Page:Japanese Physical Training (Hancock).djvu/114

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Japanese Physical Training

has provided for every hour of the day the kind of air that is most beneficial. The Japanese live, for the most part, in houses of frail bamboo structure. Rooms are divided by sliding partitions of paper. For windowpanes oiled paper is used in the place of glass. In the coldest nights of winter air circulates through the native house without interference. If the sleeper feels chilled he adds more bedclothing. But the passage of fresh air through the entire house is never prevented.

"Draughts" are not dreaded, for the meaning of the term is hardly understood by these hardy little people. On a chilly evening in the early fall the head of the family, the oji-san, will seat himself in his doorway, directly in the path of a draught of air that sweeps through from the back of the house. No cold is taken, and none can be taken by any one who will accustom himself gradually to this Oriental revolution from our Western ideas. The foreigner who visits the office of a Japanese merchant, even in January, will find that the windows are at least partly open, and that a strong, cold breeze is sweeping through the