Having just watch the Lucy-Desi Hour (ok I watch too much TV) it showed the gang of 4 in Tokoyo.
Do they (or did they) really use paper walls to seperate rooms in hotel? If so did that offer privicy?
Or were the walls on the Lucy-Desi show just made extra thin for the purpose of comedy.
No. Well, at least not to the extent that the show used, probably.
Really Japanese-y style hotels will sometimes use sliding paper doors (with wood frames) to divide rooms within a suite, but rooms for separate guests are usually divided with plaster or wood at the very least, and by ferroconcrete made up to look like paper in the more modern hotels. Apartments are often the same. All the interior walls in my friend’s apartment are sliding doors of hardened paper (which tends to make intimacy difficult when you have kids or parents living with you), but his apartment is separated from the neighbors by at least a few inches of cement.
That’s today. Back in Shogun era, if the period dramas I’ve seen are to be believed, most large buildings did in fact divide all the rooms with the paper walls. Chances are, however, that a hotel where foreigners would be staying in the 1960’s would have a more modern structure. So if Lucy, Ethel and the husbands were staying in the same suite, then paper walls could be a real factor for the four of them. Tripping through the wall and landing on the Suzukis next door, however, probably wouldn’t be possible.
There are two kinds of “paper walls.” A fusuma is made of several layers of paper and/or fabric. These are completely opaque and offer a fair amount of privacy. They are commonly used as closet doors in Japanese style rooms, and sometimes as room doors in private homes and cheaper hotels.
However the kind you probably have in mind is shoji, a single layer of white paper on a wooden frame. These are translucent and offer no more privacy than a shower curtain. They are commonly used in Japanese hotels but only to separate the rooms within a suite. They are also used as window screens (i.e. behind the glass window).
Most Japanese homes have one or two Japanese-style rooms. They always have closets with fusuma doors (to store the futon during the day), and shoji screens on the window, as well as tatami (straw mat) floors. They can be used as bedrooms or living rooms, or both. All other rooms are furnished Western style.