The futon had by then been through centuries of evolution in Japan. My futon was not, in fact, much like the original thing at all. Cotton on the outside, it was stuffed with a mixture of both natural and synthetic fibers—a combination that made it lighter and warmer than its all-cotton parent. The quilt was essentially a Western duvet. That said, the main ingredient of nearly all today's better futons is still cotton down—as it had been almost exclusively until after World War II, when there was a sharp increase in Western concepts and materials. For a while, until they became standard, my kind of mattress was briefly called yōfuton (Western futon).
Even now, in some traditional inns you can find thin yet fairly heavy cotton futon—much as they were between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They are only slightly better than sleeping right on the floor, which is why people often use two. In the Yoshiwara red-light district in the 1890s, the better class of demi-mondaines liked to boast about using several. To prove it, they would have the maids ostentatiously air them on the brothel balconies alongside quilts made of silks and satins. Today, bedding is still regularly festooned from Japan's more mundane window-ledges and balconies; humidity causes down to be compressed and lose its fluffiness, so futon need to be aired about once a week.
The futon originated in the 17th century, when the wealthy began using mattresses stuffed with cotton down. Everyone else had to make do with bags stuffed with flax, hemp, straw or rushes. In some fishing villages they stuffed their bedding with seaweed. Until quite recently, thickly padded and capacious garments with sleeves were worn in winter instead of quilts or coverlets. These days, over a third of futon in Japan and almost half the quilts are imported—both mainly from China.
Irori
囲炉裏
iron hearths
I remember a country-style tavern in a western suburb of Tokyo. Being directly beneath the elevated train tracks, it was none too bucolic, but although the trains rumbled intermittently overhead, it was hard to tell that you weren't in alpine Nagano prefecture. Wearing a rustic kimono of indigo cotton, Mama-san sat surrounded by a low, square counter of dark polished wood, pouring sake and taking orders as her husband toiled in the kitchen behind her. A long pot-hook hanging from a beam beneath the ceiling supported a large white metal tea-kettle. It was being heated over an irori fireplace—a square-shaped hearth just next to her. Close at hand she kept an oblong box of stainless steel, with four holes devised for heating flasks of sake. The box is actually a tank, filled with water kept constantly heated by the fire just next to it. It was very similar to the one in an illustration of an irori in Edward Morse's Japanese Homes and their Surroundings and captioned "The Best Fireplace". That is apparently how they rated the irori back in 1885; those contemplating the few still extant today would concur.
But in the rustic tavern in suburban Tokyo there was no fire, nor even embers. The sake-warming box was electric. All was artifice. It was just another of those countless city furusato (home-sweet-home) restaurants evoking a lost, idyllic rural past usually fondly imagined rather than actually remembered by the countless legions of urbanites of rural descent. This wasn't a real irori at all—the pot hook hung over a gas ring.
Real irori are still to be found above all in old houses in towns and villages in mountainous districts, and in farmhouses in particular. Houses like this often have very high roofs. There is no chimney, the smoke goes straight up and out in a hole at the top. The floor is raised like a platform and the irori, always square, is sunken into the planking. The base of the hearth is sand, mixed with fine ash, so that it is a uniform grey colour. The fire is concentrated in the centre. Made of wood or iron, the pot-hooks come in several different configurations, often dangling from a chain, which may also be fitted with a rack for smoking fish. Although places still having one today invariably also have a kitchen, they will still cook certain dishes over the irori—especially nabemono (pot stews).
In winter, the irori is as cheering to the Japanese as the pub fireplace is to the British. The first time I saw a genuine irori was at a homely minshuku (family-owned inn) in Takayama; the couple running it insisted that guests should sit around it after dinner. There's no denying the irori's congeniality; conversation lasted into the wee hours and the hangover in the morning was dire!
On the verge of total extinction 20 years ago, the irori has been making something of a comeback thanks to a heightened awareness of the importance of preserving the past in Japan. They are no longer much of a rarity in traditional style inns and restaurants; and among Japanese who are able to afford a second home in the countryside, the irori is the height of chic.
Hibachi
火鉢
portable charcoal braziers
When you visit Japan's historic buildings, in many cases what you are seeing is either a replica of or a construction much later than the original, which transpires to have burned down during its long history—even several times. To be sure, the cause lay often in war and natural disaster or, occasionally, arson too. Whichever, these buildings were made of wood. The flames spread frequently from one to the next, which was often less than one metre (3 ft) away. In former times fires regularly burned down entire Japanese cities. When a blaze started in a home, it originated frequently in the kitchen or in careless use of the ro—a small sunken fireplace found often in the rooms of inns. The ro was used mainly for heating bedclothes, which were draped over a wooden frame above it, but accidents occurred when the fabric touched the embers.
Though only nominally safer, a much more popular and widespread alternative was the hibachi, a portable charcoal brazier. "Around the hibachi," observed one foreign visitor in 1907, "circulates not only the domestic but also the social life of Japan. All warm themselves at it; tea is brewed by means of it; guests are entertained, chess played, politics discussed beside it; secrets are told across it, and love made over it."
Of Chinese origin, hibachi were in use in Japan for well over a millennium. Round ones were often made of iron or bronze with handles, or ceramic (typically of thick, blue and white patterned porcelain) or cut into the bole of a tree. The section of trunk could be turned and smoothed to show the grain, then polished and perhaps carved with a decorative design or lacquered. Smoothed and polished, gnarled and irregularly shaped boles were popular too. Wooden hibachi were always fitted with a metal lining, usually of copper. Made of wood, the square or oblong hibachi incorporated a copper lining flush with the sides; sometimes it was just an open box into which a round hibachi was placed. The finest hibachi were often cabinets around 70 cm (2 ft 4 in) across and incorporating drawers for smoking requisites.
To prepare a hibachi, the fine ash within had to be raked up into a regular cone, the pieces of burning charcoal (brought from the kitchen or from a pan heated outdoors) were placed in the top. A sizeable piece of charcoal could burn for many hours. Although it was smokeless, the possibility of toxic fumes prompted people to carry the hibachi from the bedroom before retiring. The rake and tongs for handling charcoal were kept in the hibachi along with such items as an iron stand for a kettle; a grid was often placed over the stand to grill food. It was customary to place a hibachi—however simple—before each guest, along with a rectangular wooden tabako-bon (tobacco box) (see pages 72-73) which contained a miniature hibachi and a cylindrical wooden spittoon.
Capable of warming a room adequately, the hibachi was a vital household item and often an heirloom. Old hibachi have had antiquarian value for a very long time in Japan where, although no longer used, they still do today. When in use they were greatly cherished. Edward