Kyoto Event: Repairing a Shoji door

Shoji doors (paper screen sliding doors) are one of the many aspects that characterize a traditional Japanese-style room and also life in Japan.  At one of our “Machiya” style share houses of SAKURA HOUSE KYOTO, a few of the shoji doors have begun to get old with the passing years. Believing it could be a great opportunity to learn and enhance the experience of living in a typical Japanese house for our residents, our staff decided to hold a cultural workshop explaining how to replace the Washi Paper of the Shoji door!

Our staff immediately sent out invitations to all the residents at SAKURA HOUSE KYOTO A, B and C houses. As many of our residents are studying Japanese at their school in Kyoto, attending their university or working, we were afraid everyone may be too busy despite their enthusiasm, but a kind resident soon dropped by our office and told us how eager he was to participate and learn about this aspect of Japanese culture, so we decided to plan the event for this special resident!

Holding the event directly at one of the large living rooms of the houses under the guidance of our multilingual staff, the event went very smoothly with no problems!

The resident did a very good job throughout the event, diligently doing their best to follow the instructions. He was especially skillful with cutting the Washi paper to fit the Shoji door!

After all the hard work, we all sat down to relax and have some tea together. We prepared it with the organic herbs tea sent from our colleagues of Tohoku Bokujo, which we combined with some typical Japanese snacks. While doing so, we enjoyed sharing experiences about life in Japan with our resident, and the many marvels that Kyoto has to offer.

We were very happy to have the chance to bring this unique aspect of Japanese life to our residents, and were even more happy to know that they enjoyed it as much as we did!

We hope to invite everyone again for another event and more chats.