Rebuilding a house in Japan; mid-late 90s

[ingriam]

Would it be something out of the ordinary for a house to be rebuilt on the site of one that had burned down, particularly if people had died in the fire? Would it be more or less likely to happen if the son of the people who'd died in the fire was still alive

Comments

[orange_fell]

Mod request: please add the time period that your story is set in.

[lilacsigil]

Japan is very crowded and most places are built over old, destroyed homes, whether by fire or other things. It would be more common in most places to have built over an old house than not, especially after the firebombings of WWII. There's a Shinto ceremony for the construction of a new house which, among other things, purifies the site.

[busaikko]

The entire lot would be razed to "raw dirt" (更地 sarachi), when it was bought or about to be rebuilt there'd be a Shinto ceremony (which is done before most home construction anyway), and construction would proceed as usual. Especially in developed areas, people rebuild on the same land all the time, regardless of tragedy (try google searching for the aftermath of the fires that razed Kobe in the quake).