Sleeping like a River

川
That's the Japanese kanji for "river."
It's one of the first kanji Japanese kids learn, obviously, because of it's simplicity. It even looks like a river.

There's a joke in Japan about families sleeping like this kanji. "Kawa no ji ni natte neru" (川の字になって寝る), or "sleep like the character for river." Conventionally, Japanese families sleep together in one room, on a grass-mat floor, on thin mattresses called futon
. Sleeping side-by-side, mother and father, with the child between them, it looks like this kanji. See? How the line of the left is "taller" like the father. The line on the right is the second tallest, like the mother. And the child is sleeping safely between them. Isn't that neat?

I sleep this way with my son and wife and I'm really fond of it. We don't always have time to sit down and eat together like families should. But every night when we bed down we chat a bit as we drift off to sleep. In the middle of the night, I might wake up for whatever reason, and I'm never alone. It's very comforting.

This is one of my favorite places in my house.
There's grass-matting under the carpet...take my word for it.