Everyone has heard how the Japanese have no furniture in their houses and how they sit on the floor and sleep on futons.
Many people have the image of the Japanese living a minimalist, Zen existence among simplicity and diaphanous shades of light, as portrayed in large coffee-table books on Japan.
Then there are the Japanese houses no one ever tells you about. The ones that are so full of junk they would never fit into even the largest coffee-table book. Those houses have newspapers and magazines stacked up to the ceiling, Hello Kitty paraphernalia hanging from door knobs, odds and ends occupying floor space and boxes of stuff piled high in the corner because there is nowhere else to put them.