We had a white cat when I was growing up. Small, quiet, completely unimpressed by us. She would appear at mealtimes, settle into a patch of afternoon sun, and disappear again on her own schedule. She was not particularly affectionate. But she was always there.

February 22nd is 猫の日 — Neko no Hi, Cat Day in Japan. The date is a play on numbers: 2/22 is read ni ni ni, which sounds like nyan nyan nyan, the Japanese sound a cat makes. It's the kind of gentle wordplay the Japanese enjoy. And it gives people a small reason to pause and notice the cats in their lives.

When I was a child, my family would quietly mark the day for our white cat. Nothing elaborate — just a slightly special meal. Neko manma: warm rice with bonito flakes scattered on top. Steam rising, the flakes trembling a little from the heat. She ate it without fanfare and walked away. That was very much her way.

I think about that bowl sometimes. How such a small gesture can be its own kind of acknowledgment — we see you, we're glad you're here.

Guardians before they were companions

Cats arrived in Japan from China around the 6th century, brought to protect silk stores and manuscript rooms from rodents. At first they were rare and kept close to nobility. Over time, as they proved their usefulness in temple storehouses and merchant households, they became simply part of daily life.

That practical beginning may be part of why cats settled so naturally into Japan's domestic world. They weren't decorative. They weren't kept for status. They worked, quietly, alongside people — and that kind of presence tends to last.

Cats in art — from Edo prints to everyday objects

By the Edo period, cats had wandered their way into art. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the 1600s and 1700s are full of them — lounging beside courtesans, wearing human clothes in playful prints, curled into the corners of ordinary domestic scenes. Utagawa Kuniyoshi made entire series of cat prints, many of them funny, some quietly tender. Cats were everywhere, and they looked exactly as they always have: doing whatever they felt like.

That same visual language — expressive, a little irreverent — still appears in Japanese textiles today. The ukiyo-e cat furoshiki we carry draws directly from this tradition: bold ink lines, cats in unhurried poses, the same humor that made Kuniyoshi's prints so beloved. It is a wrapping cloth made for daily use, and also a small thread in that longer visual history.

The beckoning cat

The maneki neko — the beckoning cat — is another part of this story. That raised-paw figure dates to the Edo period and has been welcoming people into shops and restaurants ever since. Right paw raised for wealth, left paw for customers: the details vary by region, but the instinct behind the figure is consistent. A quiet presence can invite good things in.

You can read more about its history here: The Lucky Cat — A Symbol of Fortune and Prosperity.

A pause in the city

In modern Japan, cats found their way into cities in a different form. Cat cafés began appearing in the early 2000s — spaces where you could order tea, sit quietly, and share the room with cats that may or may not acknowledge you. They became popular partly because dense urban apartments often don't allow pets. But I think they offered something beyond that: a kind of pause. A place where nothing was demanded of you, and nothing was demanded of the cat either.

That feels very Japanese to me. The appreciation of shared space without performance. Presence without obligation.

Still here

February 22nd will come and go quickly. But cats in Japanese life — in art, in objects, in the small rituals of households like the one I grew up in — don't really need a calendar day. They have been here for centuries. They will continue to be here, settled in their patches of sun, entirely on their own terms.

If you have a cat of your own nearby, today might be a good day to make them a bowl of neko manma.

They probably won't thank you. But they'll eat it.