Shoji

So maybe the wasp was too scary.

How about some Japanese home maintenance to calm everybody down?

When a westerner thinks of Japan they probably think of sushi, sumo, ninja, cherry blossoms and shoji. ( And those darned used panty vending machines. Yes, I've heard they exist. I've never crossed paths with one. Why is this considered the pinnacle of Japanese weirdness?)

Shoji, in case you don't recognize the name, are those sliding doors that divide off rooms in traditional Japanese houses. They are made out of some kind of lightweight wood and rice paper. They have a minimalist, clean look to them that westerners seem to instinctively love.

" I love the shoji! They're so pretty", I said to my tutor, brimming with naive enthusiasm.

" You love them because you are a westerner. I hate them.", said my tutor with a knowing grimace.

I now know why she hates them. The papers on the shoji has to be changed every so often.
I'm not sure how often they are supposed to be changed, but our shoji papers had little spots of mold on them in places so we decided it was time. I thought it would be a fun little project, and it was fun... for the first door.

I took some pictures to give you an idea of the process.
We start out here. It may be a little hard to see, but the paper is torn, mildewed and turning brown at the edges.



Step one: splash some water on it. I took the this picture because of how dramatic the splashing was, in reality though the goal is to completely saturate all of the paper.
Okay. Now that the whole thing is wet, you let it sit for a few minutes. This gives the water time to break down the rice glue that is holding the paper on the door. Next comes the fun part ( at least for me): stripping off the paper.



I get the strangest urge to play burlesque music in the background.


Now! The frame is all nice and bare and ready to be set out to dry.






Here's the pile of old papers that I pulled off. Oh and my feet sticking out into the picture.








And here are several frames sitting out to dry. I let them dry overnight to make sure I wouldn't have trouble with mold.






The next day I started here. I put the empty frame on the floor and applied rice glue to each and every little slat. Then I put the paper on... crooked. So I pulled it up, reapplied glue and tried again... this time I put it on upside down. So I pulled it up again, reapplied glue again and finally managed to get it on right.




Next, I take my trusty razor and trim away all the excess.

Much better, but now I had to do something scary. Caleb had talked to his teachers, and they all agreed that after you glue the paper down, you have to spray each panel with water to tighten the whole thing up. So I spray the thing down.
I am immediately certain that I have ruined all my painstaking effort. Little wrinkles appear in the paper and I hate every one of them.

After the paper dried though, I was treated to a happy surprise. What do you know, Caleb's teachers knew what they were talking about. The wrinkles were gone and the paper now made a very satisfactory, drum-like thump when tapped.


I'll leave you with this last image (even though Caleb completed the doors in this specific picture). Don't they just look lovely? I still like how shoji look, but I will never look forward to re-papering them again.