The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

In front of the doorway there is a small space unfloored called the doma, where one takes off his shoes after announcing himself by calling, or by striking a gong suspended by the door post. There is often only one story in Japanese houses, and very rarely more than two. Almost all of them are built of wood; the ground floor is raised about four feet above the ground, the walls are made of planks covered with coarse mats; and the roof is supported by four pillars. In a two-storied house the second story is generally built more solidly than the first; experience having shown that the edifice can thus better resist the shock of an earthquake. Sometimes the walls are plastered with a coating of soft clay or varnish, and are decorated with gildings and paintings. The stair to the second story is very steep. The ceilings are composed of very thin, broad planks, and are lower than we are accustomed to, but it must be remembered that the people do not sit on chairs and have no high beds or tables. Doorways, or rather the grooved lintels in which the screen doors slide, are very low and the Japanese, who are always bowing, seem to enjoy having an unusual number of them to pass through in extensive houses. No room is completely walled in, but each one opens on one or more sides completely into the garden, the street, or the adjoining room. Sliding shutters, with tissue paper windows, the carpentry of which is careful and exact, move in wooden grooves almost on a level with the floor, which is covered with padded woven mats of rushes. As a protection against the severities of the weather rain shutters are also used.

All Japanese dwellings have a cheerful, well-cared-for appearance, which in a great measure is the result of two causes; first, that every one is bound constantly to renew the paper coverings of the outside panels, and next that the frequent fires which each time make immense ravages often render it necessary to reconstruct an entire district. In the interior the houses are generally divided into two suites of apartments, the one side being apportioned to the women as private rooms, and the other side being used for the reception rooms. These apartments are all separated from one another by partitions made of slight wooden frames, upon which small square bits of white paper are pasted, or else a kind of screen is used which can be moved at pleasure and the room enlarged or contracted according as the occasion requires. Towards nightfall these screens are usually folded up so as to allow a free passage of air throughout the house.

The mats of rushes or rice straw which carpet the floors are about three inches thick, and are soft to the touch. They are of uniform size, about six feet by three, and this fact dominates all architecture in Japan. Estimates for building houses and the cutting of wood rest upon this traditional custom. The inhabitants never soil them with their boots but always walk barefooted about the house. The mat in Japan answers the purpose of all ordinary furniture, and takes the place of our chairs, tables, and beds. For writing purposes only do they use a low round table about a foot high, which is kept in a cupboard and only brought out when a letter has to be written. This they do kneeling before the table, which they carefully put away again when the letter is finished. The meals are laid upon square tables of very slender dimensions, around which the whole family gather, sitting on their heels.

JAPANESE COUCH.

In the walls are recesses with sliding doors into which the bedding is thrust in the daytime. At bedtime out of these recesses are taken the soft cotton stuffed mattresses and the thick coverlets of silk or cotton which have been rolled up all day, and these are spread upon the mats. The Japanese pillows are of wood, with the upper portions stuffed or padded, and in form something like a large flat iron. Sometimes each one contains a little drawer in which the ladies put their hairpins. When a Japanese has taken off his day garments he rests his head on this wooden pillow and composes himself to sleep. Everything is put away in the morning, all the partitions are opened to give air, the mats are carefully swept, and the now completely empty chamber is transformed during the day into an office, sitting room, or dining room, to become again the sleeping apartment the following night.

Clothes are kept in plaited bamboo boxes usually covered with black or dark green waterproof paper. The furniture is very simple, and there are often in the best houses no chairs, no tables, no bedsteads. There may be some low, short-legged side tables of characteristic Japanese pattern and one or two costly vases or other ornaments, a few pictures which are changed in deference to guests and seasons, some flowers or dwarf trees in vases and a lamp or two. There are, however, two pieces of furniture which are to be found in the houses of every class. These are the brazier and the pipe box, for the Japanese is a great tea drinker and a constant smoker. Every hour in the day his hot water must be ready for him, and the brazier kept burning both day and night both in summer and winter.

The principal meal takes place about the middle of the day, and after it the family indulge themselves with several hours’ sleep, so that at this time the streets are almost deserted. In the evening they have another meal, and then devote the rest of the time till bedtime to all kinds of amusements. In the highest Japanese circles the dinner hour is sometimes enlivened by music from an orchestra stationed in an adjoining room.

In summer a well-planned Japanese house is the very ideal of coolness, grace and comfort. In winter it is the extreme of misery. There are no fire-places and there is unmitigated ventilation. People keep themselves warm by holding themselves close over some morsels of red hot charcoal in a brazier, and frost bite is very common. At night, when cold winds blow, a heating apparatus is put beneath the heavy cotton coverlets. It often gets overturned; a watchman from his ladder-like tower sees afar off a dull red glow, bells begin to clang, and soon the city is in an uproar of excitement over another conflagration. In a few hours a great fan-shaped gap has appeared in the city. One goes at day-break to find the scene of destruction, but it has already almost disappeared. Crowds of carpenters have rushed in, and have already done much to erect on the hot and smoking ruins wooden houses nearly as good as those swept away by the fire of the night before.

The yashikis or palaces in which the people of rank reside, are nothing more than ordinary houses grouped together and surrounded by whitewashed outhouses, with latticed windows of black wood. These outhouses serve a two-fold purpose, as habitations for the domestics, and as a wall of the enclosure. Always low, and usually rectangular, they look very much like warehouses or barracks. The palace of the sovereign has, however, a certain character of its own. It is a perfect labyrinth of courts and streets formed by the many separate houses, pavilions, and corridors or simple wooden partitions. The roofs are supported by horizontal beams varnished white, or gilded at the extremities, and decorated with small pieces of sculpture, many of which are very beautiful works of art. The ancient palace of the Tycoons is remarkable for boldness and richness of outline. Everything breathes a spirit of the times when the power and prosperity of the shogunate was at its height. Upon the ceilings of gold, sculptured beams cross each other in squares, the angles where they meet being marked by a plate of gilt bronze of very elegant design.