New apartment. Greetings and gifting.

16 comments

1. > My situation is as below. I have neighbors on all sides.

   Wait you don’t have any outside view?! Do you even have windows?

2. I think it depends.
   I have moved into 4 different apartments during my last 10 years and never gifted anyone. Also, nobody never knocked on my door offering me gifts when they moved…

3. I wouldnt buy anything for anyone. Barely see them and when we accidentally meet just completely ignore each other

4. Honestly if you live in Tokyo I wouldn’t even bother. But it’s up to you. If you want to be extra safe just do all of them but do something cheap but practical like a a triple pack of tissue boxes lol

5. If it’s a rental-only place it’s probably not worth bothering about, but if it’s mostly owner-occupiers then I recommend doing left, right and up down.

6. If you decide to do it I would greet 2, 4, 5 and 7.
   Does your building seem fairly anonymous? Just a bunch of 1Ks with young singles? Then I wouldn’t bother. If there seems to be more of a community and/or if the place is full of families living there long-term (and you plan to do so too) then I’d do it.
   Classic gifts are rice/towels/dish soap or sweets.

7. You can just knock on the door and introduce yourself. It is a good thing. No need for presents.

8. “Itsa me”, Mario ! is that you ?

   Personally I would do 2 4 5 7, but not the one across a hall.

9. Y’all talk to your neighbor?

10. When new people in our street moved in they gave everyone a box of fancy schmancy looking rice crackers. In this weather I’d probably give my neighbors a cup of Häagen-Dazs 🙂

11. Never done it, never will. But wish you the best in this endeavor.

12. People don’t seem to do it anymore. My daughter outright refused to during her last move.

    But, I don’t think people would actually object. Traditionally, it was a hand towel to anyone you might be a noise disturbance to. Or soba noodles. About 500 yen — maybe 700 now there’s inflation.

13. So we have x and y scale, but why no z scale?

14. If you are renting don’t bother. If you bought the place yes.

15. When I /we (Japanese wife) rented we never bothered. But when we bought an apartment in a totally new building (top floor) We were visited by our right side neighbors first so we went right, left and bottom (because we have a baby). Besides the return move-in gifts the obaachan next door gave us peaches for our baby at a later time.

    As a sidenote, maybe some of you can relate; as a foreigner I read up on lots of customs that I want to do to fit in while native Japanese (like my spouse) don’t care because they don’t need to follow every custom and norm to be categorized as insiders.

16. Yeah may be all of them to check out who is living there.Just bring some foreign sweets or fruits. One time I went to greet these young sisters neighbor downstair they are totally cool with it. Grumpy old man neighbor is not so