The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1917-03-22

Keeping house in Japan is likely
By Gertrude Emerson, IN McCdUs Mdqazine


AMMMMMMGMMM MMMMYMNMMMMN
Keeping house in Japan is likely
to be one of the most trying ex-
periences one can be subjected to,
if one is without sense of humor;
but with a certain friend of mine
it is the most charming. To begin
with, it is almost invariably the
house that keeps. From the mo-
ment you set foot in Japan, you
are a foreigner" You may
think ii is you who are satisfying
your idle curiosity, taking mental
notes on your new environment,
but some fine day, after you have
picked up a little understanding of
the language, you hear your neigh
Dor in the street-car discussing
your probable age with great gusto
with some one across the aisle, or
you notice how the little woman
with the neat black obj" and blue
gray kimona just across from you
is eagerly taking in every detail of
your clothing, from your New
York hat to your patent-leather
shoes; or a child pipes up with
some query as to what that funny
person is; or you walk inOffensiye-
ly down the street, and a jeering
mob of boys falls into step behind
you; or a large group of people
gathers around you when you
come out of curio shop and
accompanies you to your gate.
Then you begin to perceive that it
is you who are the stranger in the
strange land.
If you attempt to run J our house
according to your precOnceived
foreign notions, you will very
probably come to disaster in your
housekeeping adventure. If you
can be lenient enough to adapt
yourself somewhat to the grooves
worn by the humanity of this old
er country, you will succeed. And,
as | have said, if you have a sense
of humor, you will enjoy yourself
hugely.
The japanese house is ideally
simple, before you arrive to COM
plicate matters. 1t is loosely y made
of wood and paper without fOun-
dation of any kind. This is in con-
cession to the earthquakes which
occur at the average rate of three
a day, although many of them are
so slight that only tilted picture
or mirror on the wall indicates
that any disturbance has taken
place. The outer walls consist of
a series of light framework doors
with translucent rice-paper panes,
that slide along in a double row of
grooves or on little steel runners.
The pleasure of opening your wall
at any place to the out-of-d doors
never grows stale. Inside, the
rooms are separated by similar
sliding doors, called 'fusuma,"
only the fusuma are of heavy
opaque paper stenciled with some
fascinating suggestion of design
blue pine needles, or groups of
fans, or waves and Mother Cary's
chickens, or any of the thousand
fleeting motifs of japanese imag-
ination. Often beautiful cut wood
partitions are inserted above the
fusuma. Sometimes a part of a
wall will be solidly constructed of
mud and sand, and then it is usu-
ally pierced by circular or bell
shaped window, with the same pa.
per panes as the outside ''shoji."
The floor consists simply of straw
mats six feet long by three feet
wide, and a half a foot in thick
ness, carefully bound with black
tape and fitted together in patterns.
The size of a room in Japan is in
dicated by the number of mats; as,
for instance, a two-or-three-mat
room, or a two-or-three-hundred-
mat room in temples or palaces.
The average is a room of eight or
ten mats. In addition, there are
little balconies of polished wood,