The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-11-23
A JAPANESE HOUSE,
Outside 1t Is Uninviting, But Inside
1t Is a Beauty.
Novel Experiences for Stranger-The
Bath-Japanese Conversation-Raw
Fish Among the Menu of
Japanese Dinner
The Geisha.


Fish Among the Menu of q
Japanese Dinner
The Geisha.
have moved into Japanese house.
How to describe a Japanese house.
where nothing is like any thing CORE
spending to it at home? From the out
side it is an uninviting big black barn;
inside it is spotless dolls house mag
nified thousand diameters, all wood
and wicker and white paper. The en-
trance hall is platform raised couple
of feet above the ground, where you
take off your boots if you are for
eigner, or leave your sandals if you are
japanese. A screen door slides back
and you are in-but that depends upon
circumstances. Sometimes you are in
one room and sometimes in another. 1t
may be general sitting-room fifty feet
square; it may be bedroom Gf you
call early in the mornings; or you may
find yourself in an improvised sanctum
and intruding upon somebody writing
labored descriptions for PARKWAY
press. For here walls have not only
ears, they have also legs, and when you
wish to make a new room you simply
"form square" by sliding enough pam
els in their grooves to inclose the space,
or at your pleasure all the rooms can be
thrown into one, inclosed, in our case,
by forty-six panels. Those forming the
sides OF the house consist each of sixty
little paper panes. To wet ones finger,
stick it silently into the window and
peep through, is thus the natural Jap
anese counterpart OF Occidental surrep-
titious inspection ly the keyhole.
The floor is of ma $; not mats strewed
about as at home, Tut solid structures
of delicate stuffed wicker, an inch thick,
of conventional and regular size, let
into the floor, elastic, spotless, immov-
able, never profaned by even the dain-
test of slippers. Chairs and tables are
of course unknown, and the posture of
repose is to seat oneself on ones heels.
This squatting, by the way, is very
painful at first, and like the ..blameless
dances" in ..Ruddigore," takes deal
of training" At meal times you squat
anywhere and your food is placed be-
fore you. When you are tired you
throw yourself anywhere on the floor,
with no fear of soiling your white linen
suit. When evening comes you do not
seek your bed chamber, you simply
make it, by sliding the walls round the
spot you have chosen for your slumbers.
The rough-and-ready way. according to
my American friend, is to tread around
on the floor till you find a specially soft
mat and then lay few walls upon it for
a couch. A more luxurious one is to have
futon or thick quilt spread out and
roll yourself in a rug or blanket upon
it. The chief drawback for foreigner
is that his hip-bone, which is much
more prominent than that of Japa-
nese. is terribly in the way, and my
journalism not having yet advance to
graduation upon the plank bed. / have
not learned the trick of celebrating
the natural projections of the body.
But you sleep comfortably in spite of
the marauding rat, whose immunity
from attack has rendered him equally
and harmless, and in the
morning when you return from the
bath. bed and bedroom have alike dis
1t is the story of Aladdin
The bath again, is a new experience.
Take an enormous oval bucket, hold
ing perhaps fifty gallons. with a stove
pipe running up inside it Fill the tub
with water and the pipe with red-hot
charcoal, and when the temperature is
a little short of boiling point, get bodily
in and sit down, and you have a Japan
csc bath. In most cases the next step
Is to get out again with amazing alac-
rity, but the Japanese sits calmly there
and perspires until he is parboiled. Be-
ing the guest, | am invited 10 enter
first, while the entire household stands |
round and suppresses its amusement.
When l emerge, in fainting condi- |
ton. my host enters, and he is followed !
in time by the five servants in the Or
der of their dignity, down to the hum
bic ''cook-boy." If there were any la /
dies resident in our household they |
would take their turn with the rest. !
This bath is, of course. merely to open |
the pores. One is not supposed to wash |
in it. but to sit quite still. Soaping fol- |
lows for the foreigners and rubbing for |
the others, and the cold douche The |
process when completed is delicious,
cleansing and invigorating. and far
ahead of the simple .'cold tub" OF the
at home and abroad.
Behind every japanese house. how
ever small and humble, there is a gar
len. In ours there are the huge
eayed palms, the pleasant shady ma
oles, the amusing bamboo. and a host
IF shrubs with odd gaudy blossoms.
Colossal bumble-bees go rumbling
'ound; there is always a pair of broad
winged brilliant butterflies dancing to-
yether; and every now and then one of
he great half-tamed scavenging crows,
If which there are hundreds of thou
lands not only tolerated but protected
n Japan, put his coal-black head right
INTO the room where we are sitting. and