You’re going to study at Kyoto University and not quite sure how you’ll afford housing? How about Yoshida-ryo, a rundown dormitory built in 1913 that charges 2,500 yen a month.
At the southern edge of Kyoto University’s Yoshida Campus in Kyoto lies a tree-shrouded, sprawling and ramshackle wooden building. It is decrepit and sometimes even interweaved with overgrowth. But this building is no ruin. It’s the Yoshida-ryo dormitory — a bewildering anachronism in a city based on the idea of living history.
Nearly a century old, and looking every day of it, Yoshida-ryo is very likely the last remaining example of the once common Japanese wooden university dormitory. This building was built in 1913. Organized from the very beginning to be self-administering through a dormitory association (寮自治会), the students themselves have been responsible for selecting new applicants for residency. This autonomy, however, came under full-scale assault in 1971, when the Ministry of Education began a policy of regulating or closing dormitories, which were seen as “hotbeds for various kinds of conflict.” University authorities first tried to close Yoshida-ryo completely in 1979, and after failing to overcome opposition over the next 10 years finally closed the Western Yoshida-ryo across the street.
With the death of Japan’s violent student activism, the campaign to close the dormitory subsided for a time, but in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake there were new calls to replace the poorly aged building, which had already seen its maintenance neglected for decades by a university that had wanted to demolish it.
At present, the future of the dormitory is unclear. While residents have performed some minor upgrades over the years, such as the haphazard stringing of Ethernet cables through the halls to each room, they have only recently begun discussing the possibility of performing serious repairs themselves. There has even been some discussion of bypassing the university and applying for historical building preservation funds, although the building may be considered too far gone for proper restoration, particularly while still being lived in.
The university has recently been fairly insistent on their plan to replace it with a new, safer structure, which fits in with their aggressive earthquake-proofing campaign. But the current administration seems unlikely to take extreme action along the lines of Tokyo University’s demolition of Komaba-ryo in 2001, when its residents were literally dragged out of the building by over 570 private security guards and university staff in the midst of a raging typhoon.
Originally only housing male undergraduates, Yoshida-ryo went coed in 1985, started accepting foreign students in 1990, and since 1991 has accepted any sort of Kyoto University affiliated student, including graduate students, with some current residents living there from their freshman year all the way through the end of graduate school.
While the facilities are sub-par by modern standards, the unbelievably low rent of ￥2,500 per month (technically ￥400 rent, ￥1,600 utilities and ￥500 to fund the Yoshida-ryo Residents Association) and bohemian atmosphere make it an attractive living place for financially challenged students (including a large number of self-financed students from China).
Visiting Yoshida-ryo
Yoshida-ryo is located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Higashiyama and Konoe Streets in Kyoto City. As Yoshida-ryo is a working school dormitory and not a museum, visitors should not wander around the interior of the buildings, but students hanging out near the main entrance are often willing to give a quick tour of the public areas if asked politely.
For the frugal and adventurous traveler, it is often possible to sleep on the floor of one of the large (and admittedly pretty filthy) common rooms for a nominal fee of ￥200 per night, although at the beginning of the semester these areas are sometimes used to temporarily house new residents before rooms are assigned and may not be available for guests. (via Yoshida-ryo dormitory at Kyoto University | CNNGo.com)
