The purposes of this paper are to clear special traits of Japanese houses where Tsuzuki-ma-zashiki(zashiki with flexible partition walls between itself and the next room) is a center, through the analyzation of how Taiwanese people live in the houses of Japanese style built in Taiwan, and to consider the differences between the two countries in life style from the viewpoint of the comparative theory of housing. The main results are as follows. In each investigated house, KYAKUCHO (a room for reception and relaxation), SANCHO (a dining room), and GASHITSU (a bedroom) are seen as main rooms. In some cases, KIKYOSHITSU (It is used as a family room, and sometimes has a library, a corner for housework, and so on. ), SHINMEICHO, and a library can be found. In the case of the life style which has the custom of sitting on a chair (sleeping on a bed), each room mostly fulfills one function. And both the number of rooms and the scale of the rooms are not enough, so a bedroom is enlarged. When how to use rooms is decided, the place of KYAKUCHO is decided first, and in principle it is necessary that the room is facing the entrance, and that the size of the room is enough to place chairs and tables. If a house fits for these conditions, the place of KYAKUCHO is easily decided. But if the room facing the entrance is small, the largest room in the house frequently becomes KYAKUCHO, regarding the size as important. However, in not a few cases, the request for the room facing the entrance is so strong that a smaller room facing the entrance is used for KYAKUCHO, or the entrance is moved to a larger room. Secondly, the main bedroom is decided, and it requires some size and privacy, because they sleep on a bed and take furnitures for living in the room. So if they have a larger room, it is used for the main bedroom with devices for privacy such as converting a fusuma into a wooden wall, and if not, they extend a room for a larger bebroom.
