KEEPING WARM 
) I 
electricity and gas were preferred until 
the recent “oil shock,” when the cost 
rose so dramatically that many Japa- 
nese switched to kerosene. Some of the 
new fixtures — usually small, portable 
stoves — are space heaters. Because of 
the unpleasant fumes from both gas and 
kerosene, however, such stoves are used 
only intermittently, and not at night, 
when the house is more tightly closed 
off by the storm shutters. In general, 
fires are not left burning unattended, or 
at least not with sufficient heat to keep 
a room warm. On a frosty night, bed- 
ding remains the primary retreat from 
the cold. 
Japanese bedding, called futon , con- 
sists of a set of mats and quilts filled 
with cotton batting or silk floss. An 
underpad is spread first, then one or 
more top quilts, depending on the de- 
gree of cold. In the West, people often 
cling together in bed for warmth in the 
winter, but in Japan most adults sleep in 
individual beds. The futon are likely to 
be placed immediately adjacent to one 
another, however, because in Japan 
sleeping is a social activity. The mem- 
bers of a household and their guests 
usually sleep together in a few rooms, 
rather than spreading out one to a room, 
even where the size of the house permits 
it. And up to the age of six or seven, 
children often sleep in their mother’s 
beds. These sleeping customs, however, 
seem to derive from a need for security 
rather than warmth. 
In addition to the bedding itself, there 
are a number of devices to warm up a 
cold bed. One is the hot-water bottle, 
dear to English hearts, but in Japan it is 
made of metal or ceramic instead of 
rubber. Morse also describes “a little 
wooden box . . . used for the purpose of 
holding an earthen receptacle for coals, 
and this is taken to bed as a substitute 
for the hot stone or brick which is often 
used at home for a similar purpose.” 
Both of these have now generally been 
discarded in favor of the electric blan- 
ket; the type that is spread under the 
sleeper seems to be preferred to the kind 
While watching television, a family 
keeps warm under the quilt of their 
kotatsu, a low table with an electric 
heating element underneath. Enclosed 
by opaque fusuma and white paper shoji 
screens, the room itself is unheated. 
that is used as a cover. Sometimes the 
bedding is placed over or around an 
electric kotatsu , the low table with an 
electric heating element attached to the 
underside. Sleepers lie with their feet 
under the table, and the whole bed is 
warmed. This is considered a dangerous 
arrangement, however. 
As bedding is used at night, so cloth- 
ing is used by day to conserve body heat 
and keep the individual warm. One 
item, the dotera , or tanzen , is actually a 
cross between a kimono and a futon , 
that is, between a garment and bedding. 
A heavily padded, oversized kimono 
with wide sleeves, it can be drawn 
around the body or spread over the 
bedding for extra warmth. 
The traditional layers of clothing in- 
clude, for a woman, a koshimaki 
(wrapped underskirt) or nagajuban (un- 
derkimono), two or more of which are 
worn in cold weather. Over these a 
woman wears a kimono and either a 
haori (jacket) or hanten (padded 
jacket). The hanten , which is less formal 
than the haori , is available in a version 
large enough to cover an infant carried 
on its mother’s back. A man would wear 
long underwear, and his kimono would 
be padded or would be covered by a 
sleeveless vest. 
This use of layers of clothing is a 
practical solution to the problem of cold 
in a culture in which people do not 
traditionally wear either furs or fleece. 
Because Buddhism prohibits the killing 
of animals, the use of furs never became 
widespread in Japan, although now they 
are sought as a Western-style luxury 
item. And because sheep were not a part 
of the rural household, wool was not 
available for winter clothing until rela- 
tively recently. Before industrialization, 
Japan was an agrarian society in which 
domestic animals did not play a major 
role. Rice was cultivated by human la- 
bor, and meat was rarely eaten until the 
custom was introduced from the West in 
the sixteenth century. 
Traditionally, farmers and poorer ur- 
ban classes wore hemp cloth year-round, 
while the wealthier classes wore clothing 
padded with silk floss. The cultivation 
John Launois. Black Star 
53 
