Start here · Essential guide
The Japanese Home: Rooms, Entrances and Everyday Customs
How a traditional Japanese home is organized: the entrance step, mat-floored rooms, sliding partitions, the display alcove and the daily habits that go with them.
Living Traditions
Everyday Home Life
Rooms, bedding, wrapping cloths and the customs of the Japanese home.
Bento Boxes: Packed Meals and Their Aesthetics
A short history of the Japanese packed meal, from early carried rice to theater and train-station boxes, and the ideas of color, balance and season behind its arrangement.
Furoshiki: The Art of Wrapping Cloth
Learn what a furoshiki is, how the square wrapping cloth came to be used for carrying and gift-giving in Japan, and why it is again valued as a reusable bag.
Futon and Floor Living: Sleeping and Sitting Low
How life close to the floor shapes Japanese bedding, low furniture, sitting postures and the way rooms are used from morning to night in a traditional home.
Japanese Gift-Giving and Wrapping Customs
A general guide to Japanese gift customs: seasonal presents, travel souvenirs, return gifts, decorative cords and paper, and the polite phrases that accompany a gift.
Shoji and Fusuma: Sliding Doors and Flexible Rooms
How shoji and fusuma, the paper-covered sliding partitions of Japanese houses, filter light, divide space and let one room change its size and mood through the day.
Tatami Mats: Size, Rules and the Measure of a Room
What tatami mats are made of, how their proportions became a way to measure rooms, how regional sizes differ, and the etiquette and care that go with a mat floor.
The Genkan and the Custom of Removing Shoes
Why Japanese homes have a sunken entry area, what the step up marks, and the practical and symbolic reasons shoes are taken off and left behind at the door.
The Tokonoma Alcove and How Displays Are Arranged
What the tokonoma display alcove is, what is traditionally shown in it, how scrolls and flowers are chosen with the season, and the manners around the honored space.
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