I just moved to a small town in Kansai with my wife near her hometown. We live in a little maisonette-style townhouse in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by families.
Today the doorbell rang so I ran downstairs and opened the door to no one in sight.
Seeing my door wide open, a normal-looking woman in her 30s came into view from the side (I assume she was already on her way to the next home in the row) and greeted me with a big smile from under her mask. She had a baby in a front-facing carrier and was holding an umbrella as it was raining.
I thought maybe she was one of the neighbors that we had met previously that I didn’t recognize or someone here to introduce themselves. But instead, she said some niceties and explained that “she hopes that my family and I are living happily and doing well” or something. I was caught off guard so I asked her to clarify and she repeated the same sentiment. It was hard to really grasp what she was getting at.
I responded politely that we’re doing well, to which she followed up with something along the lines of 「奥様とうまくいっていますか？」(Are you and your wife getting along well?). I said we were and asked if she was someone from the neighborhood, to which she responded that she wasn’t. She then politely sad goodbye and walked back toward the street and left.
Has anyone had any experience with this before? Halfway through the conversation I expected a religious pamphlet or something but got nothing, which made the whole interaction a bit eery. Was she scouting the neighborhood to get a sense of what kind of people live here? Is she going to come back and try to sell us something? And why did she not try the next home down the row? Maybe I’m overreacting but I haven’t experienced any interaction like this before. I’ve lived in big cities during most of my time in Japan, and only a little Leopalace when previously in the countryside, so this is my first “family neighborhood” in a town like this.
Edited: typo
by gummydat