Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Australia

If you have ever wondered what is underneath those tatami mats one so enjoys living and sleeping on in Japan, then this picture should give you some idea. Rough cut boards in groups of six nailed over a wooden framing, and in our house framing over concrete piles.

When we moved into the place it smelt quite musty, not having been lived in for some time. So we asked our landlord if he could change the tatami in our house. He agreed and came around with one of the people who lives in the same village as him. After a bit of discussion it was agreed, and so he took away 6 of the mats from one of the rooms.

When he came back the next day he had changed the top covering on the tatami. I was quite curious about the whole process, having lived in places with tatami during most of my time in Japan. I had read that there were two sizes of tatami – a Tokyo size and an Osaka size, the Osaka size naturally being larger. However according to the gentleman who came to change the tatami, it isn’t just the size of the tatami by region – the size of the rooms varies a fair bit, making each mat unique. He measures the rooms diagonally before making the mats and he said there was a variation of up to 10 centimeters between houses.

The mats themselves, if you get proper ones and if the building has good ventilation will last about 100 years. The more expensive mats are made from tightly packed rice straw, while if you go for cheaper tatami they will likely have a core of styrofoam. The styrofoam fillings are highly flammable according to the tatami guy, and give off poisonous fumes.

What we had changed were the rush covering on the top of the mats. This normally lasts five or six years depending on use. The mats themselves are about 55mm thick and weigh in at around 30 kilograms.

I had a bit of a look around the internet and found a couple of places supplying tatami. Shoji-Tatami in Victoria, Australia looks quite sound. In America, proper tatami is illegal for some reason (any ideas? maybe it blocks FBI listening equipment and thus possess a terrorist threat?), so Japan Shoji in Boulder Colorado have developed their own, legal! tatami.

You can’t beat the smell of fresh tatami in the morning.