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Published: October 17th 2006
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I did a lot of things, actually, and feel bad about not giving them their own headings. But two specifically were awesome so they're going to be what I write about.
On the 10th of this month I got to go to a very special tea ceremony. According to Kudo-san, this is something not done often and many Japanese don't get the chance to participate in one. But luckily for us IES students, one of the host mothers is a tea ceremony practicioner, professionally. She goes to Kyoto frequently just to perform the tea ceremony, so she got high marks.
I had class that day so I met Okasan and the rest of the group at Funabashi station, and from there we walked to Sato-san's house, where she would perform the ceremony. Her house is built in the old style and I totally want a house like that now, because I think it's incredibly beautiful. I'll pass on the tatami though, unless I can get synthetic. I love tatami and it's great to walk barefoot on, but I'm ever so slightly allergic to it, as it makes my nose run and I sneeze a lot in rooms with it.
We got to Sato-san's house about 6 pm and had a light dinner, then selected our fans for use in the tea ceremony (sadou). We walked outside, in the dark, to a small spring where we washed our hands in the traditional way, then stepped to the teahouse, where we took off our shoes and entered in through a door about 3 feet by 3 feet. It's that small so that you have to bow to enter. Then, we each went up to the candle, placed in front of a wall hanging that changes with the season and time, whatever propriety dictates. We then sat in a circle around the perimeter of the room and ate odango, or dumplings, made from mochi. They had nothing on them, instead being pure white to remind us of the moon. Each person takes their sweet and then passes the plate to the next person, and so on, until everyone has one and then you can eat them. We all ate the odango, then were escorted out of the teahouse, exiting through the tiny door, contemplated the moon, then went into the main house's tearoom. After entering properly, bowing before the flower arrangement/wall hanging,
we formed a crescent and our hostess, Sato-san, joined us. Up until this point she had been absent. We each got a different bowl to drink from. The basics of this ceremony, which was informal, was that the teamaster takes water from the water jar, cleans the bowl, dumps that water, adds tea, adds water, whisks it, then handed it to the server, who placed it before the recipient. The recipient thanks the server, bows to the person they're drinking after, bows to the person they're drinking before, then bows to the teamaster. Then you turn the bowl so you drink from the side, drink the tea in 5 sips, making a "hfff" noise on the last sip to show appreciation, clean the place you drank with your thumb, set the bowl down and turn it to face the server. Then you can admire the choice of bowl, picking it up about an inch above the floor. The server takes it back to the teamaster who cleans it, then begins the process again.
It was here I experienced the scariest thing I've seen yet. Sato-san was giving us the chance to try it ourselves and only one person wanted
to. After that person, she picked another one, who demurred. But then she said "Douzo, douzo.." and there was more refusal. Then, she gets the look of death, and through a clenched smile said
Dou.zo.
There is no way I can hope to get the sense that accompanied that word across in writing. If I have the chance, I'll do it for people someday. Facing that, the person did it. Then we thanked her for a lovely evening and returned home.
Narita
Today I went with Okasan and her best friend to Narita. She apparently takes every host kid there because they have an interactive workshop where you can do lots of cool stuff. First we went to Narita Temple, which dates from about 1060. Not too bad, huh? We prayed there, purified ourselves, Okasan returned some tablets she had, and then we walked around the grounds, which were lovely. The temple had a very peaceful, alive atmosphere.
Before going to the temple, we had lunch at a little sushi shop. I ate there two things that will never again pass my lips. I tried to eat salmon roe sushi and that was disgusting. But even worse was
the raw squid. Now, I'm fairly decent at taking raw food in stride, and I tried to eat the salmon roe, giving up halfway through, and so squid should be no problem - so I thought. Calamari is delicious, after all. How wrong I was. I tried a bite of this. It was hard in the middle, so hard I had trouble biting through it. It was almost like a tendon. Then I started to chew it and there are no foods I'm familiar with to compare it accurately with. The taste was just nasty and the texture, which I'm fairly sensitive to, was an unholy melding of marshmallow and pudding and foie gras. I hate pudding. I can't swallow foie gras. I managed to choke down this piece of squid without visibly gagging but it was a massive undertaking.
Lastly, we went to the Narita Guest Pavilion where the activities were. I first tried on kimono and that was a good experience for me. In Japan, instead of the Western hourglass ideal figure, they like a cylindrical figure. They had to pad me extensively to acheive this. First I got a towel laid on my chest, then the
collar tied over it. The kimono went on and was tied at the waist. In the pouch resulting, in the stomach area, I got another towel placed. They pulled the kimono down and tied it again. Then the pre-obi sash went on. I got my third towel in the back - yes, they had to give me back fat. I was excited beyond words at this point. Then I got the obi tied on, with a stomacher placed in it. After that came a roll for the back, which went in the obi. They tied the obi, then added cords and a hair ornament. All in all, it took about 30 minutes to lace me into that kimono, and I wasn't wearing any of the under-robes that go with it. Okasan got into a kimono too and we took pictures. After that, I made a doll out of paper which was ok. Lastly, I went and did flower arranging, and the calligraphy teacher offered to show me how to write something on the plaque my doll was mounted on. I chose to have "shizukesa" on it, which I gather is unusual. Most people choose words like love, beauty, peace, harmony,
courage, or similar ideas. Mine is....not. The big kanji, "shizukesa," means silence, or stillness. It's really quite lovely, the way it came out.
We then returned home, and had a cabbage the size of a bowling ball for dinner.
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