The domestic economy of the household is of the simplest character, and so, of necessity, the houses are small and simple beyond American imaginations. A family of eight persons will live in perfect comfort in a one-story house twenty-four feet square, with no cellar and only a small air-chamber above, hardly large enough to call a loft, which is sometimes used for storage. This house will probably have a small vestibule entrance, while directly joining this entrance is the kitchen, for what corresponds to our better living-rooms are always at the back of the house, and the kitchen and bath in the front.
The rear portion of the house is usually arranged so that it may be divided by sliding screens, called “fusuma,” into two rooms, and these overlook a garden that may be very small or of dignified proportions; but a garden there is sure to be, even if it covers only a few square feet.
Whether the house be in a city or a country village, it will be set directly on the line of the street, for a garden front is almost unknown. Except in the Europeanized Tokio, and in the foreign concessions of the port cities, there are no sidewalks, and so one enters from the roadway through a gate into a small covered recess where odd-shaped stones serve for stepping-places to the vestibule. A tradesman, or one on unpleasant business, gets no farther than this entrance; but the bride, conducted after the wedding ceremony to her husbands home, is ushered in with much formality; the members of the family take their places in the vestibule in proper order of precedence, and prostrate themselves in reverences of the deepest respect.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
