HOW THE JAPANESE KEEP WARM

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by: Carole Woods

The Japanese, except for those living on one far northern island, have always-to my knowledge--lived in unheated houses. To do this, they've developed many beautiful techniques for keeping warm techniques which make a Japanese home quite different from what most Americans might imagine.

Japanese houses, it is said, are designed to be comfortable in hot weather while Western homes are constructed for comfort during cold weather. This may be true, but the average temperatures in Japan cover roughly the same range as those of the United States. Match degree against degree, for example, and you'll find living in Tokyo very similar-temperature-wise-to residing in Washington, D.C.

The traditional Nipponese home and its inhabitants, in other words, have happily survived many centuries in a climate not very different from our own. And that house and the people who live in it have done so without central heat.

How can this be? Can unheated houses really be comfortable?

Yes they can. I grew up in Japan and was fortunate enough to always live in traditional homes. I love them dearly, in fact, and much prefer them to the centrally heated "ovens" so typical of our culture. Perhaps-if I describe a typical winter's day as we lived it in our Japanese house-you'll understand my feelings.

Since we were a motherless family, we always had a Japanese maid to run our residence and raise us children. So my day began when Yukiko-san (her name meant "snowchild") poked her head in my bedroom door (her bedroom too) and gently said, "Shichiui desu yo." ("It's seven o'clock.")

That was the signal for me to slip out from under the snug kakebuton or Japanese quilt. Now a Japanese quilt is quite different from an American one. When constructed of a combination of modern and traditional materials as it now usually is, it consists of a very light nylon covering over each side of aloft (or thickness) of approximately four inches composed of untold layers-of cotton. This quilt is not sewn through like a Western one would be, either. Instead, only an occasional thread-which is not pulled tight-runs from the nylon on one side, through the filling, and to the other nylon cover.

What this produces essentially is a big, fat, warm and wonderful, rectangular Polarguard sleeping bag which is spread over your futon (or bed). And the futon is just as uncomplicated as the kakebuton: the bed is simply a padfilled with foam rubber or cotton-which folds into a neat three-sectioned pile for daytime storage.

Getting out of bed, of course-just as it always has been in any unheated house anywhere-was the toughest task of the day. I was never really comfortable again until 1 had dressed and given my body enough time to warm the clothes I put on. Which, maybe, wasn't as bad as it sounds since I usually accomplished the job with some speed and agility!