My Life 5 My House

  I have had an American pen pal, who is currently a high school student.  Once I asked him about his house.  At that time he responded in one of his letters that the house he lived in with his parents then was not his house, but his parents' house, and that he was expected to leave the house when he entered college, and that he might have his own house when he got married.  

  This story impressed me very much.  In Japan, when we talk about the house we live in, we usually refer to it as our house, forgetting that it is actually our parents who had the house built.  

  Now I think that the American way of thinking is more rational than the Japanese way of thinking. Therefore, instead of saying "my house," I feel obliged to say "my parents' house."

  I know you may wonder why I don't say, "my father's house."  I'm pretty sure the house is legally in the possession of my father.  On the other hand, I've known that both of my parents worked hard to earn the money to buy the house.  It is the result of their cooperative efforts that enabled them to buy the house.

  That's why I'd rather say "My parents' house."

  However, if I always refer to the house where I live now with my parents as my parents' house, I'm afraid it may be confusing to you, giving the impression I am living alone away from my parents.   So to avoid the confusion, in this story I will adopt the Japanese way of thinking and refer to the house where I live with my parents now as "My house."

  I hope I'll be able to tell you about "My house" some day when I establish my own household.

 

  My house is eighteen years old.  It is a two-story wooden house.  My parents bought it a half year before I was born.  

  I'm not sure if I can say I was born in this house, because I was actually born in the delivery room of the municipal hospital in our town.

  At that time my father was twenty-nine years old, and my mother was twenty-six years old.  Until then, they lived in a small apartment managed by the prefectural office. Since the rent of the prefectural apartment was very low, compared with that of privately-owned apartments, my parents could save money to buy a house.

  When they knew that I was going to be born, they decided to buy a house with a small garden in front and hopefully also with a backyard.

  As you know, land prices in Japan are outrageously high.

  When one tries to have a house built, to acquire an appropriate housing site with a reasonable price is a big problem.  My parents, therefore, opted to buy a house built and put up for sale by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation, instead of having a house built by purchasing a piece of land.

  The sum of the money they had saved up to that time was not enough to buy the house, and so they borrowed money from the Housing Loan Corporation.   The interest on a Housing Loan Corporation loan at that time was 4.35%, much lower than that of city banks' housing loans.  My parents have paid back all the loan in 18 years.

  This is the story of how my parents acquired their own house.

  Now I'll tell you a bit more about my house.  The housing lot is a little more than 330 square meters, 100 tsubo in Japanese.  On the first floor, there is a living room with a carpeted floor, my father's and my mother's rooms, one eight-tatami room with an alcove and a closet, a dining room- kitchen, a bathroom equipped with a shower, and a toilet.

  The kitchen has a skylight to let in lots of sunlight.  In the living room there is a low tea table, a sofa and two armchairs.

  An engawa, a wooden veranda, is attached to the tatami room.

  At that time, maybe even today, it was rather unusual for the wife of the household to have her own room.  My mother was and has been working as a junior high school teacher, and she needed her own room to do her work at home.

  My father has been very understanding about working women.  I have heard that he even advised my mother to have her own room.

  My parents sleep on futon, a set of padded mattresses and quilts, in the tatami room at night.  At night they take out the futon from the closet, and spread it on the floor for their bedding.  They put it away in the closet in the morning.

  The total floor space on the first floor including the hall is about 99 square meters, or 30 tsubo.  

  The floor space on the second floor, including the corridor, is about 66 square meters, or 20 tsubo.  

  On the second floor, there is my room, which doubles as my study and bedroom, one eight-tatami room with a closet, and a toilet.

  The west side of my room has a bay window.

  Both of our toilets are western style flush toilets.

  There is a balcony extending from the tatami room, where we air quilts and mattresses on sunny days.  

  Many potted flowers are arranged neatly on the balcony.

 A satellite dish is mounted on the railings of the balcony.  A TV antenna for VHF and UHF telecasts is mounted on the rooftop with the legs of the mast straddling the roof ridge.  In our area signals are strong and plentiful. We don稚 need an amplifier.

  There is a garage for two cars, my father's and mother's, by the side of the house.  I keep my bike in the garage, too.

  There is a garden planted with trees and shrubs.  Most of them are flowering kinds, such as cherry trees, plum trees, camellia, daphne, and azalea.  They blossom in their respective seasons.

  There are two kinds of camellia.  One bears red flowers and the other white flowers. Both of them are heavy with flowers in the wintertime.  

  In early spring the cherry tree is in full bloom.  Then the daphne trees start to blossom and the garden is filled with the fragrant scents from the daphne flowers.  

  In one corner of the garden there is a flower bed.  My mother tends it lovingly and skillfully.  The garden is blocked from the street by a hedge of Chinese black pines, maki in Japanese, with a gate in the middle.

  When I was a little child, those black pines were as short as I, but now they have grown up as tall as I.  They must be pruned level every year so that they keep the same height.

  I like hedges, even though they must be taken good care of.  I don't like concrete-block walls, though they need little care.  They are unattractive and become dirty.  

  There is a walkway from the gate to the front door.  On both sides of the walkway are planted a row of azaleas.

  They put forth beautiful flowers of varied colors in May.  

  They also need pruning periodically.  My father prunes them into round shapes every year.

  The back door of the kitchen leads to the backyard.  My mother dries the wash there.  We also burn fallen leaves, or bury the garbage.  In the wintertime, we put sweet potatoes in the ashes after we have made a fire.  When the ashes become not too hot, we dig out the sweet potatoes, which we hope are well baked.  I知 sure everybody knows the good smell and taste of sweet potatoes baked in the ashes after having made a fire.

  The trees planted in the backyard are fruit trees; a pomegranate tree, fig tree and persimmon tree.  They bear fruit every year.  In early autumn the fig tree is heavy with fruit.  During the fig season, it is my job to go out into the yard and pick the fresh figs before breakfast every morning.  They are good as dessert after breakfast.  Mother makes jam from the figs every year.

  A pomegranate tree is not so common in our area.  My grandfather's house where my father grew up had a pomegranate tree.  He liked the fruit very much.  But the tree died when he was a college student.  He had missed pomegranates since then.  So the first tree he planted in the yard was a pomegranate tree.

  When you split a pomegranate into two, many seeds appear.  The seeds are covered with fleshy outer coats, which consist of an edible, orange-red pulp.  I love the sweet, acid taste of the pulp.  

  I like reading novels.  One of my favorite authors is Kunio Tsuji.  Among his novels, I like The Coronation of the Spring, Haru no Taikan, best of all.  One of the reasons is that it is a story about Sandro Botticelli and Florence in his time.  Sandro Botticelli is one of the well-known Renaissance Florentine painters.  His most famous paintings are Primavela, which means Spring・in English, and The Birth of Venus.

  I have a book about Botticelli lavishly illustrated with the reproductions of his famous paintings.  When I read The Coronation of the Spring, I look at the book to see the reproductions of the pictures referred to in the story.  In that book I found many pictures of the Virgin Mary and infant Christ.

  In some of those pictures the infant Christ holds a pomegranate in his left hand.  I wondered why he holds a pomegranate.  I read through the book and found the explanation.

  According to the author of the book, the red juice of the pomegranate is a symbol of the blood of martyrs, and hence suggests the infant Christ's Passion in the future.

  When we have this kind of knowledge, our way of looking at the famous paintings will be different and enriched.

  I have told you in detail about my house.  Now can you draw a plan of my house, based on my description?  If you can, please try it.

  My house is not so big, but big enough for the three of us.  It's a lovely house.  I'd like to live in this house in my life time.  However, I know I have to leave it if I get a job away from my house and live away from my parents or when I get married and have my own household.

  Anyway I am still a freshman at the university.  The day I have to leave my house, which is actually my parents' house, is several years from now.  Until that time I'd like to enjoy living in this house, cooperating with my parents to make it more comfortable, attractive, pleasant, beautiful and peaceful.