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<\/p>\nIn Japan measures are being taken to address the phenomenon of \u7573\u96e2\u308c (tatami banare)<\/em>, or moving away from tatami.\u00a0 Many of us probably saw it when we lived over there, as friends’ houses were largely Western style except for the token \u548c\u5ba4 (washitsu<\/em>), <\/em>or Japanese style-room.\u00a0 In order to make sure this integral part of the culture does not disappear, a certification has been created for eligible tatami craftsman which gives them the title of “doctor.”<\/p>\n One such craftsman in the prefecture of Tochigi, who estimates that over the last 29 years he has worked on Many creative twists are being employed to help keep tatami as a part of Japanese homes, such as raising a section of the floor and covering it with tatami to make a tatami bed.\u00a0 I assume you would put your futon on top as you would in a regular tatami room, but the fact that the area is raised gives the sensation of sleeping in a bed.\u00a0 Another concept is \u300c\u30e2\u30c0\u30f3\u4e71\u6577\u304d<\/a>\u300d (modan ranjiki<\/em>) or modern jumbled style.\u00a0 This is shown in the picture above, where a mix of full and half tatami mats are used as well as three different colors.\u00a0 Will such innovations be able to prevent \u7573\u96e2\u308c? \u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" **************************** WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. In Japan measures are being taken to address the phenomenon of \u7573\u96e2\u308c (tatami banare), or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,4,102,18,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdote-article","category-articlejournalism","category-japan-society-round-up","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-2Kx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10573"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10584,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10573\/revisions\/10584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"..\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif\" "\\"More...\\""){kind=spacer}
more than 120,000 mats, received his certification just last year.\u00a0 He is now called a \u300c\u7573\u30c9\u30af\u30bf\u30fc\u300d (tatami doctor)<\/em>, a designation that he admits he is not quite used to.\u00a0 However, like an MD he diagnoses problems in the tatami at the houses of his “patients” and even takes notes on a \u7573\u30ab\u30eb\u30c6 (tatami karute)<\/em> or “tatami medical record.”\u00a0 Based on this diagnosis, he tells them when the mats need changing, carries out the old tatami and replaces them with new ones.\u00a0 There are about 700 such certified tatami doctors across the country.<\/p>\n