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Published: June 17th 2008
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An amazing facet of traditional Japanese culture.
I have moved the full account of the tea ceremony from Golden Week 1 and have tweaked it a bit. There are also new photos for your perusing pleasure. I still feel that I was privileged to attend, and aside from the numb legs and ensuing pins and needles (from kneeling for a prolonged period of time) it was a fabulous experience.
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Saturday
Tea for 20?
I went to a tea ceremony on the Saturday afternoon which marked the beginning of Golden Week. and then was invited to have dinner with my helper's family at her house that night, so I didn't go to Kyoto until Sunday morning. The tea ceremony was lovely. I was invited as F-san's husband was co-ordinator of the event. (Lucky!)
It took place in Shigaraki, near the Miho museum. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to go to this event as it only happens once a year and people from all over the world take part in it. There is a company which focuses on man living in harmony with nature, and man living off the
land. The location looks like a traditional Japanese house and farm house, and there are tea paddies and vegetable crops surrounding it, all grown through organic agriculture. (They have added an outdoor amphitheater though...not wuite sure that it was part of EVERY traditional Japanese home back in the day.) A lot of foreigners were there from branches of the company all over the world. Swiss, Swiss German, French, American, Australian...Gaijin aplenty.
I felt so priveleged to be a part of something like that. and to be able to experience a core Japanese cultural tradition. The tea was lovely. It was bitter, but not in a way that made you not like the tea, and the flavour was enhanced by eating a traditional Japanese sweet before you drinking the tea. Everything was brought out by women in traditional Kimono garb.
Before the tea ceremony I was also able to watch a performance of a trio of musicians using traditional Japanese instruments.... Taiko drums and the shikuhachi (which is unfortunately also a slang term for a certain sexual act...think about the verb 'to blow'. I mentioned the name of the flute and Rumi burst out laughing and gave me the
warning not to say the word around men unless in the context of instruments and music).
The music was so beautiful, the flute is really a haunting sound. Think of any Japanese movie you
may have seen, and you will surely call to mind the sharp high notes flowing into low tones and the delicate transition between the two extremes that can change your mood from languid to alert in a second. To be extremely cliche'd, it's a quintessential Japanese sound.
I also had a misunderstanding with a foregner....not a Japanese person, but a native english speaker like myself! In Japanese. the word 'sumimasen' is used synonymously for 'excuse me', and 'sorry'....I went to walk across this narrow bridge to get to the performance, following one American woman, not realising that she had walked ahead of her companions. I went to walk behind her and two other American women stepped forward, one of them saying 'excuse me'.
Being in the mindset of translating basic Japanese to english and vice versa, i immediately translated 'excuse me' to sumimasen' and took it mean 'sorry' as in sorry for almost walking in front of you....but it wasn't until i moved
on ahead and heard some unhappy muttering behind me, that I realised my mistake. Not a cause for international dispute....but a kind of moment to mark my transition from 'total foreigner' to 'slightly assimilated foreigner' ...not that i'll ever be mistaken for a Japanese woman.
After the performance we were split into two groups and all knelt around the room to watch the ceremony. I asked the man next to me how he managed to sit on his knees for so long, and he said it took a lot of practice. I was expecting some kind of secret, such as 'just flex your feet now and again', but no...it's just hard work and time. I tried to stay like that for al long as I could but finally sat to one side, knees tucked behind me, only to have one of my legs go COMPLETELY numb and then be covered in that tingling pins and needles feeling i abhor. I tried to hide it as best i could but i wouldn't be surprised if he nicknamed me twitchy. It was an interesting show and lesson, and some tasty tea, followed by the most delicious dinner you can imagine.
I hope F-san invites me to her house more often! When I got home i was surprised I made it up the stairs, but i'm not not surprised at all that I fell right to sleep.
And now, completely free of charge, you can enjoy a Japanese Tea Ceremony vicariously through these pictures!
xx
**DISCALIMER: responsibility will not be taken for any plane tickets bought after viewing this.**
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Brendan
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Knock Knees
A decidedly odd Japanese lecturer I had at uni insisted that Japanese used to be renowned for being giants until they adopted the tatami culture and gravitated (!) towards the floor. All that sitting on the knees resulted in Japanese becoming a rather short people, so he said.