Growing up in Vancouver, which has a large Asian population, he had always been curious about Asia.
“I started meeting a lot of really cool people from Japan, including my future wife at the time, who was studying in Vancouver. And I thought, ‘OK, well, I’m going to check it out firsthand,'” Jordan told Business Insider.
His original plan was to teach English in Japan for a few years. But as he fell in love and eventually got married, he ended up staying in the country for good.
Jordan, who has two kids, asked to be identified by only his first name to protect his privacy. He now lives with his family in his wife’s hometown in Mie Prefecture, which is just under four hours by car from Osaka.
Settling down in the countryside
They wanted to be in the same neighborhood as his wife’s family, so when a house — built in the ’80s and across the rice field from her parents’ home — went on the market one day, they bought it and moved in.
“We kind of struggled through those 10 years living there. It was terribly designed, with bad, cheap materials like fake wood everywhere,” Jordan said. “It really wasn’t built to last.”
After a decade, the couple decided it was time to do something to improve their home. They planned on renovating but eventually decided against it.
“We looked into it, and basically, the advice we got back was it would be a waste of our time and money because the house probably isn’t earthquake-safe,” Jordan said.
With the amount they’d have to spend to bring it up to the most recent building codes, they’d be better off buying or even building a new place, he said.
And that’s exactly what they did — they demolished their old house and built a new one in its place.
A fresh start
The couple got help from a local company, the same people who had built his in-laws’ home as well as a few houses in the area, Jordan said.
“We really loved the feeling of all the houses they’d built,” Jordan said. “It was very woody, great use of space, really good solid materials, no frills, but modern, and clean kind of design.”
They already had an idea of the layout they wanted, and they worked with the company to refine the design. Once things were finalized, it was time for them to start packing up and getting ready for the demolition.
As excited as he was about the new house, watching his old home get torn down was an emotional process, Jordan said.
“It was really weird because my two kids basically were born more or less in that house and grew up there. We have so many memories there, good and bad,” he said. “It actually hurt seeing my house come down.”
During the construction of their new home, Jordan and his family stayed at his in-laws’ place.
“That was the good part about being across the rice fields from them; we just moved there for seven months,” he said.
Construction started in winter, and by fall 2020, Jordan and his family had moved into their new home.
Building a cozy family home
Jordan estimates that he spent about 30 million Japanese yen, or about $200,000, on the build, and another 2 million yen on a solar-powered heating and cooling system for the home.
“We could have definitely built a cheaper house. We went with a very hands-on, local company that uses wood from a local mountain,” Jordan said. “So you’re kind of paying a little bit of a premium for that.”
This is in addition to the 10 million Japanese yen he spent on buying the 150-square-meter plot of land 20 years ago. In Mie, the median land price per square meter was 90,066 Japanese yen in 2023.
Facing challenges during the process
All the materials, right down to the type of tiles, that were used in the home were chosen by his wife, he added.
The three-bedroom home has two floors. The master bedroom, a family room, and a bathroom are on the first floor. The kitchen, living area, and the kids’ bedrooms are upstairs.
“The main living space that I spend the most time in is kind of the kitchen and living room area, so I wanted that to be gorgeous,” he said. “We have rice fields around, and mountains in the back, but when you’re at the first floor, you can’t really see very far. So we moved everything up to the second floor.”
The main building company they worked with mostly did carpentry work, so certain jobs — like wiring and plumbing — had to be outsourced to different contractors. This sometimes led to miscommunication.
“People would come in, and we’d have this vision for our house that I’d assume everyone would know,” Jordan said. “Our carpenter gets it. But what happens is when you hire an outside company, they come in, they look at it, and they do what they normally do.”
“Some things were happening in a way that wasn’t what we thought we agreed on,” he continued.
Although everything was sorted out in the end, there were moments when he worried that things wouldn’t work out.
Additionally, it helped that his wife and her family were involved in communicating ideas to the builders.
“I can speak Japanese, but there’s a lot of nuance. It would’ve been really difficult if it was down to me explaining stuff in Japanese,” he said.
Appreciating Japanese culture
Jordan says he succeeded in building a space that’s perfect for his family.
“One of the differences is we don’t feel like going out as much now because it’s just comfortable to be at home,” Jordan said.
He’s also close to the local community, and it’s one of the things he really likes about Japanese culture.
“This is also kind of an Asian thing. It sounds negative, but the minimization of the self for the good of the community — you learn how to pull yourself in a little bit for the good of everyone else,” Jordan said. “You think about how it makes everyone around you feel. That kind of thing is very practical and it makes for a community that feels good to be in.”
He also likes the attitude the Japanese have toward working hard.
“The other thing is, in Japan, in general, if people are going to do something, they want to do it well,” he said. “And I love the feeling that people take pride in what they do and that people respect others for hard work, whatever the work is.”
A laid-back life
Jordan isn’t alone in being drawn to Japan. According to the country’s Ministry of Justice, 2,604 Americans moved to the country in 2023, bringing the total number of American expats in Japan to 63,408.
Four Americans that BI previously spoke with cite the country’s safety standards and relative affordability as reasons for making the move.
Like Jordan, many of these expats are also opting to live in the countryside where they can enjoy a slower-paced life while being surrounded by the stunning natural landscapes that Japan is known for. Some of them even choose to buy and renovate one of the country’s 8 million abandoned homes.
As for Jordan, he loves life in Japan so much that he’s started a YouTube channel to document it.
“What really motivated me was that after living in Japan for a long time, I noticed that I stopped appreciating the little things. I lost that fresh eye I used to see things with, things that I used to get so excited about,” Jordan said.
By picking up a camera and vlogging his experiences, Jordan says he was able to reconnect with his old self and learn to appreciate the normal, but magical things about being in Japan again.
Even though he’s in the rural countryside, Japan’s well-connected public transport system means he’s never too far from the city. He can still easily be in places like like Osaka or Nagoya in two hours, he said.
“You get all the benefits of living in a non-overly competitive society — where things are chill — but you can still hop on a train and be in a bustling city, which is crazy exciting,” he said.
Have you recently built or renovated your dream home? If you’ve got a story to share, get in touch with me at agoh@businessinsider.com.
