Fig. 166.—Slashed curtain.
CHAPTER IV. INTERIORS (Continued).
The kitchen, as an apartment, varies quite as much in Japan as it does in our country, and varies in the same way; that is to say, in the country, in houses of the better class, both in Japan and the United States, the kitchen is large and oftentimes spacious, well lighted and airy, in which not only the preparation of food and the washing of dishes go on, but in which also the meals are served. The kitchen of the common city house in both countries is oftentimes a dark narrow room, ill-lighted, and altogether devoid of comfort for the cook. Among this class of houses the kitchen is the least defined of Japanese rooms; it lacks that tidiness and definition so characteristic of the other rooms. It is often a narrow porch or shed with pent roof, rarely, if ever, possessing a ceiling; its exposed rafters are blackened by the smoke, which finds egress through a scuttle, through which often comes the only light that illuminates the dim interior. In the city house the kitchen often comes on that side of the house next the street, for the reason that the garden being in the rear of the house the best rooms face that area; being on the street too, the kitchen is convenient for the vender of fish and vegetables, and for all the kitchen traffic, which too often with us results in the strewing of our [pg 186] little grass-plots with the wrapping paper of the butcher's bundles and other pleasing reminiscences of the day's dinner. In country the kitchen is generally at the end of the house usually opening into some porch-like expansion, where the tubs, bucket etc., and the winter's supply of wood finds convenient storage.
Fig. 167.—Kitchen in old farmhouse at Kabutoyama.
In public inns and large country houses, and also in many of the larger city tea-houses, the customary raised floor is divided by a narrow area, which has for its floor the hard trodden earth; and this area forms an avenue from the road to the heart of the house, and even through the house to the garden beyond. This enables one to pass to the centre of the house without the necessity of removing one's shoes. Porters and servants bring the guest's baggage and deposit it directly upon the mats; [pg 187] and in the inns more privacy is secured by the kago being brought to the centre of the house, where the visitor may alight at the threshold of the very room he is to occupy. A plank or other adjustable platform is used to bridge this avenue, so that occupants may go from one portion of the house to another in their bare or stockinged feet.