Washitsu Japanese Style Rooms: Relax on the Tatami Mats

Washitsu rooms are places where Japanese traditional architecture still survives in today’s modern world. The name itself is an antonym for the phrase yoshitsu, which refers to a western style room. Washitsu can also be referred to as nihonma, and astute students of the Japanese language might notice that ‘Nihon’, which can be read as Japan, is present in the word. The word yoma is sometimes used in place for yoshitsu.
One of the things that make a washitsu a Japanese style room is the presence of tatami mat flooring. Tatami mats are a real staple of traditional Japanese architecture, and they’re associated with Japanese architecture in general. They might also have fusuma, or sliding doors, instead of the usual hinged doors seen in some types of other rooms. If the room in question is designed to receive guests, it might have a tokonoma alcove intended to hold decorative items.

Technically, most Japanese rooms in the past could be considered washitsu and people slept on futons laid out over the tatami mats. They often sat directly down on the tatami mats, or on specially designed zabuton furniture. However, most Japanese homes today really only have one of these rooms, and quite a few new apartments don’t have them at all. Instead of tatami mats, these new apartments have hardwood or vinyl flooring. This gives them a much different feel than one that uses classical floor coverings.

Japanese style houses and rooms are measured in the number of tatami mats used to cover the floor. There are generally six to eight of these mats in a private residence, though there are also half sizes used in some situations. When speaking in Japanese, the counting word jo is used by to define how many mats there are in a room.

There might be a low table in these rooms to eat dinner at or invite guests for a meal. The kotatsu is a particularly important type of table in these rooms. This low table might have a blanket and a heating element, though in the past kotatsu tables might have had live fires in them. These tables are really quite important, because many Japanese homes do not have central heating, despite the fact that the winter can be very cold in many parts of Japan. Sitting at a kotatsu table is a comfortable way to keep out the cold when spending time in a traditional Japanese room.