In Praise of Japanese Living
Exploring Residential Kawasaki
Since moving to Japan one year ago, I have been intrigued and enchanted by the Japanese home. At first it was the family-size houses in my neighbourhood in suburban Kanagawa Prefecture that I’d previously only seen in manga, then the tea rooms and traditional architecture of pre-war houses, and finally the stereotypical cluttered Tokyo apartment, elusive because Tokyoites always meet outside the home, yet always beckoning behind balconies hung with laundry, hastily closed doors and curtains.
What is it that makes Japanese living spaces so alluring?
I.
If beauty is an ideal, it must still be anchored in reality. We define beauty in relation to whatever we find ourselves surrounded by. Tanizaki Jun’ichirō discusses the notion of beauty in In Praise of Shadows, his famous 1933 essay on Japanese architecture and aesthetics.
The quality that we call beauty, however, must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows towards beauty’s ends.
Traditional Japanese homes were wooden structures with small windows or lattices to keep the summer heat out. Fire was a hazard and so the interior remained dark. According to Tanizaki, where Westerners would seek ways to improve the situation, the Japanese saw darkness as inevitable and even immersed themselves in it.
We Orientals tend to seek our satisfactions in whatever surroundings we happen to find ourselves, to content ourselves with things as they are; and so darkness causes us no discontent, we resign ourselves to it as inevitable. If light is scarce, then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty. But the progressive Westerner is determined always to better his lot. From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light—his quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow.
From architecture to lacquerware design, shadows came to be seen as beautiful.
II.
The same could be said for clutter. As an island nation, forced to arrange itself with scarcity of liveable space, Japan has always been good at getting the most out of that limited space. The Japanese are masters of both clutter and decluttering, as Matt Alt has written recently.
Matt also mentions Tokyo Style by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, which I finally bought after it haunted me in different bookshops and in my dreams for weeks on end. It is a photo book with sparse description, reissued and translated into English thirty years after its original publication.
First published in 1993 after the collapse of Japan’s infamous bubble economy, photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki’s book Tokyo Style showcases the unfiltered realities of a handful of ordinary people living in one of the world’s most fetishised cities.1
The author claimed that media portrayals of luxurious living spaces of the eighties bubble economy moved him to capture and show how ordinary people made the spaces they lived in charming.
Tokyo Style invites the viewer to refocus their lens when it comes to the romanticisation of everyday life in the city. Challenging the picture-perfect minimalism so often sold as archetypal Japanese living, the one hundred or so homes immortalised by Tsuzuki narrate a love story so many living out their fantasies against the backdrop of high-density urbanism will resonate with.
Tsuzuki’s photography elevates clutter to style that you want to emulate. Whenever I pick up this book, I can’t stop flipping its pages, getting inspired and dreaming of decorating my own space, filling it with all the things I love. This might be another example of not only resigning yourself to the situation you find yourself in—the apartment you can afford2—but actually leaning into it, making it into a creative expression of yourself. You don’t need a ton of space to do that.
III.
Indeed, another striking feature in these photos is the individuality that shines through in furnishings and decorations. Many of these interiors showcase their residents’ tastes or favourite activities, in a way that might have been more common before the digital age.
Tsuzuki himself says looking at these photos fills him with nostalgia now, implying that the aesthetic has moved away from hyper-individuality towards the more polished, pastel-coloured minimalism of Instagram and Ikea. I would argue there are still plenty of corners where individuality shines through.
My neighbourhood can be classified as residential suburb, I think, comprised of family homes with the odd apartment complex thrown in. It’s small homes with vegetable patches, old-fashioned low mansions with beautifully curated gardens of pines and flowers and tiny shrines in back corners. It’s a fancy yellow sports car with tools haphazardly stacked on shelves nearby and fans hanging from the corrugated iron roof. It’s a white front door half hidden by flowerpots. Of course, it’s also balconies full of fresh laundry because that’s what balconies are used for here.
To me, all of that screams of individuality (excluding the laundry) and so I often roam the narrow streets, looking at houses. I dream of decorating my own apartment with a more personal touch too, hindered for the time being by limited funds and the fact that the furniture isn’t mine. Still, I learn from the Japanese and make the most of the situation I find myself in: living in a simple space with hanging scrolls, tea bowls on my kitchen shelf and books stacked in corners.
It has its faults but it’s not the worst of places. And on weekends, I hang my laundry on the balcony to dry.
IV.
By the way, I’m in good company. Poet and traveller Matsuo Bashō was content with grass for a pillow and appreciated simplicity.
The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.3
Do you agree? Are you obsessed with ordinary living spaces too or content to lay your pillow wherever you find yourself?
One little vignette describes that the apartment doesn’t have a bathroom—but also the joys of communal living in cramped quarters, with neighbours gathering in the largest living room to share daily gossip.
From The Narrow Road to the Deep North, first published in 1702.
Enjoyed this and the individual touches definitely resonate in my Kamakura neighborhoods too – everyone seems to have a little quirk or 10 about their places and spaces — which, even more than seeing the ordinary as extraordinary makes me wonder whether, like the journey being home, isn't another way of saying our homes, like us, are always in motion and less settled or set. Thanks for the post Vanessa.