I moved into my first apartment in Japan in September 1983. I still have a copy of my first lease. It was called a "mansion", a word borrowed from English, to distinguish it from regular apaato, another borrowed word. The distinction of it being built of reinforced concrete rather than just wood qualified it for the term. It therefore supposedly had thicker walls for better sound insulation, a misconception my poor neighbors paid for in later years after I bought an electric guitar, and for which I'm paying for now as karma catches up with me.
I visited my old mansion a few months ago, the first time I had seen it in over twenty years. It's now a crumbling building. Unmaintained, it's too dangerous to live in, according to a neighbor lady, who was also concerned about its structural stability in case of an earthquake. Apparently the owner cannot be found, and the police cannot do anything, either.
I looked up at my old room on the corner of the second floor, remembering all the things that happened there that were such a huge part of my adventures in Japan. It was sad to think that it was just a decrepit old room now, probably filled with decaying tatami mats, beat up walls, and rusting pipes. But it was once full of life, a life intense with new and exciting experience. Not many rooms in Japan can say that.
But maybe it's all for the better: I'm quite sentimental; in its current state, there's no longer any reason for me to go back there, as I surely would if it was still thriving.
When I first moved in, I had virtually nothing, except the bare necessities donated to me by kind friends. I'd had to pay ￥500,000 up front as a deposit, six months rent, a figure they had decreased to make it "easier for me to move in". In the Osaka area, such deposits were typical. It had three rooms, arranged linearly. You entered into the kitchen, which had a vinyl floor, then followed straight into the middle and end rooms, both of which were covered in tatami. The rooms were measured in size by the number of tatami mats, each mat 955mm x 1910mm (I had to look this up). The middle room was a four and a half mat room, the end one a six mat room. From the end room, you could walk out onto the veranda, which had hooks for suspending a pole for hanging laundry, something I had yet to buy. I needed a washing machine, too. Dryers were virtually non-existent, and are even now not popular. The feel of naturally sun-dried clothes is still preferred.
Speaking of washing machines, the type available in those days was a simple unit with two basins, one for washing and the other for spin-drying. After the wash cycle finished, you had to move the clothes into the spin-dryer. Also typical of those days, my mansion had no place to set a washing machine inside, so I put it outside next to the entrance, where hoses from the kitchen could reach it, or were there outside faucets? I don't remember now. Nowadays, totally automatic washing machines are most common, but for those who prefer the old system, the old-style units are still available. As was usual in my thinking of those days, I regarded their washing machines as the result of primitive thinking, not of rational choice. I later found out my mistake when a friend stated a firm preference for the dual basin types because of the control they offered. Another moment of enlightenment, of which there were many as I encountered case after case of different ways that had sprung from roots I had never even imagined. This type of experience gradually ground away at my own unconsciously held ideas of cultural superiority, till it finally threatened to reach bare metal, where it has stopped, leaving an equilibrium between tolerance and remnants of smugness.
I've drifted from my story, I see, so back to my old room.
Another piece of equipment lacking in Japanese apartments was a heater. This partly stemmed from a preference for natural air. Even in the dead of winter, families would open all windows and inside doors (the fusuma sliding door) to air out the home. You had to be tough in those days. Heat, when needed, was supplied by a variety of heaters, called stoves. One type was a kerosene stove, which provided not only enough heat for one of the six mat rooms, closed off by fusuma, but also a flat surface for setting a pot to heat water for Japanese green tea. You were on your own outside of that room, though. The toilet room and bath room could be ice cold in winter.
Another means of keeping warm was the kotatsu. This was a low square table the height of a coffee table with a heater fixed to the underside. In winter you lay a thick futon-like quilt over it, then placed a second main table top over this. You then turned on the heater and slipped your legs under the kotatsu, covering your lap with the futon. This could be hard on those of us not used to sitting cross-legged for long periods. Older houses had pits that solved this problem. The kotatsu was placed over this so you could sit with your legs dangling in. The kotatsu made up for low room temperatures, but even in milder seasons, was still the centerpiece for meals and visiting, there usually being no other dining facilities such as table and chairs.
September in Japan is a wonderful season when the summer humidity has finally broke, but the days are still splendidly warm. And Osaka summers were sultry affairs. Still, as the season progressed, the days got cooler. I had an old electric heater among the donations I received, which worked pretty well.
My old heater, which saw use until Ileft Japan 23 years after receiving it.
But I also needed a table. And keeping the entire room heated all the time was impractical, as well as expensive, electricity rates being high. So I decided to buy a kotatsu, one of my first purchases of a typical Japanese item, after of course the washing machine and monohoshizao -- the pole for hanging laundry. Those poles are quite long, six feet or more, making them hard to carry if you bought them from a store. I bought mine from an itinerant merchant who carried his stock around in a miniature pickup truck, slowly driving through neighborhoods with his loudspeaker on, through which he blared his presence and wares. I had neither car nor even a 50cc moped at the time, even though I lived a thirty minute walk from the train station (I took the bus in those days), so this was a welcome convenience. I can't remember the last time I saw one of those.
Like Tokyo, Osaka was made up of a bunch of distinct districts, each with a separate character. Honmachi, for instance, was the business district, Namba the nighttime drinking place and haunt of disco goers, and Umeda the center for all the train lines. Another was Nippon Bashi. This district was the electric town because it was where shops that sold electrical goods were concentrated, like Tokyo's more famous Akihabara. I decided to go to Nippon Bashi to find a kotatsu. For the all too rare pleasure of living in the moment, this shopping trip became one of my treasured Japanese memories. There was something about it that stuck with me, maybe something like the feeling you get the first time you swim in warm ocean water.
It was a cool autumn day, not chilly. The sky was gray, but the air clear and transparent like pure stream water on a cloudy day. My friend, who I may have invited because he had a car, and I walked along the Nippon Bashi streets. The shop keepers had set outside for display their goods for sale. We walked from shop to shop, probably looking at such items as raji-cassetttes (compact portable radio-cassette players), stereos, hot water pots, and all manner of appliances, all of a compact design conducive to a full lifestyle in the limited space available in apartments. After all, most students and single people lived in less space than I had, maybe a single six mat room or less! They were pleasing to look at for their perfectly adapted utility. They had a completeness in their unity of purpose. Though slightly different in appearance, according to the manufacturer, all were designed to be attractive and convenient to use. Lines and details were fine, not pumped up, and would enhance any Japanese person or person's room in their use.
We turned a corner. Through the clear fall air wafted a familiar melody. In the crowd of wares on the sidewalk in front of the corner shop, a record player, needle floating and bobbing on a black disk, was playing Gazebo's "I Like Chopin", a big hit at the time, only this was being sung by a female Japanese singer. A faithful but subtly varied arrangement wove between the lyrics vocalized in Japanese by a smooth, faintly sultry voice. Enthralled, I fell in love with the moment and have never forgotten the beautiful melody flavored by the fine touch of Japanese on a cool pastel Japanese autumn day.
I asked who the singer was and was perhaps shown the album cover, or simply told that it was Asami Kobayashi.
I bought a kotatsu from one of the stores, got it home somehow, and used it for years, all the years I was in Japan.
My kotatsu, standing on worn out tatami
