The toko, or base, is five centimeters thick and is, traditionally, made of pressed straw woven with linen threads (the woof). Machine woven since the Taisho Era (1912-26), toko lasts forty years or more. The longer the wara (straw) used, the higher quality the mat. Because rice-harvesting machines chop wara into short pieces that are unsuitable for tatami, Japan has been importing wara from Taiwan for over ten years now.
The omote, the thin visible surface, is made of igusa (rush), the majority of which is woven in Okayama, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Kumamoto. With traditional wara toko, the omote is used for three years, reversed for another two years, and then replaced.
The third part, the heri, is the border that once was silk, linen, or cotton, but is now mainly synthetic fabric. Unlike previously, today heri patterns and colors are freely chosen by the user. Rooms with a tokonoma (wall niche for displaying art or flowers), however, still frequently have a mon (crest) pattern on the heri.
Over the ages, tatami size was gradually standardized so completely that the number of mats a room can contain became a way of measuring its size. But the standards are relative: the size of tatami varies according to region. A twelve-mat room in Tokyo is considerably smaller than one in Kyoto.
During the Heian Period (794-1195), only court people used tatami. The color of the heri indicated the owner's rank. The higher the rank, the more mats they could pile up to elevate their sitting positions. It wasn't until the late 1600s that ordinary households had tatami. In terms of expense, today a tatami room costs roughly three times as much as a regular room to build.
Tatami has a practical side that, despite its higher price, ensures its continued use in Tokyo and similarly crowded cities. A tatami room can sleep many, whereas a room with beds can sleep only one or two. Tatami rooms can also be used for multiple purposes: in my home, our four-and-a-half-mat room serves as our dining room, living room, kitchen, guest room, and bedroom. How's that for economy?
Tatami is increasingly being made of plastic. According to Chojiro Shimizu, head of the National Federation of Tatami Unions, the majority of new tatami toko consists of a thin oil-based perforated plastic with thick Styrofoam beneath it. This innovation is promoted by construction companies due to lower cost (not necessarily for the customer), light weight (a new-type mat weighs less than five kilograms; real tatami can weigh up to thirty kilograms), and easy maintenance (no bugs; no need for airing).
The "breathing quality" of natural tatami, which absorbs as much as one cup of moisture per mat, is lost. Natural tatami also reduces noise, is good insulation, biodegradable, and not so hazardous during a fire. And for anyone sitting seiza style (on folded legs) for any length of time, there is a real difference in comfort.
What about the bugs or fleas that are occasionally attributed to tatami? According to Mr. Shimizu, new toko must be aged a full year before use to ensure bug-free mats. Once installed, traditional mats should be stacked outside, aired, and beaten twice a year. Mr. Shimizu added that the city of Tokyo encourages the use of plastic mats because the semiannual airing process produces four times the amount of trash on airing days. This strains the city clean-up services. I myself prefer the inconvenience of airing and pounding rather than having to put up with pain in my legs caused by the newer species. My husband Itsuo, who has to lug the thirty kilogram mats outdoors, may have a different opinion.
Interior Woodworkers
The realm of the tateguya is architectural openings: windows, doors, and the like. Until the medieval ages their work was done by regular carpenters, but by the seventeenth century, the independent tateguya had come into being. At this time stores, brothels, and restaurants had increased the demand for fancy woodwork. Due to strict Edo anti-luxury regulations, though, the real tategu renaissance came after the Meiji Restoration (1868).
The advent of aluminum doors and windows pulled the rug out from under the Maejimas' traditional profession. After the war they had been too busy to relax, except for the months of January and February when cold and ice prevent them from working on lacquered wood. A major part of the lives of Masaji Maejima and his younger brother Yasuji has been dedicated to making amado, glass and shoji wooden frames, itado, and ranma, items which many are totally unfamiliar with today.
The amado, or rain shutter, dating from the sixteenth century, is a traditional type of wooden storm window—often hidden in a design panel on the outside of a house—that is slid closed during storms and at night for protection. Some modern homes use aluminum equivalents that slide out from aluminum sheds on either side of a window. The precursors of shoji, or translucent paper sliding screens, were tsuitate shoji: stand-up movable screens that were first used in temples to separate spaces in large rooms during the Nara Period (710-94). By the Heian Period (794-1185), they and other forms called ita shoji, which consisted of wooden frames with paper or cloth pasted on them; akari shoji, or light shoji, with paper or silk on a lattice; and fusuma shoji with two layers of paper had come into use. Akari shoji allowed diffused light to enter the home, and their soft moonlight inspired an orgy of poetic descriptions. This is the same type of shoji that is still used today, although current shoji are "plain Janes" when compared to the fancy pictorial lattice designs of the past. Sliding wooden doors, itado, are unique to Japan. Other countries that have used sliding doors have suspended them from above; none has run them from top and bottom as in Japan. Ranma, the fancy wooden partition designs hung from the ceilings between rooms, provided ventilation as well as decoration.
Masaji and Yasuji Maejima, both dressed in gray pants and jackets, work in a huge workshop beneath Masaji's second-story living quarters in Tsukishima, an old island community in Tokyo Bay. There are large machines along the periphery and one entire wall is hung with wooden-handled tools, the majority of which are planes of all sizes. An old potbellied stove squats near the doors, unused. Other than this, wooden shavings and stacks of spruce and other woods, the room is an open space. It's the end of March, a chilly rainy day. As the brothers talk in their mild, quiet tones, large puffs of breath evaporate in midair.
They are ambivalent about progress. The new machines are great—manual planing had been back-breaking. Yet, before, customers had made more special orders and were particular about the woods to be used. Many would come to select wood personally. Also, handmade products have a particular sheen that cannot be reproduced by machine. Now that most things are ordered by large construction companies and sizes are uniform, about half of their business involves working as wholesalers of factory-made units. Special orders are falling off, but there are more than enough orders for ready-made doors and windows. So their work is now easier and more lucrative.
A third-generation tateguya, Masaji was trained before the war from the age of fifteen and worked every day from morning to night except on the first and fifteenth of the month, his days off. After the war, their working time (previously about eleven hours a day) was stretched to fourteen hours because they were so busy. Even after aluminum windows first came into use in the early 1960s the Maejimas were constantly busy because the variety of door and window sizes required their custom services. But once measurements became standardized, special factories took over.
What about the fourth generation? Both Masaji and Yasuji smile bashfully. Of Masaji's three sons, one is a technician, one sells fish at Tsukiji, and the youngest works for Fuji-Xerox. Yasuji's son is a draftsman of government bonds. Shoulders are shrugged. There's a perfectly good business selling pre-made materials, but the skill and finesse of their profession are rarely called into practice these days. Both are adamant, though, that although changes in their business are fine by them, the old two-story wooden homes—the product of their traditional work—offer a far better lifestyle than that of the new buildings that are fast destroying the old neighborhood of Tsukishima.