Ma (間, pronounced "mah") is the Japanese word for the space or pause between things: the empty part of a room, the silence between two sentences, an afternoon with nothing planned. In Japan that gap is not seen as something missing. It is part of the whole, and often the part that matters most.
I'm Ryushi Nagata. I was born in Tokyo, and I named our shop, the MA walls, after this word. In English, ma is usually translated as "negative space". That works for a painting. But in everyday Japanese we use ma for time far more often than for space, and that half tends to get lost. This guide explains what the word means, how people in Japan use it, and how to make room for it at home.
Meaning: the space or pause between things, in a room or in time
Japanese: 間
Pronunciation: mah
Closest English: negative space, gap, pause, interval
Where you see it: tatami rooms, an empty alcove, ink paintings, the pauses in music and conversation
What does ma mean?
Ma is written with a single character, 間. It is built from two simpler ones.
| Part | Kanji | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Gate | 門 | The two leaves of a gate or door. |
| Sun | 日 | The sun, seen through the gap between the doors. An older form of the character, 閒, had the moon (月) there instead. |
So the picture inside the word is light coming through an opening. The gap is what lets the light in.
The same character turns up all over the language. A living room is an ima (居間). The alcove in a traditional room is a tokonoma (床の間). The word for time, jikan (時間), and the word for space, kūkan (空間), both end with it. Even the word for a human being, ningen (人間), is written "person" plus "between".
How do Japanese people use the word ma?
When I hear the word, the first thing I picture is a large, open tatami room, the kind you see in a temple. From there it spreads out: the pause in a conversation, the empty part of a room, a period in someone's life.
In daily speech, though, ma is mostly about time and timing.
- Ma ni au (間に合う): to be in time for something
- Ma ga warui (間が悪い): bad timing, an awkward moment
- Ma o toru (間を取る): to leave a pause, or to leave a gap
- Ma o akeru (間を空ける): to open up some space between things
This is why "space" or "blank space" feels a little short to me as a translation. I think the word started with the room, moved on to the empty part of anything, and then to gaps in time. Of the three, the last is the one we say most often.
A month with nothing to do
My first memory of enjoying nothing at all is from my grandfather's house in Nagasaki. During the summer holidays as a child, I would stay there for about a month. My cousins lived nearby, but we did not play every day, and I had no school friends in Nagasaki. So I was often on my own.
After a few weeks I had run out of things to do. I would lie on the tatami with my arms and legs spread out, wondering what to do with the day, and fall asleep like that. Then I would wake up and it was later.
At the time I thought I had wasted the day. Looking back, it was a luxury.
I now think that enjoying an empty stretch of time takes a kind of sense, and that you can train it. Some of the blank periods in my own past turned out, years later, to have been good ones.
Ma is not the part where nothing happens. It is the part that lets you notice everything else.
Where I find ma now
I camp a lot, but I do not much like camping for one night. You put up the tent, look after the children, cook, and then it is time to pack. There is no room in it. So we go for at least two nights, and three or four if we can. The first and last days are still busy. The days in the middle are free.
On those days I sit in a chair with my feet in the river and listen to the insects, the water and the birds. At night I lie on a cot and look at the stars, or sit by the fire and talk with my children. Those hours are the reason I like camping.
Surfing is similar. Riding a wave feels good, of course. But I usually go early in the morning, and what I value just as much is the wait: sitting on the board as the sun comes up, feeling the light, and thinking about what to do with the day.
I build ma into ordinary weeks too. At work I keep blocks in my calendar with no meetings in them, and I use them to sort out my thoughts and priorities. If I only ever run, things get scattered. I need to stop now and then and put them back in order. With my children it is the same. We try not to fill every weekend, and we leave room to decide together, on the day, what we want to do.
Ma, negative space and minimalism
These three are close, and they are often used as if they meant the same thing.
| Word | What it is | How it differs from ma |
|---|---|---|
| Negative space | A term from art and design for the empty area around a subject | The nearest English match, but it is only about what you see. Ma also covers time. |
| Yohaku (余白) | The Japanese word for a margin or blank area on a page or in a painting | Yohaku is the blank itself. Ma is the relationship: what the blank does for the things on either side of it. |
| Minimalism | A style built on owning and showing very little | Shares the restraint. But a room with very few things can still have no ma, if nothing in it has room to be noticed. |
Ma is also one of the ideas behind Japandi interiors. For more on that style, see What Is Japandi?
What I noticed about walls in the UK
At university I spent six months in the UK. I stayed with two host families, and visited the homes my friends were staying in. What I noticed was how much was on the walls. People there hung far more than we do in Japan, and some changed the pictures with the seasons. Decorating a home with art was simply part of life, much more than it is in Japan.
Japan has the opposite habit as well: leaving a wall bare on purpose, and enjoying it that way. Hanging pictures is not such an everyday thing for us. But that stay left me with a strong feeling that pictures on a wall are a good thing to have.
The MA walls sits between those two. Every home has walls, and to begin with, every one of them is ma. I chose the name because I would like people to use that ma well, and turn it into a good space. So I try to choose pictures that let you feel ma, not pictures that fill it.
How to bring ma into your home
You do not need a Japanese room for this. It is mostly a matter of what you leave out.
1. Do not fill every wall
Cover a wall in frames and there is no gap left to see them against. Leave at least one wall, or a large part of one, with nothing on it.
2. Give one picture a wide wall
A single piece on a large wall, with nothing hung beside it, does more than five pieces crowded together. The bare wall around it is part of the picture.
3. Keep storage out of sight
Open shelves and "display storage" are the quickest way to lose ma. The more objects in view, the less room each one has. Cupboards with doors help a great deal.
4. Keep one spot that changes
A traditional Japanese room has a tokonoma, an alcove where a single scroll or flower is shown and changed with the season. You can do the same with a shelf or a corner. We have a place like this at home. It holds things my children have made at nursery and school, or something for the season. Now and then there is nothing in it at all, and I find I like that too.
5. Leave gaps in the calendar
Ma is about time as much as rooms. An evening or a weekend with nothing planned is the same idea, and it is harder to keep than an empty wall.
Choosing ma wall art
In a picture, ma is the part that has been left unpainted. Our Ma collection has five pieces, and in each of them the empty area is the real subject.
Distant Divide is a single horizon line between two open fields. Distant Figure is one small figure at the edge of a wide landscape. Circle and Space is one circle with a great deal of room around it. Open Door is a sliding door left slightly open, with light falling into an empty tatami room. Single Leaf is one fallen leaf and its shadow.
If I had to choose one, it is Distant Divide. To me it is the piece that best shows ma as open space, in the sense of the sky.
These pieces want a wide wall. On a small or crowded one, most of what makes them work is hard to feel. If you can, hang one on a large wall and keep the area around it clear.
What I hope people take home is a picture that reminds them of the room they have to enjoy quiet and nature.
For two more Japanese words that shape how we see the world, read What Is Wabi-Sabi? and What Is Komorebi?
Photographs in this article are illustrative images created for the MA walls.
Frequently asked questions
What does ma mean in Japanese?
Ma (間) means the space or pause between things. It can be the empty part of a room, the silence in a conversation, or a stretch of free time. In Japan that gap is treated as something with value of its own, not as something missing.
How do you pronounce ma?
Say "mah", one short syllable, like the first half of "mama".
What is the kanji for ma?
Ma is written 間. The character shows the sun (日) seen through a gate (門). An older form, 閒, had the moon (月) in place of the sun. The same character is also read aida, kan or ken, depending on the word.
Is ma the same as negative space?
Negative space is the closest English term, and it is correct for pictures and rooms. Ma is wider. It also covers time: a pause in speech, good or bad timing, an empty afternoon.
What is the difference between ma and minimalism?
Minimalism is about owning and showing less. Ma is about what the empty part does. A room can have very few things in it and still have no ma, if nothing in it is given room to be noticed.
How do I use ma in my home?
Leave some of each wall bare, hang one picture on a wide wall with nothing beside it, keep storage behind doors, and keep one spot that changes with the seasons and is sometimes left empty.