Think of all of the old-style Japanese houses that have literal paper-thin walls. Those could have A/C perhaps only if they want to throw money away.
That got me curious so I did some looking around. Apparently lots of Japanese buildings (even modern ones) have minimal insulation; either people don't seem to believe in its effectiveness for some reason or there may be some financial monkey business by home builders. It seems the traditional houses are to some extent designed to be more tolerable in hot weather at the expense of being super cold in the winter. It looks like some old-school houses have A/C but they tend to just cool/heat a limited volume in the house rather than the whole thing; I guess that could sort of work if that space were separated from the outside by un-cooled/heated rooms. At least that's what I picked up from poking around on the subject for about an hour.
That got me curious so I did some looking around. Apparently lots of Japanese buildings (even modern ones) have minimal insulation; either people don't seem to believe in its effectiveness for some reason or there may be some financial monkey business by home builders. It seems the traditional houses are to some extent designed to be more tolerable in hot weather at the expense of being super cold in the winter. It looks like some old-school houses have A/C but they tend to just cool/heat a limited volume in the house rather than the whole thing; I guess that could sort of work if that space were separated from the outside by un-cooled/heated rooms. At least that's what I picked up from poking around on the subject for about an hour.
I suspect it has something to do with all the earthquakes.