The quaint little house below is a literal re-creation of the house inhabited by the family of Mei and Satsuki Kusakabe and their parents. At least in the story it does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro. This one can be found in Nagoya, Japan. It was constructed based on the detailed plans and illustrations—and I mean detailed—of the house in the animated film in which the two sisters and their father move into an old house in the country. It is a sweet enough house in the film, but a sheer delight in tactile 3-D.
We were not just invited, but encouraged to look at, touch, move whatever we wanted. We couldn't drink the water or go up the attic stairs. Nor could we take photos inside. But for half an hour we had the run of the place, the eleven of us plus the other 10 or so from our group. I should note at this point that a friend of ours, Junko-san, a Nagoya resident, was the one who put us onto this entire experience. She arranged for the tickets, which were free, but which required advanced reservations. She also drove my in-laws, my youngest and me to the site, while my husband and the older girls took the train.
We slid open drawers and cabinets, pulled out 1950's era gloves and labeled tins of powders and pomades, smelled camphor (an inside reference for anyone who knows the film) in the storage chests, pumped water by hand at the outdoor well, peeked our heads into various closets and windows. It was wonderful.
Every one in my eight-person family (six of us plus my in-laws) felt a nostalgic longing to live in this house. Never mind that the reality would likely never live up to our dreamy expectations. It was simply a fictional slice of life from a different time (and place). The thing about a real time 3-D snapshot of someone else's quiet life is that it always comes across as being so idyllic. But even in the story of Totoro, life is far from perfect. The mom is sick with a malady unknown to us in the audience and has been in hospital for some prolonged period of time. It is 1958, and the hospital is some three hours away by foot. Professor Kusakabe still has to work at the university, while his four-year-old and school-aged daughters attend school and remain under the watchful eye of a kind neighbor. Perhaps life was quieter and safer in the 1950's and in Japan specifically, but to be realistic, not to mention fair, no life is without its struggles.
Disclaimer time here: though we were not officially allowed to take photographs inside the house, the ones I took are outside looking on, with a few looking in. Honesty can be such a pain in the neck sometimes, but I guess it's worth being able to sleep well at night.
I must include a few photos of just lovely sights, as there were many, on the way from the parking lot through the park and on to the house itself . . .
Okay, I guess that's enough for now. I only wish I could figure out how to enlarge them enough for you to see better. A tutorial for another day, I suppose.
Professor Kusakabe's study at the side/back/front? of the house. True to character, he is function over form. His study looks like my house—books everywhere, papers piled and in disarray, knick-knacks and tell-tale travel souvenirs dotted throughout. I love the tiny little chair to right of the doors. I didn't even notice it when we were there because there was so much to see.
Another view into the house. This would have been an all-purpose room that could be opened up to its largest dimension or divided by the screens you might just be able to see suspended about halfway through the room. These are called sudare. In recent decades it has become immensely popular over here in the west (U.S., at least) to use sudare as window shades. They have a very natural, calming appearance to them and we get to feel as if we are getting back to nature.
The best sudare are just gorgeous, and they are intended to provide light and privacy at the same time. A larger room such as the one above could be divided into sleeping quarters at night, but be opened up as living space during the day. Believe me, when it comes to making the most of space there have been many times when I have thought that the Japanese are the ones who got it right and that we need to re-think our floor-plan. Can you imagine what a simple ranch/rambler, or a two-story townhouse would be like with all that space opened up during the day?
Here we have two cute and curious little girls pumping water at a real well. Yes, that is a watermelon in the barrel, and there is a sock/sack attached to the end of the pipe. The sock was put there to reduce the amount of dirt and minerals that came up with the water. We weren't allowed to drink from the wells, but the kids certainly had fun playing and pretending.
Under the back entrance (where the little Totoro would have snuck in under the house ^o^) rests Mei's little tea set and some water vessels, dwarfed, as you can see, by Dad's geta.
Supply of wood for the stove just behind the kitchen, and a wooden cart used for . . . whatever.
Older roofs in Japan are just beautiful, but everything in Japan has a purpose, even the most ornate and beautiful objects. That is one of the things I really love about Japan, that there is both beauty and a purpose to everyday things. Here, it isn't difficult to see that the roof channels rainwater and makes it easier for the sun and warm air to melt snow and ice, rather than let it sit in a thick, undisturbed, and possibly dangerous, sheet of ice. It is because of this Japanese insistence on form as well as function that we decided to install rain chains from the under-deck behind our house. Why shouldn't the rain tumble down in an esthetically pleasing waterfall into a catch-basin or rain barrel beneath?
And for a few last looks at the outside of the house . . .
Don't worry. I won't leave you without real photos of the inside of the house. I just have to go through official channels and send you to the right web sites. Enjoy! (Word to the wise: if you go looking at other sites for more info, you may find some imagery from other artists and animators that you hadn't bargained for. So if you are looking at the computer with your kids, a bit of pre-screening is probably a good idea.).
The official 2005 Expo site:
http://www.expo2005.or.jp/en/venue/experience05.html
Wikimedia photos:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Satsuki_and_Mei’s_House
Another fun site:
http://www.totoro.org/
Or you can go to Google Images for Totoro-related photos and illustrations, including some of the house.
One day soon, I'll post photos of our trip to the actual Studio Ghibli Museum in Miitaka, Tokyo. 'Til then, ki o tsukete, ne? (Take care.).
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