The Japanese have a culture far more exquisite than any Western culture. Good taste is stirred-in at every turn. Their tea-drinking, obviously, is imbued with graceful movement and position; their ceramics are designed with an eye to the simple yet timelessly pleasing; their fabrics too.
What no one seems to ever mention is their art of the sleeping-position. They have the ability to disport themselves into artful postures and to fall asleep thus. They give these positions names - 'the whorled ear'; 'the leaping tiger'. Shortly after the perfect position is achieved their partner jumps up from the bedclothes, gazes down applauding excitedly, and then takes his/her turn. Following which, after a suitable while, the former in his/her turn soars up applauding in equal night-time admiration.
The Japanese sleep the night full through in these ever changing and imaginative postures and none of them has ever known a stretch of uninterrupted sleep longer than nineteen minutes. Quite extraordinary.
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