Kimono, wood and paper, and Japanese / 着物の必然

着物は一枚の布から成っている。
一枚の布を、まっすぐに切って、繋ぎ合わせて、
立体に沿わせる。
着ない時はまた真平らな状態に畳みなおせる。

日本の家屋は木と紙からできている。
大きな部屋を紙や木の屏風、襖で仕切って、
天気や使う人の数、状況に合わせる。
全部取り除けばだだっ広い1つの箱にだってなれる。

始めから全部決めてしまわないで、
その時々で対応すること。
そんな大らかさ、悪く言えば場当たり的なところは、
日本人的でもある。

Kimono, which is originally a piece of flat cloth:
a piece of cloth cut and sewn together,
wrapped around to fit the 3D figure of body.
Since every cut is done in a straight line, there is no left piece of cloth to throw away.
Because it is not designed to fit a particular person, it could accommodate quite a wide range of figures, too; from fat to skinny, small to tall.

Japanese houses are made of wood and paper.
Pieces of paper or wooden partitions used according to the weather or occasions.
After removing all the partitions, a house could look like an empty square box. It’s all up to how and who uses the space.

Japanese may not be good at deciding everything from the beginning, but we fix and readjust as we go along.
It maybe hard to imagine from the rigid square image of Japanese now, but the lack of planning and thorough forecast, or, in other words, the ability to adjust into changes could both be the unique traits of Japanese.