Tansu were mainly kept in the kura, a storehouse with massive, fire-proof clay walls which stood either next to the house itself or sometimes a little further up the street. The tansu with winter clothes were brought back in spring and the tansu that contained spring wear replaced them. In the wealthier households, the boxes were borne back and forth by liveried servants. Most typically, a tansu consists of upper and lower halves, each containing two drawers. Many are fronted with cupboard doors. The upper and lower sections have metal handles at both ends, which are in fact loops for passing a shoulder-pole.
Contrived to impress neighbours and passers-by, tansu often displayed outstanding carpentry and craftsmanship, sometimes with wonderfully decorative open-work iron fittings and lacquered finishes, but they were not designed to be admired at home. Except for tables for eating and writing upon, rooms in traditional Japanese homes are kept pointedly uncluttered with furniture. Instead they have built-in closets with sliding doors which, until Western influences took hold in the 1870s, were used for hiding away the tansu.
There were in fact several different kinds of tansu; they were neither solely for clothes nor for storing in a closet or kura. Several varieties were destined solely for the kitchen; more or less permanent fixtures and often fitted with cupboard doors above and drawers below, they are known sometimes as mizuya and were mainly used for keeping utensils and tableware. There were ship-board tansu, travelling tansu and tansu designed for use in shops; there were tansu that were strong-boxes. There was even one kind of fairly heavy kitchen tansu with wooden wheels—unlike the Western chest-of-drawers, the tansu was always made with easy removal and transportation in mind.
One of the more curious variants is the kaidan (staircase) tansu (see left). Though technically free-standing, they were designed to be incorporated into the house and, as such, constituted the staircase. Many old houses have been demolished in recent decades, along with their kaidan tansu, but fortunately, now that antique furniture fever has belatedly gripped Japan, such salvageable items are now borne away and sold.
Tansu have always been made in many places in Japan, but among the finest antique varieties are those from Yonezawa in North-eastern Honshu, renowned for expensive keyaki (zelkova) wood. Other woods used for tansu are sugi (Japanese cedar), hinoki (Japanese cypress) and, above all, lightweight, pale kiri (pawlonia) wood.
Today, the Japanese have also widely taken to having tansu in their homes—especially the growing legions of people fond of antiques. Like Korean chests, fine tansu fetch high prices on the international antique market. Reproductions are now common and, though still cheap 20 years ago, even modest examples of the genuine article have become relatively expensive.
Noren
暖簾
entrance curtains
Originally contrived as a sunshade, the noren curtain is among the most traditional of things Japanese, and one that never seems to go out of fashion. Like so many things, it is often said to have originated in China, making its way long ago into Japan with the devotional paraphernalia associated with Buddhism. The merchants attending temple services must have taken note; during the Kamakura period (1185-1333), the noren came to be used as a sign to hang over the entrances to shops. Made of thick cotton or hemp, the most basic form of noren shows characters or a white logo applied in the centre with a resist-dyeing technique on a dark indigo background, though colours and designs nowadays tend to vary a great deal.
The logo almost always represents the specialty of the house. A pattern suggesting a tea whisk and/or tea bowl, for instance, would denote a shop selling tea. The phonetic Japanese character yu—meaning hot water—is found on the noren hanging outside the entrance of the traditional public bath. Noren are commonly decorated with the owner's mon, or family crest. White on a dark background, these ingeniously simple patterns represent birds (typically a crane) or animals, a tree or plant (pawlonia, ginko leaves), a mountain (especially Mt Fuji), a flower (the imperial man is the chrysanthemum) or a Chinese character. In addition to noren, they adorn clothing such as workmen's jackets (hanten) (see pages 52-53) or kimono (see pages 54-55), stationery (see pages 74-77) and lanterns (see pages 120-121).
Traditional restaurants, sembei biscuit makers and craft shops alike display the mon of the founder or owner. Boasting a history of several generations, some businesses earn a great deal of prestige. In much the same way as the master of any art or craft, a chef or confectioner may take on pupils, and when one of them is ready to open their own shop, the master may grant them the use of the house name. After all, for centuries Japanese craftsmen have customarily adopted their master's name. Although not necessarily dependent on its predecessor, the new shop is permitted to use the same logo and noren as the parent institution. This is considered a great honour. The operative expression is noren wo wakeru (to divide the noren), implying membership of a family.
Threaded over a bamboo pole by means of loops, the noren is suspended over the shop entranceway. Depending on the width, it may be divided up into two, three or four panels (though occasionally more) and it generally reaches down to cover only about a quarter of the entrance—all this being devised to make it easier for the customer to enter. If you see a noren over the entrance, it means the shop is open. Having rolled the noren up around the pole at closing time, the staff take it away altogether before they lock up and go home. Longer noren leave only the bottom quarter of the entranceway uncovered. This kind will usually only be split into two panels. They often front cheap drinking haunts known as ippai nomiya, though traditionally these have a curtain made of hanging lengths of straw rope called nawa noren. These days nawa noren is a common expression denoting any cheap drinking dive—whether it actually has one fronting the entrance or not.
Long sought for providing cool shade in summer, noren are also a common fixture in private homes. Although they often deploy contemporary designs of a high standard, including abstract calligraphy and subtle modernist renditions of traditional designs and colours, decorative noren these days can depict anything. This includes western floral motifs, garish copies of Utamaro woodblock prints, kittens, puppies, Japanese children's cartoon characters and—yes—Mickey Mouse.
Yoshizu
Most people associate yoshizu with summer. This comes first in the television commercials, almost as soon as the last cherry blossoms have dropped from the trees, when it is still spring. Nubile beauties in teeny swimsuits luxuriate in the turquoise Okinawan shallows; bright blue arrows of coolness blast from sleek air conditioners over idealized interiors. The commercials warn too of summer setbacks. It's hot and humid; the Japanese, like the British, open conversations with remarks about the weather. In summer, "Atsui desu ne?" ("Isn't it hot?") is heard around the clock.
The commercials also warn of the approach of bug season, vividly depicting armies of gokiburi (cockroaches) and mosquitoes being effectively exterminated by chemical means. Though no less glued to TV commercials, people in the countryside often still prefer katori senkō or mosquito-removing incense. Green and shaped into a spiral, this sends pungent—though