I’m going to write about the living environment of one of my roommates, Shogo; hopefully he wouldn’t mind. I live in a Lenape suite, so I have another roommate as well. The latter roommate is very similar to me in a lot of ways: we grew up in similar settings, have similar ideas about things, and live within object environments of similar magnitude. Even though we try to limit the amount of objects that we bring up to college with us, it never works out, and we always end up with more crap than we wished to bring. Our spaces begin neat and then slowly degrade, and after a little while we get tired of the encroaching chaos and clean up—this repeating inexorably. Shogo, on the other hand – though he has slowly adopted some of our living practices – still differs greatly. He is an international student from Japan (and yes, his name derives from the feudal position of Shogun). As a result of this, he was constrained to severely limit the objects that he brought with him, and this has led to his space being populated by the things that are most important to him and most integral to his functioning and happiness.
A little more background on Shogo. Firstly, his work ethic is impeccable: he is awake every morning by 7:30, regardless of whether or not he has class; and, once awake, he immediately gets on his laptop – his portal to the realm of incessant scholastic exertion – and starts getting stuff done—sometimes even before he is fully awake. The stuff on his desk is (almost) exclusively school work related, and it can sometimes seem like he is working perpetually, merely suffering to take food, sleep, and friend/fun breaks; while my other roommate and I seem to do, perhaps, the opposite. Secondly, he’s a stylish dude. His wardrobe is one of the object networks that is most important to him. In the past, when I’ve commented on his dope ass style, he has claimed that it’s a Japanese thing: apparently in Japan his sense of style is average, and we think he looks good because Americans, in general, are lacking in the style sense department. I was going to argue with him on this point, but a quick glance in the mirror disarmed me. Anyway, as I was saying, his wardrobe is important to him. All three of us are moving off campus next semester, and though Shogo is by no means whatsoever a picky person, when we were looking at apartments it was obvious that closet space was a significant selling point with him—even more so than personal space itself. He didn’t care too much about the size of the room he would be living in, just as long as it had a decent closet to house his superior threads. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love nice clothes—and when it comes to suit attire I’ll give the Shogun a run for his money; but as far as the remaining clothing categories go, I suppose I am indeed afflicted by American stylistic inferiority. Oh well.
Our objects – just by our being related to them – reveal an incredible wealth of information about us as people. As seen in Miller’s The Comfort of Things, the information broadcast into the world by our objects is often so substantial that, with careful consideration, it becomes possible to paint a portrait of us based almost entirely on information discerned from our relationships with objects.
Having come to know Shogo pretty well now, I think the objects that are important to him speak very much about him as a person. His wardrobe, the centerpiece of his palace, displays a taste that fits his kind personality, intelligence, and strong character beautifully. Shogo is also one of the most hardworking people that I know. His laptop is one of his most used objects – perhaps even rivaling his phone – and its screen is nearly always filled with something school related; he even leaves it open with the screen on when he leaves the room, as if he wouldn’t be able to return to the task he was working on if he were to shut the lid.
The Materials of History, Thought, and Art 
It’s amazing how subtle cultural differences can be, but how drastically that can get expressed through objects and clothing. Even with such little ability to bring objects with him, it sounds like Shogo still is able to fully express who he is; or at least can do so to a comfortable degree. To people like us who live locally (relatively speaking, at least), we never have to consider the objects that make us “us”. I wonder if that’s a difficult thing to undertake.
Interestingly, I know Shogo because we took a class together last semester. While I only interacted with him a few times, I definitely noticed his sense of style and how impeccable and impressive it was. Like you observe, I think that his work ethic and style definitely match up because he has a certain air of being a well put together person and you can sense that just from his clothing. I find it fascinating that he thinks that his style is average for Japanese standards but like you mention I would have to disagree with him. Indeed, some cultures value a more dapper look especially for men but I think that with his situation, like you point out, it goes beyond his culture. The fact that you noticed that he was particular about closet sizes while apartment hunting indicates that his style and maintaining his image if important to him.
This is very interesting, but I’ve also met Shogo before, and you’re right–he does have amazing style. I only talked to him for a little bit, but his work ethic seemed to be far superior to mine. Makes me a little jealous, actually. But I think your blog post is really insightful for a few reasons. First, I think you’re right to try to examine these cultural differences. When we’re specifically talking about habitats that inform us as human beings, culture and geographic location is really important. Obviously cultural spaces are important to how we develop, so it’s good that make sense of these differences in specific regards to the cultural difference. It’s also interesting to me that, because Shogo was so limited in what he could bring here, he brought mostly school-related things and/or things that made him feel good. Perhaps there’s a link here between his habitus being filled with things related to school and his constant hard-work regarding his classes. Maybe that’s the secret!
I think that this is interesting because when most people stereotype a studious person (which I’m sure we’ve all experienced), they often think that we do not have an ounce of vanity because we are so wrapped up in our work/school. Being that of a different culture, one traditionally associated with proper roles and iconic pop culture, it feels like it would be appropriate to have a deep love and interest in fashion. We all have a niche, because although it’s enjoyable to be defined as intelligent, motivated, and studious, our individuality is almost forged from being noticeably different from the start. He clearly has a routine and attention to detail that I certainly couldn’t maintain, but I enjoy your perspective that he is particular in his schedule and manner, I wish I could keep any surface so focused.