Yes

It's almost kotatsu time--!

Nengajou

These traditional mailboxes can still be found around Japan

I've mentioned before how fun and interesting it is to take part in holiday traditions in Japan. During my first year in Osaka, as winter set in and Christmas decorations began to appear, so too did New Year's (oshougatsu) paraphernalia. For those unaware, New Year's is the biggest holiday in the nation, and loaded with customs very interesting to a visitor. Each New Year's, I took in a different type of celebration - once I did it traditionally, with ozouni and a shrine visit on January 1st, once in Tokyo at Aqua City Odaiba's shrine and osechi, and once in my own town with toshikoshi soba, watching the shrine next door burn its old offerings. 

Every year, though, I sent the customary New Year's postcards, called nengajou (年賀状). These cards are mailed to friends, family and co-workers, and as long as you pop them in the mailbox by December 25th, they will arrive in mailboxes everywhere on exactly January 1st. There are markings on the cards signalling to postal workers to hold them until New Year's; in fact, in my city, in December most mailboxes had one of their slots (usually there is a 'domestic' and an 'other' slot) entirely converted into nengajou drop-offs. I bumbled through my first year with some awkward store-bought cards, then moved onto making my own cards with special New Year's stamps.

Before leaving for Japan, I did a Christmas card list, and it was a tedious venture with the amount of friends I included at the time. After moving back to Canada, though, I continued sending nengajou rather than switching back to Christmas cards. I tend to forget about keeping up with communication when you take Facebook and Twitter out of the equation, but I can at least make a commitment during the holidays to remind people I've fallen out of touch with that I'm thinking of them, and sending cards for New Year's is a little more unique than sending Christmas cards...plus, nobody wants to receive a Christmas card after December 25th, but New Year's cards can trickle in a little late with no repercussions during a rough holiday season. It helps when you're sending cards all over the world - my biggest batches go out to the U.S. and Canada, and some to Japan where they'll be held until January 1st as long as I get them in the mail early, but some also go out to the Netherlands, Venezuela, Germany and points beyond, where I can't control when they'll arrive. The time flexibility there is definitely great.

Store-bought nengajou have lottery numbers on them which you can use (if you live in Japan) to win prizes. I never quite caught on to this when I lived abroad (admittedly, I sent far more cards than I ever received) but it's a great concept. Even homemade cards are often made using blanks from the post office with all the lottery information pre-printed. I feel a little bad that the cards I now send to Japanese friends have no lottery opportunities, but living in Canada restricts my opportunities to buy cards. Instead, I pick five or six of the free "make-your-own" templates Japan Post offers every year in November, and I have them printed up with my address and the 年賀 mark on the back, in the more traditional landscape-style design that we see on Western postcards. Looking over the designs each year is a joy and writing out my messages and addresses for Japanese friends is a good way to practice handwriting skills.

My first batch of template cards, in 2011.
Not great examples of my handwriting, but this year's batch looks much better!

Spreading this little bit of Japanese culture that many living outside the country wouldn't normally get to experience is great fun, and I love receiving postcards from my friends in Japan. I also like to think that when my co-workers back in Osaka receive a card from me, they feel a little better about the sort of revolving-door situation that is the unfortunate reality of ALTs in Japan, and know that I am still thinking of them, even years on. 

Kotatsu

I have been waiting to make this post.

I am an enormous fan of the Japanese furnishing known as a kotatsu. I own two - one big, one small; one is sort of formal and classy-looking for guests, and the other is pink-topped with a big fluffy polka-dot blanket, just the way I like 'em!

There is no possibility that I overdid it on the pink. None.

My fascination for kotatsu started well before I actually arrived in Japan, though I can't quite remember where from. (Possibly Ouran?) I have poor circulation, so I'm literally cold All. The. Time. I fell in love with the idea of kotatsu long before I had ever laid eyes on a real one - and no surprise, when I finally had one of my own, I was hooked. 

So just what is a kotatsu? 

The underside of a kotatsu

A kotatsu is a table that has a small electric heater built into the underside, and a removable tabletop. Cheaper kotatsu are often made of plastic and are light and easy to store, but classic wooden ones are still very popular. A square blanket - often two of them - is placed between the frame and the tabletop. A person then sits on the floor or on a cushion with their legs under the table. Originally, the intent was that the heat would enter through the bottom of traditional Japanese robes and exit at the neck to effectively heat the entire body - since Japanese houses depend largely on space heating and most are not insulated effectively (if at all!), a kotatsu is a cheaper way to stay warm in an inadequately-heated room. It has come to be symbolic of family life and domesticity, as families still gather around the kotatsu on winter evenings, and is a comfortable spot to read, eat, or nap on a cold day. In the summer, the blanket and electrical cords are removed, and the kotatsu becomes a normal coffee table. 

Kotatsu have their origins in the Motomachi period, the 14th century. The cooking hearth, irori, was used for heating as well as cooking and fuelled by charcoal. Over time, the irori was adapted to have a seating platform, and eventually, a quilt, which trapped the heat coming from the burner. This was called a hori-gotatsu. In the Edo period, the concept was adapted into a square shape with the wooden platform encircling it. 

The easiest way to sit at a kotatsu is with
a zaisu; a legless chair. Cushions also work!

The visual style of the kotatsu we know now came about with the use of tatami mats in homes. The charcoals were kept in a earthen pot on top of the tatami - this style is known as the oki-gotatsu. Electricity eventually replaced charcoal as the primary heating source, and the electric heaters came to be attached to the underside of the table. This is the type of kotatsu used in modern Japan today, and I doubt I would be exaggerating much to say that just about every household has at least one - in fact, we even had one at my school, in the resting room, and on the cold winter days when the students were off for New Year's break, I sometimes chose to spend the day there rather than at my desk by the (open!) window.

My apartment also came with a kotatsu, courtesy of my predecessor - it was actually I really nice one; solid wood and in fantastic shape. Unfortunately, it was a bit too tall to be comfortable for me to sit at, so I put it into storage and later gave it to a friend, who shipped it back to the U.S. (That was exciting - if you've ever pondered the logistics of packing up a twenty-pound solid wood table, well, it's something we expats need to think of at times!) I bought a brand-new one and spared no expense at this very exciting purchase - I must have checked out every major department store from September on, waiting to find my "perfect" one. Finally, I saw it at last, at LOFT in Shinsaibashi, decked out for Halloween:

This display caused me to throw excessive amounts of money at the Shinsaibashi LOFT

That was my kotatsu, I decided. I bought the one on the left, choosing a pink lacquer tabletop. The glass top was so inviting, but I knew I would be shipping the table home at the end of my contract in Japan, so I decided not to take chances. (Good thing - my table actually suffered shipping damage obvious enough that a glass top never would have survived!) I had a fleece blanket like the ones above, but later got a more traditional square one with a removable, washable cover, with the intent being that someday when I furnished a living room that wasn't entirely pink, I could sew a new cover for the blanket and make a new table-cover in a more vanilla sort of colour. As it turned out, upon arriving back in Toronto, I was lucky enough to be able to buy a bigger (double the above size), chestnut-coloured wooden kotatsu from a family selling theirs on Kijiji. It's the perfect size for guests, and I improvised with a twin-sized kakebuton for the blanket. I've watched Kijiji since, with an alert on the word kotatsu, but I've only seen two pop up in the year since I've been in Toronto.

That does mean that having your own kotatsu isn't necessarily going to be easy - the cost of importing even a cheap one is rather steep. I've seen guides to building your own online, which may be a good bet if you have the woodworking skills and the confidence to work with the heating element. (The heating elements themselves can be bought online as well!) A word of caution, though: I asked at the electronics shops in DenDen Town what needed to be done to take my kotatsu home to Canada with me, and he recommended a step-down transformer (it weighs at least 10 lbs!) for safety and to prolong my kotatsu's life, since using any appliance on the wrong voltage will wear it out faster. It was actually pretty tough to find the correct adapter, even in DenDen Town, because most Japanese appliances will work in Canada/the U.S. just fine. In the case of a heater, though, you want to be safe rather than sorry! I've seen these transformers for sale at Mits here in Toronto, or you could probably pick one up online.

Image via Wikimedia Commons
In case you were wondering what
a non-pink kotatsu looked like!

You can also buy yourself a kotatsu and the accessories online, of course. J-Life is based in the U.S. and they sell elegant, classic tables. Rakuten, on the other hand, is a little harder to purchase from (watch out for that shipping!) but they have colourful, modern kotatsu and kotatsu-gake. Personally, I like all types - the classic wooden style, the colourful tabletops and blankets with a ton of "pop," and even the lightweight retro plastic ones like the table we had at school. It was very 80s, like the rest of the room, and that was one of the things I loved about it.

So, are you ready to settle down for a cold winter under the kotatsu? I've found my perfect method: a puzzle mat (for comfy sitting and laying down) with a nice fuzzy rug laid over it. 100x100cm table with adjustable height extenders. Downy, fluffy kotatsu-gake blanket with a washable futon cover so I can change out the patterns and colours as I want them. Heat turned on a nice medium-low, and a small zaisu legless chair with padding on the back. A cup of tea. Earl grey - hot. Maybe a nice pot of sukiyaki, too!

I hate winter, but my kotatsu makes it bearable. ♥

Almost Time

I really dislike winter.
However, I am SO ready for this kotatsu to transform into winter mode!