Laser vs. tatami mats?
畳の世界は知れば知るほど、奥深いんだ。
客室の畳は定期的に変えなきゃならない。Total Tatamiという地元の畳屋さんに注文をしたら、「じゃ、後で測りに行きます」と言われました。普通な十畳の部屋の普通の畳だから、簡単に測れるだろうと思ったら…
この姿を見てごらん。畳屋さんのお兄さんが部屋の真ん中に畳専門レーザー機を置いて、畳の廻りを測っている。
終わったら、機会を見せて頂きました。「壁は真っ直ぐに見えるけど、実際は微妙に曲がっている。」画面を見ると、「－５、－９、－５、－３、＋２」など。今度は畳を作る時にその寸法に合わせて作るので、部屋に設置するとぴったし合うそうです。
ちなみに、その寸法はミリですかと聞いたら、いいえ、違う：「厘（りん）」だそうです。３厘＝１ミリ。なるほど。畳はメーター法の前からだもんね。
The more I learn about tatami mats, the more I realize how complicated they are. We have to replace the tatami in our guest rooms on a regular basis. This latest time when I placed an order, the tatami guy said he'd come to measure the room. I imagined him coming with a tape measure and taking a simple measurement.
Ha! How wrong I was! This picture shows the guy from Total Tatami, our local tatami shop, with a baby R2D2 in the middle of the room shooting a laser to a receiver that the guy traces the edge of the mats with. He said that although the edge looks perfectly straight, it is actually minutely curved. The machine's screen showed the results: -5, -9, -3, +2, etc. Their shop will make the tatami's accordingly so that they will fit perfectly at installation.
By the way, I asked if those measurements were in millimeters. He said they were 'rin', a traditional Japanese measurement. 3 rin = 1 millimeter. That makes sense -- tatami mats pre-date the metric system!
