Today I would like to tell you a bit about my family and my house.
My Mother and Father and my little brother, Taki and I live in a small, traditional Japanese house in the city of Kyoto. My Grandmother also lives with us, she is very old and needs us to take care of her. My family call me Kumi-chan, it's a short version of my name and the chan at the end is like my family saying Kumi dear. This is how you write my name in Japanese characters くみ.
My brother Taki is five years old, we share a bedroom because in Japan houses are very small and I had to give my bedroom to our Grandmother. I don't mind though, Grandmother is very interesting and tells us wonderful stories about old Japan.
Our house has some traditional Japanese rooms and some modern rooms. In the traditional rooms we have wooden and paper walls and doors and straw matting on the floor. We do not have seats in those rooms we have to sit on cushions on the floor. Our bedroom has straw matting on the floor and we sleep on futon which are Japanese style beds. The futon is like a thin mattress, every morning Taki and I help Mother pack the futon up into the cupboard. On Saturdays Mother takes the futon out onto the balcony and whacks the dust out of them with a little straw broom!
We also have a little dog called Panko. Taki and I have to walk Panko twice a day because we have a very tiny garden at our house. In the cities in Japan most people go to the public parks to play or walk their dogs.
This is a picture of Panko - kawaii desu ne! That means isn't he cute!
I wonder if Japanese families and homes are different to other countries?
じゃまたね
Kumi
