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2009年05月13日
Things Japanese: The "Kura"
Enjoying real "Kura" life in the early 50s
When I first came to Japan when I was two and a half years old we lived in a house that was formerly owned by an "Ohmi Shounin". Ohmi is the old name for the Shiga area of Japan while Shounin means "merchant". Many famous merchants came from the area. One of the more well known would be the Takashimaya Department Store chain which was started by a merchant from Takashima in Shiga Prefecture.
After the war, many of these beautiful traditional houses were up for sale and my father's mission bought one for their mission headquarters. A traditional Japanese house has many special features-it has a "hanare" (which means separate) which is a small house on the grounds connected to the main house with a corredor or two. This house is for the eldest son to life in with his wife and family. They can be "of" the family and "not of" the family at the same time in this way.It also has of course a "kura" or two ot three or ten depending on much treasure there is to store. At first, treasure was mostly rice so a ""kura" is rat free. It tends to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Other parts of the house would be a traditional Japanese garden and wall around the whole thing and a large official gate. The floors would all be "tatami" (straw mats) and the walls would be mostly paper sliding panels. This means that a 4 mat room can be turned into an 8 mat room or a 16 mat room or even a 24 mat room simply by sliding some paper panels around. As a result no one ever knew how many rooms we really had. I think I used to tell people we had 38!
At any rate, this bunch of foreigners moved in and set up shop. They had no treasures so the second floor of the "Kura" became the Sunde's apartment. The first floor was used for the closest thing that the missionaries had to treasure and that was their barrels and suitcases and boxes of stuff. Also, a ping-pong table.
Living in a "kura" was great all year but I liked it in the winter the most. Every missionary family was given one wood burning stove. That meant that in the evening everyone spent their time around their stove. The Sunde Family was no exception. Eveything took place near the stove. In the picture it looks like Mom is studying, Dad is pretendting to study and I am just having fun doing whatever it is I am doing. I used to color, look at picture books, play with various toys I had, and sometimes just daydream. I have only pleasant memories of those long Shiga nights around the stove. The air was warm, we were a family that loved each other and we were together here in a land not our own but a land that God had sent us to.
It was a good time to be alive. The world has changed-now things move faster-computers are everywhere-but some things aught not to change. A family in a room together spending time together as a family is something we need now more than ever.
投稿者 bethany : 2009年05月13日 03:01
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