JapanNewbie

Seiza Chair

Posted on 15. Aug, 2006 @ 3:44 pm by harvey in Culture, Gadgets Views: 1,051

Many of you may be familiar with the formal style of sitting in Japan called “seiza” (正座).

This style of sitting looks very elegant, and most people try to endure it for at least 10 minutes while at a formal setting such as a wedding dinner held in a tatami room.

These days, men are usually allowed to skip seiza all together and go cross-legged (or AGURA 胡座 as they call it in Japanese…), especially if they are wearing a suit and not traditional Japanese formal dress.

However, for those ladies, even if they are wearing a western dress and not a kimono, seiza can still be expected.

But there is a solution!

The seiza chair.

It’s an incredibly low stool that goes on top of the zabuton pillow for sitting. You can fold your legs backwards under this stool, and sit your bottom on top.

Behold! Now even the most uncultured slob can do seiza for hours on end!

In reality though, these stools only increase the seiza tolerance factor of the average Japanese girl by about 3x. Most people at the wedding where I saw these had tossed the stools to the side and given up on the seiza in a little less than an hour.

On another side note, I was at a Noh play once, and one of the members playing the flute while sitting seiza almost fell over after the performance because his legs had fallen asleep.

Ouch.

- Harvey