  LITTLE PAPER HOUSES OF JAPAN F FRAGILE, quaint and full of sunshine and color are the typical houses of Japan. They are so simple in construction a child might almost build them, generally only one story in height and always without a cellar, chimneys, fireplaces, windows, and even without a door. Yet the dainty abodes are flooded with light and fresh air. How is it managed? Simply by sliding the entire front of the house to one side, leaving the building wide open. Often the back walls, too, are opened, and in some houses the sides also. These cottages are usually part wood and part paper. It seems strange to think of people actually living in paper dwellings, but the Japanese understand how to manufacture strong, durable paper. They delight in making all sorts of paper, from the tough, well-nigh indestructible kind to the delicate, filmy variety, and it is adapted to innumerable uses. In Japan people not only build paper walls, but the very poor wear paper clothing. drawing Fig. We will make our Japanese House entirely of paper (Fig. 282). Take medium-weight water-color paper, or any kind that is stiff enough and not too drawing Fig. No paste is used in making the building; the design is merely cut out, bent into shape, and fastened together with projecting tongues run through slits. Cut all the heavy lines, lightly score, then bend all the dotted lines, except the two immediately across the front of the room at top and bottom. This front is five inches wide and four and a half inches high, with two openings in it and a portion extending down in front to form the little porch. Make a pinhole at each drawing Fig. Build the small room (Fig. 286) in the same way that you made the large one. Cut it from a piece of paper nine and one-half inches wide and thirteen and one-half inches long. This room has no floor. When finished run the tongues extending out on the back of the room through the remaining four slits at the side of the foliage on the back of the large room (Fig. 283). Work carefully and you will be fully repaid. drawing Fig. Paint the roof of each room in little black squares with white markings between to represent black tiling. Paint the outside of the house yellow, the back wall of the large room pale blue, the floor light brown. Paint the back of the small room mottled green and pink. Make a band of light blue edged with black across the outside top of the front opening and a red band across the bottom. Let the projecting veranda be yellow, with vines across the lower part. Edge the openings of the large room with two narrow bands, one purple the other black, and mark black lines drawing Fig. The sides of the house are supposed to be formed of paper-covered screens which slide in grooves and may be You need not be concerned in the least about furnishing the little house: it does not need any furniture, for the Japanese have no stoves, chairs, tables, knives or forks, carpets, bedsteads, washstands, bookcases, desks, framed pictures, nor any comforts like ours. The Floors are covered with clean, thick, soft matting rugs and are just the place for girls and boys to play, and have a good time running about in their stocking feet, for in Japan people always take off their shoes before entering a house and everyone goes either stocking-footed or barefooted when indoors, so the floor-mats are kept free from dust. Of course, men, women, and children all sit on the floor; and when Breakfast is Ready the floor is set instead of a table, and each person receives his own little lacquer tray placed on the floor, or on a low wooden stool, with the individual portion of rice in a delicate china bowl, pale tea in dainty teacups and shredded or diced raw fish in china a queen might envy. On the tray are also a pair of ivory chopsticks, which even a little child can manage skilfully, in place of the spoon, knife, or When night comes the natives Never Go to Bed, for there are no beds. Soft silk or cotton comforts are brought to each person, and the people roll themselves up in the comforts and sleep any place they wish on the floor, using little wooden or lacquer benches for pillows; usually these have a roll of soft paper on the top, making them a little more comfortable. Take a comfort and try sleeping on the floor with some books under your head and you will know how it feels to sleep in Japanese style. Every Japanese house should have its Fenced-in Garden. Make your fence of paper cut according to Fig. 287, and mark the pattern (Fig. 288) on it with two tones of yellow paint. Paint the convex top of the gate-way a bright red with narrow black border, and mark the white gate-posts drawing Fig. drawing Fig. drawing Fig. Put up the fence by slipping the upper tongues on each end through the slit on the outside front edge of each room, then sliding the lower tongues of the fence through the lower outside edges of rooms and porches (Fig. 282). Both boys and girls have fine times in Japan, and they are as happy as the day is long. On the fifth day of the fifth month the boys reign supreme, and their relatives and friends vie with each other in their endeavors to render the day a happy one for the little fellows. All Japan is alive and anxious to celebrate the occasion. Quaint flags in the shape of enormous
drawing Fig. Make Several Fish for the pole to be placed in front of the little paper house; they look very comical, bobbing and swinging high in air with their wide-open mouths. Cut Fig. 290 of white tissue-paper, also Fig. 291, which is a trifle larger than the first and is slashed along three edges. Lay Fig. 290 on top of Fig. 291; bend the flaps over and paste them on Fig. 290. Form a little hoop of a strip of stiff paper with the ends pasted together; blow the fish open, then paste the hoop on the inside of the open edge of the head to form its immense mouth. When dry mark the fish with red paint like Fig. 292. Tie a thread on the two opposite sides of the mouth and with another thread attach drawing Fig. "Feast of Dolls," and is a gala day for little girls. Dolls and gorgeously dressed images, representing the Mikado, nobles, and ladies, are brought out and placed on exhibition, along with beautiful jars containing queer little trees and rare vases filled with flowers. The day is made a joyous one and a day long to be remembered by the little girls. There are no sidewalks in Japan, the pavements being laid lengthwise through the centre of the streets, and on this path people stroll or hurry along. Mingled with the others are the Japanese laboring men, called coolies, carrying between them The Kago, which swings from a pole the ends of which rest on the men's shoulders. The kago is a sort of canopied hammock chair. You can easily fashion a tiny one from paper and straw. Cut Fig. 294 of stiff paper, make it three inches long and at the broadest part an inch and a quarter wide. Paint the kago yellow, and to form the framework sew on each end a piece of heavy broom straw, jointed grass, or straw which has been limbered by soaking, and cut a piece six and three-quarter inches long for each side. Bring the side straws together beyond each end and bind them (Fig. 295). Then hunt up a slender round stick six inches long and sew the kago on it by means of thread loops at each end drawing Fig. drawing Fig. drawing Fig. Either buy a little Japanese Umbrella or make one of a disk of green tissue-paper folded and crimped from centre to edge. Use a heavy broom straw for the handle and lighter ones for the ribs; stick them in, gluing them only to the centre, which is now the top of the umbrella; wind the top of the umbrella, the ribs, and the handle firmly together with black thread. The umbrella will not open but looks well closed. Place a tied bundle of red tissue-paper and the green umbrella on top of the yellow drawing Fig. |
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