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Machiya, Seikatsu Bunka, and Changing Domestic Culture in the Japanese Urban Environment
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the new books network.
- [00:07]
B
This is the nordic asia podcast. Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. My name is Julia Olsson. I am a PhD student at the center for east and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University. Today I am in Kyoto, Japan, talking to Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano, who is currently doing a postdoc as a JSPS Fellow at Kyoto University, where her research focuses on machiya and seika Tsubunka. Hello, Chiara, how are you doing?
- [00:46]
A
Hello, Julia, and thank you for having me here today. I am okay. We are right now in my house, so I'm pretty comfortable. I have. We are in our tatami room and Kyoto is beautiful as always. So that's it, the start of me.
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B
It's absolutely beautiful with the leaves changing.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And everything.
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A
I do agree.
- [01:10]
B
And so yes, we are in your house and your house is a machia.
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A
Right.
- [01:15]
B
And the topic of your, of your research as well, could you tell us a little bit about what your broadly what your research is about? For example, what is a machia and what is seika tsubunka?
- [01:28]
A
Sure. So machia is a word that is used to describe traditional dwellings found in urban environment. Originally, the word machiya, especially in Kyoto, was just another word for house. So basically when you say the I go back to my house, everyone would understand that you were going back to a traditional house in Kyoto. But then the change in the landscape and urban landscape in Kyoto started and affected the appearance of the city so much that machia started to be used as a specific terminology referring to wooden houses that were built before 1950, so before the enactment of the Building Standard Act. They are basically houses built out of natural materials, like, as I say, wood, but also paper, stick, stone, earth, and so on and so forth. There are different typology of machiya. The one that we are right now is called nagaya, which is a row house, basically. So different units share the same roof and the sound insulation is not as good as you can probably guess, because we have at least one wall in common between housing units. Nagaya is another word for using contemporary architecture to refer to row houses, even not traditional ones. But when we are talking about machia, we are referring to a specific typology of machiya that were rented originally by artisans and small merchants. So not really the rich, elegant matchiya that you can find in other parts of Kyoto. And specifically this house was originally a weverse house. So place where obi and kimono were made and it belonged to an Old family from the Nishijin area in Kyoto. So a very famous place for kimono and obi and general work related to silk. Nagaya and machiya are, as I said, related terms. But usually the word machiya right now is used to refer to more majestic, great houses with lot of rooms and minimalistic, also furnishing, usually owned by family generation, generation of the same family, merchant, rich merchant family. While nagaya usually evokes a different kind of imaginary when used in contrastive opposition, these words evokes one the, as I said, rich culture of Chonin. So townspeople and the Aber Nagaya evokes more humility. More humility, like everyday life of normal people that were renting usually this kind of units in this house. Unfortunately, our listener cannot see the house we are right now. But there are different rooms that were shared by different generation of the same families, and sometimes even denshi or apprentices that were learning how to make kimono and obi. So you have to imagine that in such a small unit, you would have at least six or seven people living together. So what I do is basically researching the transformation and development of this kind of architecture and the everyday habits related to living in these houses. So this is the expression seika tsubunka, or culture of everyday life. And it refers, for instance, to the cleaning habits or the disposal of garbage, how you use space, what kind of meaning you attach to space, and how you manage and use different parts of the house. So this, all this culture, all this space sensibility and delicacy is changing through time and then trying to keep track of this change, basically. Right, super interesting, thank you.
- [06:11]
B
And so your. Your current research is focusing on this, the cleaning practices?
- [06:16]
A
Yes, exactly. Right now I have. I have been researching about how Covid dep impact the cleaning habits in Japanese houses. And I'm trying to understand if there is a difference between families living in traditional dwellings and family living in modern houses. The reason is that people living in Machia or Nagaya, like me, are usually they are more used to insect or the dirt that comes from using natural materials. I have a garden as well. So sometimes, especially in summer, I have a desired guest in my house. But I also have sometimes mice or a mouse that does not really interact with me much. But I can hear his footsteps when I'm trying to sleep. So in this sense, people living in traditional environment are more used to a notion of cleanness. There is not in necessarily no position to dirtiness, but it's more like a cycle, a cycle of life. And people that Live in modern apartment are little bit are becoming more and more detached from this notion of dirtiness as part of the life cycle. So cleaning habits have also changed and this has also impacted the upkeep of Mashia because they have been labeled as dirty and unsafe in the past 30 years, especially compared to modern houses that have artificial materials, building materials or concrete. And they are considered safer from the fire hazard point of view, but also clean compared to Machia. So this notion of cleanness has also impacted the way machi are preserved and their upkeep in modern times. So it's not just about the seka subunka, but understanding the modern notion of cleanliness and how this relates to the concept of kegare or purity. This is what I'm focusing right now. What has been absorbed by the concept of purity from the past and what is changing and how is this affecting everyday habits inside the domestic environment?
- [08:58]
B
I would assume also that since the. Especially in the case of Nagaya, where you are living so close to everyone, that these practices even perhaps of cleaning is something that is not just isolated within the family, but that is shared between.
- [09:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. That is a very. That is a very spot on observation. Because actually in Kyoto specifically there is a practice that is called kadohaki. Kadohaki is basically the sweeping of the front door, but not just your portion of the front door, a little bit of the shared space between different genkan, between different entrances. Not so much that your neighbor could feel offended, like you are saying implicitly that they are dirty, but a little bit in order to say, oh, I care about not only me, but I care about you too. This practice. Actually I'm in the middle of conducting a survey amongst my neighbors, but also around other parts of the city. And all the people that have answered up until now, they say that they know the kadohaki practice and they practice then. So it's. It's quite an old habit that is survived up until today. And cleaning in general had a social value. Something that had to do not only with the interior of the house, as you said, but with the maintaining of relationship inside the community. And this is specifically the case of impurity situation that had to do with impurity. Not just cleaning and dirty, like for instance childbirth and funeral practices, death, illness, these were all situations that in the Shinto idea of kegare, pollution were dangerous because pollution could emerge from this situation and also spread to other people. So community had to work together to avoid contamination. And this of course is a different concept from today. Modern Cleaning habits. Right now, the concept of kre has undergone a lot of change. And the temporal dimension of kare, which was related for instance to menstruation cycle and childbirth or festival matsuri, in which pollution was active for a limited amount of time, this notion has underwent the strongest change. Because right now, thanks to God, like, thankfully, women are not considered polluted anymore because they have the menstrual cycle or childbirth is not. It's a dangerous moment, but not for reasons regarding kegare, but for the health of the woman and of the baby. So this change have impacted also the notion of pollution inside the house and the social ties related to moments of pollution inside the side everyday life, like funeral deaths and so on. So yes, as you say, it's a very broad topic and you can have a different dimension to it. You have the social dimension, you have the architectural dimension, the special dimension of kegare and cleaning, and you also have the political dimension, for instance. So cleaning, what is a political dimension? Yeah, that's very interesting. Because originally the topic of Kegeraean pollution was used to also put constraints on different segments of society, like the problem of burakumin or outcast. Basically, they were considered polluted people, so not pure. And in this sense, kegare also had a political function to keep those people outside of society and was also used as a discrimination tool in a way. Right now, you know, the problem of burako is not as strong, as severe as it was in the past, but there are different opinions regarding that. There are still people that say that burakumin are discriminated in Japan. The word the buraku is still pronunciated at a very low voice. People don't like to say that word. So it's still, I think, a symptoms of an issue, an ongoing issue, I think. And kegeta was used as an escamo tage basically as a tool to discriminate those people. My research right now starts from the assumption that right now Kegare is not that tool anymore, but this changed into cleaning habits. So the idea of someone being clean or dirty has become the tool to discriminate or accept someone inside society.
- [14:32]
B
So how does that differ from this idea of kegare? Is it simply that the sort of religious aspect has been downplayed, or how do you see that change happening?
- [14:42]
A
First, I think that yes, the religious aspect has been downplayed a lot. And also it has the bodily function. The aspect related to bodily function is not as primary concern as it was in the past. There are some traits that have been inherited from the concept of kr, like the social discrimination idea or the political value at some point. Like for instance, there are a lot of xenophobic issues still in Japan regarding people from other Asian countries. They are first and foremost labeled as dirty. They don't. The. The propaganda says they don't know our manners, they are dirty. They have a different toilet manners than us. So the idea of someone being dirty is still something that has to do with. With discrimination. And this is has been inherited by the idea of Kegare. I'd say that the temporal dimension in also has been downplayed. So the fact that one is impure for a limited amount of not really apply when we go into cleaning habits. But the spatial dimension on the other side has been maintained. So for instance, the fact that some places are dirty and therefore unsafe is still present in the modern cleaning culture. For instance, houses that have problem where family reside, that have clear a hoarding problem, like accumulating a lot of stuff and sometimes being really deep into this problem of being buried inside stuff and not being able to get rid of anything at all. These kind of houses are of course considered the safety hazard from cleaning and the hygiene point of view. And they are a community problem, not just that problem or the problem of the one family. And the idea of the outside being dirty compared to the inside of the house. This is the very old difference between Soto and Uchi, that it's still part of everyday life in Japan. And as you can see, we still leave the shoes on the outside. And sometimes you have more than one slipper from the inside. You have one for the garden, you have one from the toilet. So still there are different dimensions of cleanness, like a hierarchy inside of the house, all dirty spaces and clean spaces. So this. I think there are some traits that have been inherited from the idea of Kegare and some that have been discarded.
- [17:58]
B
But most of these practices I think have continued into modern living as well. Right. With the leaving of the shoes and the different slippers and so on. Are there any things that are sort of lost with the move away from lifestyle in this type of Nagaya house versus a modern mansion or apartment building or something?
- [18:24]
A
It depends on the point of view. If you're talking about an architectural cultural point of view, some character and cultural traits have been lost. For instance, toilets and ofuro. They were not present. Bathrooms. Yeah, sorry, bathrooms. They were not present the beginning in Nagaya, especially if they were present, they were located on the outside. So instead of having them Inside the house, you would have them in the garden because the idea of dirty was especially strong in that period. So you would have dirty places outside the living environment with a very strong separation. Right now, of course, this is not functional anymore with the very cold winter and very hot summer. So if you have to literally go outside of your house to go to the toilet, it's very, very inconvenient. And so people mostly put the toilets and the bathroom inside the house. This from the architectural point of view, from a more, I'd say, anthropological point of view, some tradition and habits have also changed a lot. For instance, there was a ritual called benjo mairi in Japan that was performed even in urban environment, not only in rural Japan, which was the presentation, the introducing of the newborn baby to the divinity residing to the deity residing in the bathroom. So you would have a kami, a deity residing in the toilet environment, and the pregnant woman, or sometimes the woman with the newborn child will do a miri. So a pilgrimage to the toilet to introduce the newborn to the deity and also to pray for the well being of the new child. And this was due to the fact that toilets were not seen just as dirty environment. The expulsion of excreta from the body was seen as a necessary act for the survival of the human and also as an act of purification, right? So the deity, the kami residing in the toilet, was actually the one responsible for this purification. And so presenting the child to this deity was a way to assure that the. The boy or the girl would grow up to be pure or able to expel their impurity from their life as well. So it was the. The idea was that everything, even dirtiness, was part of everyday life, as I said before, so it was not something to fight against, but more something to relate to on everyday basis. And of course now benjamyri is not, from what I know, is not performed anymore. So the idea of putting a baby, which is considered quite weak and vulnerable at this first stage of life in an environment as the toilet is perceived as dirty, is quite far from the modern way of thinking. So especially cleaning habits. So it's not performed anymore. And this is another change that you can see in the way seka tsubunka, or everyday life relates to kegare and cleaning habits. So this architectural and anthropological point of view, if you also think, take into consideration the community point of view, you have also kadohaki that as I said, is still performed, but people are less and less inclined to let. To let other people, visitors inside their house and this has also to do with the fear of being judged for their cleaning habits. So while in the up until I think 20 years ago, standing to my standing to my interviews opinion at least people would just open the door in the house and come in and saying as Nimase, I'm sorry I'm here. And I must say that sometimes my neighbors do that. I have a couple of neighbors that just opened the door in my house and the first time I was here it quite startled me because I was not used at all to that. Especially old people still do that. But most people now just ring the bell or are greeted on in the entrance outside the house and are not let into the genkan. So the, the entrance part of the house there is still inside the house. And for instance, if I go to my neighbor's house that is very close here and I want to have a chat with him, ask him something, he would put a zabuton or a pillow for me to sit in the genkan and he doesn't mind at all if the room is messy or there are a lot of things he's really nice about it. But other people, they fear judgment and they will not let me in. But not just, just me that I'm foraging like I. I've seen that not happening in the modern times. And this of course has to do with change of the perception of inside and outside and the new value related to privacy and the family nucleus and so on. But also I've. I've seen from the. It's also due to the fact that they fear to be judged because they are not clean, they are not, they are messy and sound. So there are different aspects in which this change in cleaning habits has affected everyday life, I think in modern, modern buildings, but also traditional ones because I.
- [24:47]
B
Mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that also in traditional buildings it's usually that the part of the house that is at the front, that is at the entrance, entrance, thank you. Was usually meant for to receive guests.
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A
Right.
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B
So you would have a space that would be perhaps more beautiful or more clean and then you would have the part where you're living actually in the back of the house. So there might be something to the effect of how people are arranging their houses in the modern day that is also playing into it.
- [25:20]
A
Perhaps it could be that we also have to take into account that right now modern housing models in Japan have changed into one room, one room houses. And in that, in that case you don't have that space anymore, that meeting space because you have a really condensed, really narrow space inside the house. So you basically don't you just have a small tapestry. I don't know how to define that. It's just a space for you to leave your shoes and then to enter the house. But the communal value of the. Of the space, of the Denkan space, of the entrance space has totally disappeared in those typology of on the other side, in Apato, or mansion that have bigger, bigger entrances, you could still have the living space, the living room, so to say. But it's still pretty difficult to gain entrance to those houses unless you are specifically invited. You don't happen to just open the door and get into the house. In this area where we are right now that it's Kita, it's basically an area that is at the border between Kami, Kamiyo and Kita and was originally, I wouldn't say a rural area, but it was really close to the Funaoka hill. So more rural compared to the center of the city. And some customs have remained, have lasted longer compared to Sijo, other part of the city. They are central and they have undergone faster and stronger modernization process and also have a lot of tourists right now compared to the. The area where I'm living in. And right now, if you scroll through this, the. The streets, the alleys here, you will see even some people that leave their door open. And this is typical of this part of Kyoto, I believe this, this part where there are not so many lodgings facilities, not many tourists, not many foreigners, they still leave their doors open. So you can literally just walk in and ask for the owner of the house and they will greet you and it's very, very peculiar. I see.
- [27:59]
B
Yes. And just to let our listeners know, our next episode, which will be a continuation of today's talk, will focus on the effects of tourism on neighborhoods like this. Wow, thank you, Chiara. I mean, this is such a deep and interesting topic and I'm really looking forward to reading more both from your current project on the cleaning practices and then your later projects for our listeners and for myself.
- [28:27]
A
Thank you.
- [28:29]
B
Tell us a little bit about. Tell us if you have any publications out there or any upcoming things or any collaborations that are happening that we should look at.
- [28:39]
A
Thank you very much and regard. Yes, Regarding your question, I do have a contribution on volume that was published in 2022 and it's in Italian. Unfortunately. Fortunately. Unfortunately. Unfortunately for me, yes, it's. The volume is called Meridiani Mappe Intersezioni e Orientamenti. So if there is a listener who is from Italy. He or she can check it up. And I have another contribution that is coming up in the next hopefully next month. There is from Copernicus Institute in University of Turun and the volume is called New Insight through the Vision of the Old Changes, Chances and Challenges from Ancient Times to the Global Area Japan. And this one actually explores a little bit the Rokuhara case that I mentioned before and gave some data that I could not provide right now in our talk because I would have to check the statistics. And I also am working with some other researchers from different universities here in Kyoto and there is a website more than Kyoto Research Project that basically basically summarizes our contribution regarding the modern Kyoto challenges. So you have someone talking about war sites in Kyoto, sometimes talking about tourism before the World War II. My contribution hopefully will be up in the next next weeks is talking about the built environment and Machiya and sometimes in the future also something regarding punk culture in Kyoto. So our idea is to talk about this city not just as the ancient capital but also as a modern city. So if you have any question you can also contact me by my email address or on LinkedIn profile. I would be happy to hear from any of you.
- [30:57]
B
Yeah, I will put all of the links in the blurb of this episode so you can check out Chiara's LinkedIn and her publications. My name is Yuri Olsson and I have been talking to Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano about her research on Matia and Seikatsu Bunka. Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia Podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. You have been listening to the Nordic Asia Podcast.