My quiet neighborhood

Me and my boyfriend lives in a apartment in a area called Ogura-cho. It's a five minutes bicycleride north from Kansai Gaidais east gate. It's a very quiet neighborhood where the only noise I can hear is the sound of a barking dog at the apartment opposite mine. Don't they ever listen to music? Laughing with their friends? or scream when Hanshin Tigers win a game? In Sweden we behave a bit different. We don't show the same regard and respect for our neighbors. In some way it is accepted to make noice at daytime and it's not until the night comes that your neighbours get upset if you make a lot of noise. It's very interesting differences. I don't think a quiet neighbourhood in Japan is about that they don't live their lifes, they just have another way of respect for each other. They don't make themselves remarkeble at the same way as we do. We have a big need to express ourselves and show other people our big personality. In Japan they show it in another way, with their mood, clothes etc.

Another thing I noticed is that my neighbors always have their curtains down. I have not even once had the chance to look into their apartments. I tried to discuss this with my speakingpartner Chiaki but she tought my questions were very difficult to explain. For her it's probably just a way of everyday life and a hard thing to explain and discuss with other people. She said that one primary reason why they keep their curtains down is because it's messy inside, or that they don't want to show other people how they live and how it looks like inside. She asked me why we open up at daytime and I said that we open up to let the light into our apartments. She tells me that Japanese people very often loves their home, it's a very intimate place where you don't what people to see you in action, sleeping, eating ect. In Sweden it's the straight opposite, people love to open up their windows/apartments to show their neighbors what they are doing, that they have fun or that they can afford things.  

It's very interesting how our way of thinking and acting are so different from eachother.