Home Life in Tokyo

by Jukichi Inouye

A WOMAN SMOKING.

The wife, however, has not much time to herself; for before she has taken many whiffs, the tradesmen’s boys will be making their daily calls. Those whose bills are settled at the end of the month are usually the dealers in rice, sake, and faggot and charcoal, the fishmonger, and the greengrocer. The rice-dealer does not call every day; he brings a bag of rice when required and knows pretty well when it will be exhausted. The sake-dealer comes every day; he sells, besides sake, soy, mirin, and miso; and in many cases he deals in faggot and charcoal as well. The fishmonger and the greengrocer call every morning; the former will cook to order simple dishes of fish. Besides these regular tradesmen, there are street-vendors who bring bean-curd, boiled or steamed beans, and other food which will not keep long. We have no grocers properly-speaking in Japan; the nearest approach to them is the dealer in “dried vegetables.” Tea and sugar have, like rice, special dealers.

When these tradesmen have been disposed of, it is time to commence the serious work of the day. The cook washes the breakfast things and sweeps and scours the kitchen floor. The housemaid takes up one by one the quilts and mattresses of the beds, folds them in three, and puts them away in closets; she then dusts the paper sliding-doors, shelves, and other woodwork, sweeps the mats and verandahs, and scrubs the woodwork with a hard-wrung cloth. Many foreigners think it strange that we should dust before sweeping; but we dust the woodwork so as to make the dust fall on the mats or be blown out, as we always open the verandah sliding-doors when we dust and then sweep the mats to get rid of the dust. And finally when some of the dust has fallen again on the woodwork, we remove it with a damp cloth. When, therefore, we have finished cleaning a room, all the woodwork looks bright and speckless. The verandah is scrubbed first with a wet cloth and afterwards with an almost dry one to make it shine. In the sitting-room the wiping and polishing of the brazier is a long job, for the housewives of Tokyo pride themselves upon the appearance of their braziers. The wife superintends the cleaning of the rooms and also at times lends a hand.

When the rooms have been swept, next comes the washing. There is always plenty of washing to do, especially in summer. If, moreover, there are young children in the family, the clothes they are constantly soiling have to be taken to pieces, washed, and remade. If the clothes are lined, wadded, or of the better quality of the unlined, they are taken to pieces and washed, and the pieces are then spread out on a smooth plank specially made for the purpose and laid out to dry in the sun. They are next starched, and when they are dry, they still adhere to the plank and so keep free from creases and shrinkages. The wadding is never washed. The underwear is also washed; but unless it is of silk, it is not spread out. In summer the unlined clothes, called yukata or bath-dress, are washed every three or four days; and as every member of the family has two or more changes, there is always something to wash. The clothes and underwear which need not be spread out, are hung up on long poles which pass through the sleeves and are hoisted up on the pegs of two high upright posts. When dry, these clothes are spread out on a matting and starched and folded for use. Silks which require special skill in washing or have stains to be removed are sent to the dyer.

THE STARCHING-BOARD.

Meanwhile, the mistress of the house may begin her needlework. Needlework is the first qualification of the Japanese housewife. As all clothing for both sexes is made by hand, the wife who is a good needlewoman effects a great saving to her family. Clothes for daily wear are remade every year, sometimes oftener; those belonging to one person may be taken to pieces and remade for another member of the family; and old clothes which show signs of wear are redyed, turned inside out, or resewn to hide the torn seams. The underwear is also subjected to similar transformations. Sometimes a cloth may be remade from the unlined to the lined or wadded, or vice-versa. It is no light task to make shifts to enable the whole family to present a decent appearance, so that even in an ordinary-sized household there is no end of needlework to be done, and unless she is very active or well-assisted, the housewife finds it pretty hard to keep abreast of the seasons with a stock of neat, newly-made clothing. Even in a family where she has no need to sew herself, she must have a fair knowledge of needlework so as to be able to cut the cloth before giving it to the needlewoman in her employ or sending it out to a seamstress; for unless she can by her knowledge check the amount of cloth used, she may be robbed with impunity of odd bits and ends.

The Japanese needlewoman’s work-box is commonly a square or oblong case with two drawers, one above the other, of nearly the same breadth as the case itself and another pair of half the breadth side by side on the top. Into these drawers are thrown threads wound round square, flat pieces of wood or cardboard, odd bits of rag, scissors shaped like shears, and a bone cloth-marker. On one side of the case is an upright post with a flat hole for inserting a bamboo foot-measure, and on the top of it is a little box for the needle-cushion. To the post is attached a small loop of string, to which the cloth to be sewn is hitched with a needle, as pins are, or rather were until recently, unknown. Sometimes the needle-cushion is on an upright of its own, apart from the work-box, and has a long base which is pressed under the knee while the cloth is fastened to the loop. The thimble is not of metal, but of leather or thick paper and is nothing more than a ring put over the first joint of the middle finger.

In sewing, the needle-cushion upright is put to the right of the worker, and an end of the cloth is hitched to the loop. The threaded needle is held and the tip only is moved up and down while the cloth itself is gathered in small folds on the needle; and when there are enough folds on it, the needle is pushed forward with the thimble and the folds are pulled over the thread and straightened out. The needle is then drawn out until it is stopped by the knot of the thread at the first stitch. The same process is repeated. The cloth is re-hitched to the post from time to time as the stitching goes on. This manner of sewing is often mentioned as a peculiarity of Japanese needlework; but the Japanese woman is so used to it that she can sew very rapidly in this way. It cannot be resorted to when the stitches have to be very close or the cloth is too thick or stiff to be doubled into little creases, in which case the needle has to be passed through at every stitch. The Japanese needle is of a very primitive kind; it is made of iron or badly-tempered steel, for it is very brittle; and it rusts rapidly while the eye is square and apt to cut the thread. The danger of the Japanese way of sewing with beginners is that when they bring back the needle after passing it through, they not unfrequently scratch their right cheeks with it if the thread is long.