Homes and Furniture in Japan
Japan modelled most of its culture on the Chinese way of life. In the 600-900 era, there was a huge push to emulate everything Chinese. China's capital was Ch'ang-an, and was a gigantic city of 30 square miles. The Japanese set out to create their own capital city with similar architures and styles.
However, the Japanese went through periods where they absorbed everything as-is, and then periods where they sat back and made modifications to these styles they had copied. In this way, many things became uniquely Japanese.
The Chinese loved elegance, color, and intricacy. They created very symmetrical buildings with durable tile and stone, with ornate carvings and with a planned out garden in the back.
The Japanese instead favored asymmetry. Because of the frequent earthquakes, they opted for more easily fixed constructions - more simple in design, less likely to harm occupants when they collapsed. Roofs were thatched, not tile. Even giant mansions often gave the effect of being light and graceful, with thin rice paper walls and sliding shoji screen doors.
Rooms would often serve multiple purposes. A mat would be stored in the closet during the day, while the room was living space. At night, the mat would be rolled out to sleep on. Floors would either be dirt or a raised wood floor, and there would be flat cushions, or zabutons, to sit on.
By the 1400s, tatami came into style. These are woven floor mats that would get dirty easily - so shoes would be left outside. Rooms were now often listed by the number of tatami mats used to cover the floor, as the mats were a standard size throughout the country. Mats were never laid down so that four corners met - this was thought to be dangerous, that an assassin could easily poke a sword up through the gap.
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