The Breakout! (Pulp Alley: China Station)

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

Great fun,  a typical good pulp game and another enjoyable read. Hopefully you can keep this momentum going because the girls are on a roll and I'm enjoying reading off their escapades.

The buildings you are using,  wood frame and thatched roofs with battens holding the thatch down. Are they typical for a period and or region or fairly generic in Japan over a period covering hundreds of years. I ask because they don't have chimneys and was wondering when and if they started to be used.
I'm assuming they are thatch but I suppose they could be thin sips of wood!
Cheers

The buildings are from Oshiro Models and are pretty generic Japanese houses that remained the same over centuries. The roofs are wood but have a lot of detail, which is why it looks like that. What you find in the late 19th century is that a pot-belly stove would be installed in the house and a pipe would lead out the side and point up. I'll share some examples from Hokkaido, which has a similar climate to the American Midwest and Germany.


This is a reconstructed guards' quarters inside the old Abashiri Prison and represents what the quarters would have been like in the early 20th century.



Akiyama Family Fisherman's House (1920)
Kaitaku no Mura, Sapporo, Hokkaido Pref.


Oishi Sweets Shop (1907)
Kaitaku no Mura, Sapporo, Hokkaido Pref.




This is a woodcutter's shanty built around 1920, it shows an alternative sort of ventilation with raised section of roof over the fire pits inside.
Kaitaku no Mura, Sapporo, Hokkaido Pref.

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

I'm glad everyone here is enjoying these adventures and these characters. It means a lot as a creator.

[Vagabond]

Thanks for the information that's really useful, and good of you to go to so much trouble.  So the pot bellied stove just replaced the open fire in the same location in a room.

Could I ask one last question, it concerns paper windows,  were these common throughout housing,  ie rich and poor to let light in, or were poor houses just open wooden slats and so did they have an internal shutter to keep rain wind and cold out.
Also how were paper windows protected from rain. I've seen pictures showing houses with big overhangs on the roof and some with what appears to be sliding shutters but nothing that I'm sure about.
Cheers

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

Thanks for the information that's really useful, and good of you to go to so much trouble.  So the pot bellied stove just replaced the open fire in the same location in a room.

Could I ask one last question, it concerns paper windows,  were these common throughout housing,  ie rich and poor to let light in, or were poor houses just open wooden slats and so did they have an internal shutter to keep rain wind and cold out.
Also how were paper windows protected from rain. I've seen pictures showing houses with big overhangs on the roof and some with what appears to be sliding shutters but nothing that I'm sure about.
Cheers

I'm not sure about the dividing line for rich/poor on shoji ownership, but there would be external 'storm shutters' that could be closed to keep out rain. This is a reproduction futatsuya in Kagoshima City, typical of the city?s poor urban samurai. You can see how the shoji are internal and a walkway goes around the rooms. The bulge on the left side in the first image is where the storm shutters are stored when not in use.






It's no problem sharing this, the photos are from my travels. I'm glad this information can be of use to others.

[Vagabond]

Thanks again,  I've just seen your post in the Far East board as well, I'll take some time to study them.
Cheers