"
These young people would, however, have everything quite comfortable about
them, and housekeeping can be set up at a still lower figure, if necessary.
Excellent authorities say, and give particulars to prove, that a coolie
household may be established in full running order for 5-1/2 yen--that is,
somewhere about a sovereign.
In better-class houses the same simplicity prevails, though the building
may be of costly materials, with posts and ceilings of ebony inlaid with
gold, and floors of rare polished woods. The screens (shoji) still separate
the rooms; the shutters (amado) enclose it at night. There are neither
doors nor passages. When you wish to pass from one room to the next you
slide back one of the shoji, and shut it after you. So you go from room
to room until you reach the one of which you are in search. The shoji are
often beautifully painted, and in each room is hung a kakemono (a wall
picture, a painting finely executed on a strip of silk). A favourite
subject is a branch of blossoming cherry, and this, painted upon white
silk, gives an effect of wonderful freshness and beauty.
There is no chimney, for a Japanese house knows nothing of a fireplace. The
simple cooking is done over a stove burning charcoal, the fumes of which
wander through the house and disperse through the hundred openings afforded
by the loosely-fitting paper walls. To keep warm in cold weather the
Japanese hug to themselves and hang over smaller stoves, called hibachi,
metal vessels containing a handful of smouldering charcoal.
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