Most of the houses in Japan has a room called, “washitsu(和室、わしつ)”. Washitsu simply means, “Japanese traditional style room”.  Many of the older homes used to have only washitsu’s.

People often slept on Futon (布団、ふとん) (some people still do these days of course), which is padded mattresses laid in the 和室. 和室 was popular for traditional Japanese houses until not too long ago, when people started to build houses with Yo-shitsu(洋室、ようしつ), rather than 和室.  Yo-shitsu means “western style rooms” with different types of flooring, perhaps tiles, hardwood floor, and carpeting etc.. Traditional Japanese washitsu is made with Tatami(畳、たたみ) flooring. 畳 is simply a rice straw mat used in 和室. 和室 cannot be 和室 without 畳 flooring.

In recent years, people often build houses with many of the 洋室; however, they normally have at least one 和室 in the house.  It is not uncommon to see many of the Japanese traditional inns or restaurants with old styles throughout Japan.

I recently went to Udon(うどん)restaurant with traditional 和室 style rooms for dining.  This restaurant had many low tables with Zabuton (座布団、ざぶとん) for seating. 座布団 is a padded small cushion to sit on. It is rare to see this style of seating in U.S., but it is pretty common here in Japan. Especially Japanese restaurants (not steak or seafood restaurants or international ones) have many 和室 with this type of seating arrangements.

Some people say it is not comfortable to sit down on the 座布団 like this and eat, but for me, this is just part of the culture and to be honest, this is how I grew up.  In our old house before my parents rebuilt the house in modern style, our house used to have only 和室 with Tatami flooring. We used to use low table for everything from eating to studying. For that reason, I have to say that every time I come to a room like this, I feel more relaxed and feel much comfortable. Not to mention, I enjoyed my lunch here.