The First European Description of Japan, 1585 (47 page)

In the first book on China published in the West (1569), Gaspar da Cruz wrote something very similar about the houses of common folk in China: “The timber is all very smooth and very even, and very finely wrought and placed, that it seemeth to be all polished …”
¹⁶

8. Our rooms generally have windows that allow in a lot of light; the seating area
¹⁷
of their tea huts are windowless and dark
.

This contrast is ironic if not misleading because the Japanese
Shoin
-style house was essentially all windows and no walls. Because glass was expensive, European houses in the sixteenth century tended to be all walls and no windows, figuratively speaking.
¹⁸
However, this contrast does not appear to concern houses
per se
, but the main seating area in a Japanese tea hut as compared with a “living room” or
cámara de paramento
in a well-to-do Portuguese home.
¹⁹
Frois' preoccupation with the tea hut reflects the fact that the tea ceremony was at the peak of its popularity in 1585. The small, enclosed tea hut, allowed for some very quiet person-to-person communion, and it was a democratic place where the usual rank-related formalities were suspended. All in all, the Jesuits appreciated these retreats, if only because these small shrines to
quiet and calmness were embraced by high-ranking Japanese Christians who made
chanoyu
, or the way-of-tea, a discipline of sorts.

9. Treasure for us consists of items ornamented with gemstones and objects made of gold and silver; the Japanese treasure old cauldrons, old and broken porcelain, clay vases, etc
.

Europe during the first half of the sixteenth century, especially Spain and Portugal, was awash in gold, silver, and precious stones, mostly from colonial ventures in Africa, Mexico, Peru, and Asia. Kings, nobles, merchants, and church officials (encouraged by the Council of Trent) commissioned all manner of gilt and jewel-encrusted art and religious objects to decorate their homes, churches, and chapels.
²⁰

The Japanese “treasures” referenced here are all items related to
chanoyu
(See also
Chapter 14
,
#21
). Rodrigues explains:

The vessels and dishes used in this gathering are not of gold, silver, or any other precious metal, nor are they richly and finely wrought; instead they are made of clay or iron without any polish, embellishment or anything which might incite the appetite to desire them for their beauty and luster … there are utensils, albeit of earthenware, which come to be worth ten, twenty or thirty thousand cruzados or even more—something which will appear as madness and barbarity to other nations that come to hear of it.
²¹

As an aside, the Portuguese and Spaniards actually made handsome profits importing old pottery from the Philippines, especially caddies reputed to be especially good at keeping tea fresh in the humid season.

10. We decorate our rooms
²²
with tapestries, godomecis
,
²³
and drapes from Flanders
;
²⁴
the Japanese have folding screens of paper
²⁵
that are decorated in gold or with black ink
.

Portugal's elite and indeed the wealthy throughout Europe were fond of wall coverings, particularly from Flanders and Italy.
²⁶
Tapestries were not only
decorative but helped insulate large, otherwise drafty rooms. Unlike frescoes and paintings, tapestries also were highly portable.
²⁷
So too were
godomecis
, which were rectangular pieces (ca. 66 × 45 centimeters) of worked leather that were adorned with paint or raised artwork and used as a decorative covering on walls, chests, or as bed canopies.
²⁸

Japanese folding screens (
byôbu
) nearly always had six panels.
²⁹
Both gold dust and black ink were commonly used to paint scenes or poetry on them. This is, in a sense, an extension of the last two contrasts, for paper is less substantial than tapestry.
Byôbu
are still used in Japanese-style homes and especially restaurants.

11. We decorate our [
rooms
] with carpets and rugs; they use straw cushions
.

Carpets from the Middle East and Ottoman Turkey were a symbol of taste and wealth in Frois' Europe.
³⁰
This much is apparent from Renaissance art, which often depicts the homes of Europe's elite; the homes are decorated with “oriental” rugs on walls and floors and draped over tables (“prayer rugs”). Ambassadors from Venice who visited Portugal in 1580 were amazed at the money (40,000
cruzados
) spent by the Portuguese on tapestries.
³¹

The cushions favored by the Japanese were/are a good four to six inches thick, like a mattress. Japanese houses were built so as to conform to what was a standard mattress measurement (called
ma
; approximately three feet by six feet). Even today the size of a dwelling for rent is advertised in terms of this cushion-size measurement. A
roku-ma
, or six-cushion apartment, would be understood to have 108 square feet of floor space (a figure that would not include the kitchen and bathroom). This standardization of mats extends to other areas as well, since the length of the mat (180 centimeters) is also the height of “paper doors” of all types and the length of all closets and many beds.

Tatami
, while beautiful, soft, light and easier to keep clean than carpet, have one Achilles heel: they are loved by fleas. If you are wealthy enough to get new mats every few years, have a well-ventilated floor (all Japanese houses are supposed to be built up from the ground, but not all actually are) and do not allow your cats to rove,
tatami
will do you no wrong. Otherwise, you will get fleas. One wonders if most Japanese learn to appreciate them as much as the eighteenth-century Japanese poet, Kobayashi Issa, whose one hundred-plus flea haiku
³²
include:

beauty is as beauty does [title]

the fleas in my hut

are cute as can be:

because, because

they sleep with me!
³³

12. We [
decorate
] our [
rooms
] with leather trunks and chests
³⁴
from Flanders or with cedar chests; the Japanese [
decorate
] theirs with black baskets made from cow hides
.

Marques notes that the chest was second only to the bed as the most important piece of furniture in a Portuguese home of the late Middle Ages.
³⁵
In Frois' day the homes of Europe's elite still proudly displayed large, elaborately decorated chests of carved wood or leather, including a bride's coffer or chest. The Flemish were particularly known for their chests, including those covered with leather (
cuir bonilli
). The leather was first steeped in melted wax and boiled; once hardened it was embossed, painted, gilded, or inlaid with velvet.
³⁶

On the Japanese side, it is surprising to find even this black basket, which, according to Okada, was probably woven with a wisteria warp and hide weave, then lightly lacquered. Japanese rooms generally have a large closet (
oshi-ire
, literally “stuff-in”) that includes a shelved area and boxes for storage. Valuables, however, went under the floors, or in the case of the wealthy, into special storerooms. Quality space could thus be saved for people rather than furniture, which was regarded as so much clutter.

Today, most Japanese have more things to fit in fewer and smaller
oshi-ire
closets, especially in the cheaply designed apartments called “mansions” that many Japanese call home. The result is clutter, and more interesting still is the fact that this development was observed as early as 1891 by Eliza Scidmore:

The very use of foreign furnishings or utensils seems to abate the national rage for cleanliness, and in any tea-house that aspires to be conducted in the
foreign fashion, one discovers a dust, disorder, shabbiness, and want of care that is wholly un-Japanese.
³⁷

13. People in Europe sleep up off the floor on beds or cots; in Japan they sleep down low on the mats with which the house is floored
.

Frois may overstate the extent to which Europeans slept in cots and beds, as many a peasant was happy to have dry straw to sleep on.
³⁸
Certainly those who could afford a bed were likely to share it with other family members or servants.
³⁹
Well into the eighteenth century concerned clergy complained that a shortage of beds encouraged incest (“How many sins are committed for lack of bread, and how many for want of a bed?”)
⁴⁰
Marques suggests that it was largely the wealthy in Portugal who enjoyed beds. These often were made of heavy, carved wood and had as many as three mattresses (straw, wool or cotton, feathers), not to mention fine linens and a canopy with curtains.
⁴¹

Many Japanese still prefer sleeping on a futon or “heavily wadded comforter,” to use Morse's description. After explaining that the ordinary Japanese house had a minimum of furniture, Alice Mabel Bacon waxed enthusiastically about the futon:

Certainly, the independence of furniture displayed by the Japanese is most enviable, and frees their lives of many cares. Babies never fall out of bed, because there are no beds; they never tip themselves over in chairs for a similar reason. There is nothing in the house to dust, nothing to move when you sweep … the chief worries of a housekeeper's life are non-existent.
⁴²

14. Our bedclothes are always spread out over the bed; in Japan, during the day they are always rolled up and hidden from view
.

Generally futon are not rolled up but folded in three and put away in the
oshi-ire
closet. With the beds stashed away, one need only remove the
fusuma
and one's living-room is doubled. In good weather, the futons are hung over balconies and thoroughly beaten. This is still true: every modern apartment must have a place for futons to be aired and beaten.

15. Our pillows are made of feathers, canha
,
⁴³
or cotton, and they are soft and wide; in Japan, they are made of wood, and they use only a single pillow, one palm in width
.

Hard, narrow, and as high as a double pillow, Westerners found Japanese pillows a literal pain in the neck. Why did the Japanese use such pillows? According to Morse:

The pillow was evolved to meet the peculiar method of arranging the hair. The elaborate coiffure of the women and the rigid queue of the men, waxed and arranged to last for a number of days, required a head-rest where these conditions would not be disturbed. In hot weather the air circulates about the neck, and this is very agreeable.
⁴⁴

Okada has suggested that Frois mentioned wooden pillows to maximize his contrast. There also were lacquered, woven-bamboo pillows that still can be found in some old inns. Although more giving than solid wood, they are still far too hard for most Westerners and young Japanese. Golownin also reported that “the higher or richer classes make use of a very neat box, about eleven inches high, to the lid of which an oval cushion is affixed, from six to eight inches in length, and from two to three in breadth. This box contains articles which they make use of at the toilette, such as razors, scissors, pomatum, tooth-brushes, powder, &c.”

Today, the top part of the traditional pillow, the conical cushion, without the wood, survives.

16. In Europe we use draperies, bed hangings and curtains made of damask and silk; in Japan during the summer they use very thin mosquito netting
⁴⁵
made of cotton
⁴⁶
or paper
.

Frois is contrasting the decorative curtains and bed enclosures used by European elites year-round with the open beds of the Japanese, which in summer had a very insubstantial yet altogether functional mosquito net. To borrow from a haiku of Issa that is only slightly more popular than the one on the flea/s (
#11
above), a summer vesper in Japan is an announcement that one has crossed the border and entered mosquito country (
kane naru ya ka-no kuni-ni koyo-koyo-to
).

Alcock, who minced no words concerning his hatred for “these Poisoners of the human race, and Destroyers of all peace,” cited the mosquito net as a happy example of Japanese ingenuity. At the various inns where he spent the night when traveling, he attests:

We should have been devoured by the musquitoes had the landlords not come to our rescue by the simplest of all contrivances, a musquito curtain, open at the bottom, made up in the shape of a parallelogram, is let down over the mat (6 feet by 3) selected by the sleeper, a cord is run from each of the four upper corners (into which a sort of eyelet hole has been worked), and four nails
driven in to enable a servant to suspend it. Under this, the persecuted martyr creeps, tucking in the sides and ends under his cotton quilt or mat …
⁴⁷

17. Among us, it would be unseemly for a nobleman to sweep his room; Japanese lords
⁴⁸
regularly do so and are proud of it
.
⁴⁹

Manual labor of any kind was beneath European nobility;
⁵⁰
even a gifted surgeon, because he worked with his hands, was valued less than a college-educated physician (someone who relied solely on “intellect” to treat the sick).
⁵¹

The Chinese character for a wife has a woman with a broom over her head, so you might think that men in the Sinosphere were opposed to sweeping, yet many Japanese men seem to have delighted in creating wave patterns in the gravel at Zen temples or in their tea gardens. Golownin also offered this bit of insight: