather than spend money to buy a house?
……
These questions can be found in the new book "Low Desire Society" published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House in September 2018.
"Low Desire Society" is a well-known Japanese management scientist and "Mr. Strategy" Kenichi Ozen published a best-selling social observation work in 2015, which aims at the current socio-economic situation and characteristics of Japan, and summarizes the social problems that other mature countries have not yet encountered, "low desire society" - more and more young people who are declining, super-aging, and losing self-motivation and desire...
In view of the various problems in today's Japanese society, "Low Desire Society" cites the practices of countries with similar precedents in Europe and the United States, and puts forward a series of corresponding strategic suggestions, such as urban redevelopment, how to use idle land, improvement of immigration policies, optimization of supporting construction of sightseeing spots, stimulation of "mature adults" consumption, and transformation of talent education.
The observations and strategies made in "Low Desire Society" can help us understand Japan's socio-economic situation and development, and at the same time have a certain warning effect: Will Japan's present be our future?
Many people's initial impressions of Japanese housing prices may come from the cartoon "Crayon Shin-chan".
Xiaoxin's sentence "My family's mortgage will be paid for thirty-two years", everyone has remembered it since the animation began in 1992.
Today, however, the living conditions in Japan have changed dramatically.
According to the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, as of October 2018, there were 57.59 million houses in Japan, but the total number of households was only 49.97 million, and some villages and towns were gradually disappearing. And this set of data is still being updated.
It is precisely in order to save these areas that the Japanese government set up "empty house banks" to give free houses to those who meet the conditions and pass the examination, and provide preferential conditions such as repair subsidies to attract the influx of people.
There are many reasons behind the lack of attention to real estate.
On the one hand, the problem of Japan's aging and low birthrate is becoming increasingly serious.
Japan's National Institute of Social Security and Population Studies predicts that by 2065, Japan's population is likely to shrink from 127 million today to 88 million, that is, fewer and fewer people will need housing.
On the other hand, buying a house seems to be a "very luxurious and unnecessary" consumption for young people.
Because in the context of the "low-desire society", no matter how low prices are, they cannot stimulate consumption, the economy has not grown significantly, and bank interest rates have been decreasing, but the number of young people who bought houses before the age of thirty is still decreasing every year.
After the "lost 20 years" of the deflationary dark age, they have lost their materialistic and successful desires, and they have a cold attitude towards buying luxury cars and luxury goods. Otaku culture flourished, three simple meals a day were sent off, and "not getting married, not buying a house, and not having children" gradually became the norm in society.
In Omae Kenichi's book, "flat35", a japanese mortgage that provides long-term fixed interest rates, the number of loans has not increased even if the interest rate is 1%.
Although the interest rate is low, in fact, most apartments now have more mortgages than the rental amount. In other words, if it is a house with the same conditions, it is more cost-effective to spend money to rent than to buy with a loan.
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Japanese media analysis, the reason for the decline in the housing ownership rate in their twenties and thirties is that the number of households that cannot apply for loans or cannot afford to pay housing loans is increasing under the influence of factors such as slow salary increases and the increase in informal employment (temporary workers).
Another set of data shows that in Japan, the homeownership rate of families with more than two people in their thirties exceeds 50%, that of those in their forties exceeds 75%, that of families in their fifties exceeds 80%, and that of families in their sixties reaches 90%.
So does this mean that with the aging of the population, after the death of the elderly, children can inherit their parents' real estate and eventually have their own "home"?
In Japan, property owners are subject to a fixed asset tax (1.4%) and a city plan tax every year, and a high inheritance tax is levied on the inheritance of property by their children.
The tax system has wiped out the incentive for people who could have earned income and assets to earn more.
Judging from the results, whether they can afford to buy a house or not, more and more young people choose to rent a house instead of holding a house, which is the first time that the Japanese people have made a very reasonable judgment on "not owning a house" after the war.
And "choosing not to have" has accelerated the arrival of a low-desire society.
In the Japanese drama "The Counterattack of the Woman Who Sold the House", an old grandmother named Shenzi came to buy a house at the housing agency where the heroine Sanxuan's family was located.
The eccentric God Son was very difficult to the members of the society who received her, and was not satisfied with all the houses they saw.
According to the Son of God himself, she had enough cash to buy a house, but she did not have a house that would satisfy her.
However, the truth is not as simple as "not looking at it", the plot develops to the second half, and several protagonists find that Shenzi does not have a house, but lives in a comic Internet café.
It turned out that the Son of God had been living in a dilapidated apartment. Later, the apartment was about to be demolished, and the Son of God went out to rent a house, but all the landlords rejected her on the grounds that they were "worried that she would die alone".
In this way, the homeless God Son lived in the Internet café. At least here, she is not alone, the clerk will also care about her.
However, just when she was still hesitant to buy a house, the Internet café suddenly announced that it would stop operating in three days.
In the end, what makes her dissatisfied is not the house, but that even if she lives in her own house, she still can't change the fate of dying alone.
In the end, the Sanxuan family came up with a solution: she first bought the Internet café, and then announced that it would stop business in three days, which made Shenzi determined to buy the Internet café from her. In this way, the Son of God, who is both the boss and the resident, has both a place to stay, and realizes his desire to spend time with various people every day, feeling that he is needed.
Such a story ending is undoubtedly dramatic and idealized.
In real life, the problem of Japan's aging population has become very serious. And we are not about to face all this.