Makura

I might have said earlier that the weather for this week except that beautiful sunny day is going to be messy, but it’s holding for today, yeah, “holding”.

I guess a lot of you are tired with my weather pillow.
Weather Pillow... ??? Tenki no Makura... ??? Those who understand this term are true Japan experts.

A pillow is of course something you sleep on, but in Japanese language it can also be used to denote the introductory part of an essay or something you really want to get to. It is originally a term and technique used in rakugo (comic storytelling) but is rarely used anywhere nowadays. Anyway, the like in the first couple of paragraphs in my daily blog, makura can mean the intro to the main text in columns and essays.

But today my feature is real makura, pillows.
From about two to three years ago, we’ve been having this urathane foam pillow boom (I don’t even know the proper name in English... it’s this kind of material that even if you press it hard it doesn’t bounce back right away but come back slowly) and as you can tell, I got one too... only to say that it wasn’t a genuine one but a cheap mock.

Futons and beds too, but pillows are important. Think of it, it has to keep your head and hence the body posture the same way our spine and neck supports the head. The history of pillows in Japan (regardless the material) dates back to more than two thousand years ago... quite impressive.

Today the variations of pillows have grown really rich, and you know how a lot of us spend one-third of our life sleeping – a whole lot of Japanese people are becoming more and more picky about beds and bedclothing.

Having said so, coming this long with pillow discussion, I’m not using a pillow right now. Like I wrote yesterday, I sleep on a sofa bed so the rim of the sofa is kind of firm making my lower back sink, and having a pillow would worsen my neckache and backache. And eventually the entire body becomes tired each night...

Oops, I’m just complaining. I’ll get to the point about Japanese people and bedclothing some other time cuz I’ve gotta run for today.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to go see the fireworks at Sumidagawa. The crowd is going to be hectic. I’m not sure if I can get good pictures, but I’ll take my camera anyways.

To everybody out there, have a great weekend!