Shōji are very lightweight, so they are easily slid aside, or taken off their tracks and stored in a closet, opening the room to other rooms or the outside.^[4][5][6] Fully traditional buildings may have only one large room, under a roof supported by a post-and-lintel frame, with few or no permanent interior or exterior walls; the space is flexibly subdivided as needed by the removable sliding wall panels.^[7] The posts are generally placed one tatami-length (about 2m or 6 ft) apart, and the shōji slide in two parallel wood-groove tracks between them.^[8] In modern construction, the shōji often do not form the exterior surface of the building; they sit inside a sliding glass door or window.^[5]

Other terms used in Japan for rope artists within SM culture are "kinbakushi" and "bakushi", with "bakushi" being more typical.

– Yumiko Kurahashi, from “An Extraterrestrial,” The Woman with the Flying Head and Other Stories (M. E. Sharpe, 1998)

A similar concept is the Kokeshi doll.

Friendship dolls were exchanged between Japan and America in 1927. The dolls were meant to improve the deteriorated relationship between Japan and America. The worsening relationship originates in anti-Japanese exclusion movements in California and other parts of the US.^[

Japanese, 1914-1987

Work, 1959

Gelatin silver print
18.5 x 24.9 cm. | 7 ¼ x 9 11/16 in.

Uoon   2019  Archival Pigment Print on Museum Etching  17.7 x 11.8 inches   via