We'll file this under: Did you know?"
Did you know that most Japanese people sleep on futons? A futon is a very thin mattress bereft of any springs. It's akin to a gymnasium mat - but without the hard plastic overlay.
Apparently every morning when you wake up, you are supposed to roll up your futon. Why? Well, truthfully for months I did not do that. And, when I finally decided to figure out where that strange smell was coming from, I discovered that I was growing mushrooms under the futon.
My body heat/sweat and fluids from myself and my girlfriend Ashley had created a primordial soup, if you will, from which life was created. Our ugly baby.
Because futons are always used atop grass tatami mats, the mold and fungus that grew rendered my tatami mats a wet, black spore-riddled mess.
Once mold grows on them, you can't clean them. The tatami mats have to be removed and replaced.
Kanemaru-san and Hanazaki-san of the Ohtawara Board of Education (OBOE) chastised me appropriately for my costly mistake (or ignorance), and said I must roll up my futon every day... and once a week, I should remove the blankets around it and air it out outside - no matter how cold the weather... rain... maybe not, but I should do my best to still remove the blankets from it and make sure everything gets a good cleaning.
Lesson learned by me, I did not have another issue with my futon or my new tatami mats.
Okay, actually the OBOE solved my lessons for me. Because I had some good back pain before I arrived in Japan - and the futon did nothing to alleviate that back pain, they found something that would help. I guess they put a call out to the good people of Ohtawara-shi, Toichigi-ken, Japan, because someone 'donated' a Queen-sized bed for me and my girlfriends.
They even sent along three sets of new sheets and a quilts.
And even though it's not exactly kosher to place a bed on top of the tatami mats, the OBOE did not bat an eye or call me a stupid gaijin (foreigner)... they just placed the bed on the tatami knowing that when it was time for me to leave the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme, it would be time to replace the tatami mats anyways.
With the new bed, my back stopped hurting me, and I stopped getting tatami mat burns on my knees when I had sex.
What a great country!
Somewhere where mushrooms grow,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by Metallica - listen here: NAPSTER
PS: Somewhere where mushrooms grow? In the dark, covered in horse crap.
PPS: In the photo above, that's Ashley taking a nap on my futon that sits atop my tatami mat floor.
