JAPANESE HOMES AND APARTMENTS
Caitlin's small but modern apartment has a number of traditional features
"As he shuffled through the living room he gestured to some paintings high on the walls with an utterance Caitlin couldn’t quite catch, then led her into a smaller tatami room, bare except for a low polished wood table and, toward one corner, a recessed alcove before which he knelt. It was cool and quiet in the room." (PAGE 125)
| Japanese housing has changed drastically in the last few generations, but many characteristics of Japan's traditional wooden homes can be found in new homes and condominiums. A basic feature of all Japanese homes is a genkan or entryway where shoes are removed before stepping up into the house. House measurements were based on the unit of the tatami mat, a woven mat just under 1 meter wide by 2 meters long that is sewn to a thick base. Homes used to be nearly entirely floored in tatami. Rooms of tatami are extremely versatile--extra futons can easily be set out in them to accommodate guests, and futons can be stowed in the deep futon closets and low tables and zabuton cushions brought out to quickly turn a bedroom into a dining room or receiving room. The tatami room where guests are received traditionally has a tokonoma or alcove for displaying a scroll, flower arrangement, or some pottery such as in Naomi's uncle's house where Naomi's grandfather reads the scroll to Caitlin; this room may also contain the Buddhist altar or butsudan, as well as the Shinto altar or kamidana. Sliding paper-lined fusuma doors divide rooms of many houses and apartments; shoji, or sliding paper windows, often take the place of curtains. Older homes may have an engawa, a narrow veranda, that serves as a link between the home and the garden. New homes are increasingly Western style, however, often with only one or two tatami rooms, curtains instead of shoji, and virtually no garden at all. Most homes, condominiums, and apartments have a laundry balcony, and even in homes with clothes driers, laundry is dried outside and bedding frequently aired. Central heating is rare, and kerosene and gas heaters are common as are kotatsu, low tables with a heating element and blanket covering to keep legs warm. Early homes often had sunken irori hearths such as the one in the Uji temple Caitlin visits. |
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