Keeping Warm Tips – Japanese Kotatsu

The Keeping Warm This Winter post that I did a couple of weeks ago has been tremendously popular, so I’m going to continue on with some more tips for those of us facing a chilly winter this year due to the expected higher costs in heating fuels. In that original post, a reader by the name of Sean left a comment with a couple of links to other resources. One of those links was to an article from the Jan/Feb 1976 issue of Mother Earth News.

That article, entitled How The Japanese Keep Warm, bears the observations of its author who spent part of her childhood in Japan and how that country’s residents not only deal with the cold of winter, but do it in a culture that still to this day doesn’t believe in building homes with heating.

One of the means by which the Japanese stay warm is with what they call the Kotatsu. Here’s a description from that Mother Earth News article…

A kotatsu is a heater that’s placed on the floor with a low table over it. A special quilt called a kotatsu kakebuton is draped over the top of the table and a second top rests on the quilt. That’s the way poor people do it anyway. Wealthier folks frequently have a special space for their legs recessed into the floor under the table and a second-smaller and deeper-hole for the heater located in the center of the first one.

However it’s constructed, the kotatsu is the center of a Japanese family’s activities during cold weather. When we lived in Japan, we spent most of our time in the winter closely grouped around our little (about three feet by three feet) square table playing footsie in the kotatsu and being careful not to lift the accompanying kakebuton so as to let a draft of cold air underneath.

Traditionally, the kotatsu’s were heated with charcoal heaters, but in current times, most folks have moved to electrical means. Not really off-the-grid, but for those of us facing a cold winter, this type of set-up could offer a more affordable method to stay warm.

In doing some Googling on the kotatsu, I also came across this article written by Bill Stonehill at Davidap.com on his perspectives as a westerner living in the Orient. Bill not only provides a great description on the kotatsu method used by the Japanese, but also compares it to how other cultures in the region deal with the cold.

Those of us in the west can sometimes forget that there are many other cultures around the globe that have to deal with the same issues that we do and can offer interesting solutions to those problems.

Stay warm, everybody!