Metal Shutters

Upon first moving to Japan, I noticed while walking around our town (walking, yes, the Japanese walk and not only for exercise to work off all those bacon double cheeseburgers, either) that most houses had these metal shutters covering their windows.  Fearing that maybe we moved to the Japanese version of the projects, I asked my wife about it.

When asked if those metal shutters where for protection, she informed me that yes, they are for protection - my greatest fears had just been realized.  My wife inquired as to why I looked so worried, I stared at her in amazement; she just informed me that people are forced to cover their windows with metal in order to protect themselves from home invasion and she had the nerve to ask me why I looked distressed?

She laughed.

People in Japan don't cover their windows to protect them from intruders, they cover them to protect them from high winds, or typhoons.  It is very windy in Japan, it being an island and all, and as a result, people often protect their windows and homes by installing rolling metal shutters on them.  They are retracted when the weather is good.

I told her not to laugh, it was an obvious mistake, no one in America would ever put metal shutters on their homes to protect it from bad weather and bad weather does exist in the US, just ask anyone living in Florida the hurricane capital of the country.  Even then, though, you will never see any Floridian putting ugly metal shutters on their home, they will just leave the bare glass sun porches open to the elements and hope for the best, or that their insurance companies will pay up.

So there you have our new "little difference", metal shutters, their not just for keeping hoodlums and zombies out of your home anymore.