One of the highlights of my trip to Japan was the opportunity to watch the Grand Master (Oiemoto) of Urasenke, Zabosai, do tea. The occasion was a kencha, a tea offering to Shinto deities. Oiemoto does them several times per year, and I just happened to be at Midorikai during one of them.
This particular one was at Omi Jingu, a Shinto shrine in the foothills surrounding Kyoto. Omi Jingu contains a shrine to Emperor Tenji, who was the first emperor to put a clock in the Imperial Palace. This shrine (and this gathering) is thought to be especially good for people who need to be on time.
We gathered at Urasenke and rode a bus out to the shrine, arriving, in proper tea fashion, ridiculously early. The Midorikai group was joined by the students from the Japanese-language program, all of us in our formal montsuki kimonos (with a crest embroidered on the back of the neck, just underneath the collar). We went up a set of stairs to a rectangular courtyard, where there was a raised platform with tatami (woven grass) mats and tea utensils set up for Oiemoto, and benches around the edges. We sat off to one side; there were various VIPs in the seats next to the platform. I was in a spot where I could actually see Oiemoto do tea, which I gather is pretty unusual.
It’s hard to describe the experience. I mean, in the back of your mind, there’s an awareness that this is The Man, at least in the Urasenke world – the heir to the family tradition, a man who’s been doing tea ceremony since he was old enough to hold a tea scoop. From that perspective, his tea is almost ordinary. But there’s a kind of quiet power behind all of his movements; you simultaneously get the sense that he’s done this a thousand times before and that he’s completely focused on every move and detail.
The kencha itself was done in the context of a Shinto ritual. A line of Shinto priests in white preceded Oiemoto into the shrine, and one of them ritually called on the gods and blessed the people there. Oiemoto prepared the tea, and then he carried the bowl across the courtyard and up the second set of steps to the shrine area, where one of the priests was waiting. I couldn’t see what he did up there, but then he came back down and made a second bowl of tea, which was likewise carried up the steps and given in offering. Once he was done, the Shinto priests finished the ritual, and we all went off to another area to some tea sittings sponsored by local tea groups.
I really feel privileged to have been there, not just to see Oiemoto do tea, but to see a little piece of tea in its cultural context – not just the living, everyday practice that happens right here in Philadelphia and all across the world, but being able to connect it to the other places and ways in which it’s practiced. That was an ongoing theme throughout the rest of time I was there, too.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Days of Matcha
On the grounds of its headquarters in Kyoto, Urasenke has built a school where students can come and study tea full-time. Japanese-speakers have the option of taking a three-year course, which, upon graduation, confers “tea god” status. (Okay, not really. But it’s still a pretty impressive accomplishment.) For foreigners, there’s an English-language program called Midorikai, where you can study for up to one year. When I was there, I spent a week sitting in with the Midorikai students.
First, a bit about the building itself. The first floor has a kitchen (a Western-style kitchen, that is, and it’s huge, like something you’d find in a cooking school) and a series of four or five tearooms. Each room is an eight-mat room – that’s eight tatami mats, which is about twelve feet by twelve feet square – and its own separate mizuya, or preparation/utensil storage area. The fusuma (sliding doors) between the rooms can be removed to make a huge space when they need one. The tearooms open toward the kitchen on one side, and on the other, sliding doors lead to a long, narrow moss garden.
The second floor is all Western-style classrooms – not all that different from a typical college here in the U.S. Well, okay, except for the bathrooms. The second floor also features a library of tea materials, and you’ll often find students in there studying in between classes.
The third floor is all open space covered with tatami mats. This is the “overflow” class space; you might have two, three, or even four classes operating side by side, sharing one large mizuya space.
Students wear kimonos every day, even to lectures – they have to, because once they get started, there’s no time to change. Midorikai students start the day with two hours of classes, followed by about half an hour for lunch. Afternoons are three straight hours of tea lessons. Immediately after lunch, the students go to their classroom (they rotate through the available classrooms so that they’re not always in the same spot) and start getting set up.
Setup duties are broken up among different students – one student hangs the scroll, one arranges the flowers, one makes sure there’s tea in all the containers and that sweets have been brought from the kitchen, one arranges the lit charcoal in the brazier (the night before, another student prepares the ash bed for the fire – in the summertime, it’s an exacting process that can take an hour or more). By the time the teacher arrives, everything has to be ready, and all the students are sitting in the tearoom and waiting.
The students greet the teachers simultaneously, and then immediately, whoever is making tea first asks the teacher for a lesson and then goes outside the room to finish setting up. One of the other students slides forward to act as the guest for the lesson, and the rest of the students observe. The student who’s acting as the host pauses at the door to greet the teacher and the guest, and then proceeds to go through whichever tea ceremony he or she is doing that day. There are many, many variations on tea ceremony; in Midorikai, the students all do the same temae, or tea procedure, on the same day, so they can all watch each other. The student acting as the guest eats a sweet and drinks the tea, and then they switch off, so that everybody has a chance to do tea and drink tea before the afternoon is over.
Students have class Monday through Friday, and sometimes events on weekends, too. They’re pretty much living and breathing tea ceremony for an entire year. What kind of person does this? Well, most of them had some prior experience with tea in their home country – in fact, unless you qualify for one of Urasenke’s special scholarship programs, you have to be recommended by a licensed teacher in order to go to Midorikai. Urasenke doesn’t charge them tuition – the goal of Midorikai is that the graduates go back to their home country and promote tea ceremony there by doing demonstrations and telling others about tea. Some of the students who were there when I went had been studying tea for many years, although there were also some beginners. At the end of a year of study, though, everyone leaves an expert. A year at Midorikai is the equivalent of 7-10 years of private lessons.
Next up: Some of the tea places I visited while in Kyoto…
First, a bit about the building itself. The first floor has a kitchen (a Western-style kitchen, that is, and it’s huge, like something you’d find in a cooking school) and a series of four or five tearooms. Each room is an eight-mat room – that’s eight tatami mats, which is about twelve feet by twelve feet square – and its own separate mizuya, or preparation/utensil storage area. The fusuma (sliding doors) between the rooms can be removed to make a huge space when they need one. The tearooms open toward the kitchen on one side, and on the other, sliding doors lead to a long, narrow moss garden.
The second floor is all Western-style classrooms – not all that different from a typical college here in the U.S. Well, okay, except for the bathrooms. The second floor also features a library of tea materials, and you’ll often find students in there studying in between classes.
The third floor is all open space covered with tatami mats. This is the “overflow” class space; you might have two, three, or even four classes operating side by side, sharing one large mizuya space.
Students wear kimonos every day, even to lectures – they have to, because once they get started, there’s no time to change. Midorikai students start the day with two hours of classes, followed by about half an hour for lunch. Afternoons are three straight hours of tea lessons. Immediately after lunch, the students go to their classroom (they rotate through the available classrooms so that they’re not always in the same spot) and start getting set up.
Setup duties are broken up among different students – one student hangs the scroll, one arranges the flowers, one makes sure there’s tea in all the containers and that sweets have been brought from the kitchen, one arranges the lit charcoal in the brazier (the night before, another student prepares the ash bed for the fire – in the summertime, it’s an exacting process that can take an hour or more). By the time the teacher arrives, everything has to be ready, and all the students are sitting in the tearoom and waiting.
The students greet the teachers simultaneously, and then immediately, whoever is making tea first asks the teacher for a lesson and then goes outside the room to finish setting up. One of the other students slides forward to act as the guest for the lesson, and the rest of the students observe. The student who’s acting as the host pauses at the door to greet the teacher and the guest, and then proceeds to go through whichever tea ceremony he or she is doing that day. There are many, many variations on tea ceremony; in Midorikai, the students all do the same temae, or tea procedure, on the same day, so they can all watch each other. The student acting as the guest eats a sweet and drinks the tea, and then they switch off, so that everybody has a chance to do tea and drink tea before the afternoon is over.
Students have class Monday through Friday, and sometimes events on weekends, too. They’re pretty much living and breathing tea ceremony for an entire year. What kind of person does this? Well, most of them had some prior experience with tea in their home country – in fact, unless you qualify for one of Urasenke’s special scholarship programs, you have to be recommended by a licensed teacher in order to go to Midorikai. Urasenke doesn’t charge them tuition – the goal of Midorikai is that the graduates go back to their home country and promote tea ceremony there by doing demonstrations and telling others about tea. Some of the students who were there when I went had been studying tea for many years, although there were also some beginners. At the end of a year of study, though, everyone leaves an expert. A year at Midorikai is the equivalent of 7-10 years of private lessons.
Next up: Some of the tea places I visited while in Kyoto…
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tales from the Back of the House
Okay, I know it’s been a while since I updated the blog, but I have a good excuse – I was in Japan for two weeks in June, one of which I spent studying at Urasenke in Kyoto.
Before I get into classes themselves, let’s talk about where Urasenke comes from. Back in the day, by which I mean, of course, the Momoyama Period (1573-1603), the man who was widely acknowledged as the most skilled tea pracitioner in Japan was Sen no Rikyu. Most of the tea ceremony schools in modern Japan trace their lineage back to him in some way, either through the family line or through one of his disciples.
There are three schools that descend through the family line: Omotesenke, Urasenke, and Mushonokojisenke. You’ll notice that they all end in “senke.” “Sen” is the family name, and “ke” can be roughly translated as “residence.” So, Omotesenke means “the front of the Sen residence,” Urasenke is “the back of the Sen residence,” and Mushanokojisenke is “the Sen residence on Mushanokoji Street.”
Intellectually, I knew this before I arrived, but it was still funny to me to realize that the headquarters for Urasenke and Omotesenke – two very large and prestigious tea schools – are right next to each other. You could open a window in Urasenke, throw a rock, and hit someone from Omotesenke, although I’m sure that never happens.
The grounds of Urasenke are a study in contrast. On one side, the property borders Horikawa Street, which is a wide, busy road. The Urasenke offices, which handle the school’s business affairs, is a modern, multistory office building. Right beside it, however, are a series of family temples and shrines that look like they could have been built centuries ago (probably were).
Here’s a picture of the office building:
One of the family shrines:
And the gate that leads from a back street into the grounds:
One of the Urasenke teachers told me that it used to be that if you wanted to get to Urasenke, you had to take that back street through the Omotesenke residence – there was no direct access.
The grand master (Oiemoto) of Urasenke lives on the same grounds, right next to the office building – in fact, there’s a guard on the back street that leads into the offices because it also leads past Oiemoto’s residence. (By Japanese standards, it’s a fairly large house, but coming from the U.S. I was surprised at how modest it looked.)
Also on the Urasenke property is the school building and other related buildings, like the student cafeteria. More on the school coming up in the next post
Before I get into classes themselves, let’s talk about where Urasenke comes from. Back in the day, by which I mean, of course, the Momoyama Period (1573-1603), the man who was widely acknowledged as the most skilled tea pracitioner in Japan was Sen no Rikyu. Most of the tea ceremony schools in modern Japan trace their lineage back to him in some way, either through the family line or through one of his disciples.
There are three schools that descend through the family line: Omotesenke, Urasenke, and Mushonokojisenke. You’ll notice that they all end in “senke.” “Sen” is the family name, and “ke” can be roughly translated as “residence.” So, Omotesenke means “the front of the Sen residence,” Urasenke is “the back of the Sen residence,” and Mushanokojisenke is “the Sen residence on Mushanokoji Street.”
Intellectually, I knew this before I arrived, but it was still funny to me to realize that the headquarters for Urasenke and Omotesenke – two very large and prestigious tea schools – are right next to each other. You could open a window in Urasenke, throw a rock, and hit someone from Omotesenke, although I’m sure that never happens.
The grounds of Urasenke are a study in contrast. On one side, the property borders Horikawa Street, which is a wide, busy road. The Urasenke offices, which handle the school’s business affairs, is a modern, multistory office building. Right beside it, however, are a series of family temples and shrines that look like they could have been built centuries ago (probably were).
Here’s a picture of the office building:
One of the family shrines:
And the gate that leads from a back street into the grounds:
One of the Urasenke teachers told me that it used to be that if you wanted to get to Urasenke, you had to take that back street through the Omotesenke residence – there was no direct access.
The grand master (Oiemoto) of Urasenke lives on the same grounds, right next to the office building – in fact, there’s a guard on the back street that leads into the offices because it also leads past Oiemoto’s residence. (By Japanese standards, it’s a fairly large house, but coming from the U.S. I was surprised at how modest it looked.)
Also on the Urasenke property is the school building and other related buildings, like the student cafeteria. More on the school coming up in the next post
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Beginning Lessons
Let’s say you’ve never studied chanoyu before, and you want to start taking lessons. Different teachers approach this in different ways. In our group, we start with what’s called warigeko.
Warigeko consists of a lot of things you thought you knew how to do already – standing up, sitting down, walking across the room, opening doors, and looking at things. When you’re practicing tea, there are a lot of little rules to observe. For example, the borders of the tatami (woven grass) mats on the floor are very important in defining space. When you walk across the room, you need to pay close attention to which foot is crossing the border – when you’re entering the room, you cross the borders with your right foot, and when you’re leaving, you cross with your left.
But that’s just part of warigeko. New students also learn how to fold the fukusa (silk wiping cloth) and how to handle utensils. The teacher takes them step-by-step through the process of doing tea ceremony, showing them new skills along the way. Sometimes it’s several weeks before a new student actually gets to the point where he or she is making tea.
You may be wondering, why are there so many different details to learn? Why not just boil water and make tea? It relates to chanoyu’s Zen roots. One thing that Zen practitioners always emphasize is focusing on the present moment – not being distracted by thoughts of something that happened in the past, or plans for the future, but being completely focused on what you’re doing right now. By incorporating all of these little details into tea, every movement becomes purposeful – you have to pay attention to every moment, every muscle in your body, because as soon as you let your attention wander, you go off track. It’s a challenge even for experienced tea practitioners.
But, as with so many things in tea, there’s a practical reason, too. All of those tiny little details add up to produce a series of elegant movements. The goal is to make tea a good experience for your guests, a pleasure to watch as well as to drink.
In chanoyu, we talk about “beginner’s mind” as something to strive for: a sense of openness, a willingness to learn, and an intense focus on all the details of the movements. It’s an important attitude to have no matter how long you’ve been doing tea, because if you’re not open to the lessons that the tearoom has to offer, you’re never going to improve. And if we can let that same mindset permeate the rest of our lives, so much the better.
Warigeko consists of a lot of things you thought you knew how to do already – standing up, sitting down, walking across the room, opening doors, and looking at things. When you’re practicing tea, there are a lot of little rules to observe. For example, the borders of the tatami (woven grass) mats on the floor are very important in defining space. When you walk across the room, you need to pay close attention to which foot is crossing the border – when you’re entering the room, you cross the borders with your right foot, and when you’re leaving, you cross with your left.
But that’s just part of warigeko. New students also learn how to fold the fukusa (silk wiping cloth) and how to handle utensils. The teacher takes them step-by-step through the process of doing tea ceremony, showing them new skills along the way. Sometimes it’s several weeks before a new student actually gets to the point where he or she is making tea.
You may be wondering, why are there so many different details to learn? Why not just boil water and make tea? It relates to chanoyu’s Zen roots. One thing that Zen practitioners always emphasize is focusing on the present moment – not being distracted by thoughts of something that happened in the past, or plans for the future, but being completely focused on what you’re doing right now. By incorporating all of these little details into tea, every movement becomes purposeful – you have to pay attention to every moment, every muscle in your body, because as soon as you let your attention wander, you go off track. It’s a challenge even for experienced tea practitioners.
But, as with so many things in tea, there’s a practical reason, too. All of those tiny little details add up to produce a series of elegant movements. The goal is to make tea a good experience for your guests, a pleasure to watch as well as to drink.
In chanoyu, we talk about “beginner’s mind” as something to strive for: a sense of openness, a willingness to learn, and an intense focus on all the details of the movements. It’s an important attitude to have no matter how long you’ve been doing tea, because if you’re not open to the lessons that the tearoom has to offer, you’re never going to improve. And if we can let that same mindset permeate the rest of our lives, so much the better.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Why Tea?
When I tell people that I do tea ceremony, one of the questions I get most often is “How did you get into that?”
The short answer is pretty straightforward: When I was a student at La Salle University, they had undergraduate courses in tea ceremony. I took the course and really loved it, so I kept practicing.
But really, my fascination with tea started long before then. When I was in my early teens, I remember reading an article in the paper about tea ceremony. I was so fascinated by the idea of an entire ritual built around drinking tea that I clipped out the article and had it hanging on my wall for years afterward.
Was it fate that life brought me to the one place in the Philadelphia area – heck, in the state of Pennsylvania – that I could actually learn about tea ceremony? When I applied, I didn’t even know about the tea ceremony program there. To be honest, at the time, I’m not sure it would have made a difference. When I signed up for the course, I was curious more than anything else.
My earliest experience in chanoyu was unusual for a tea person – learning tea in the context of a college course where there was classroom work and essays as well as hands-on instruction. My first teacher was Brother Joseph Keenan, one of the Christian Brothers at La Salle. He started learning tea at the New York branch of the Urasenke tea school, and later spent time studying at Urasenke’s headquarters in Kyoto. He had a great sense of humor, and he was always making jokes. It made the class seem much easier, even though he was as strict as any other teacher. I remember back in my room I put together mock tea utensils with whatever I could find, and I kept practicing until I got everything right. At the end of the course, when we had our tea “finals,” I did the tray-style tea from beginning to end with only one mistake (I forgot to turn around and bow at the very end). I still remember what a feeling of accomplishment that was – and how hard it seemed to get through that one temae (tea procedure). I still do that temae, but now it seems so easy!
It’s funny, but looking back, I don’t remember what it was that inspired me to ask about continuing studies after the course was over. Maybe it was a beauty of the movements, or the ritualistic aspects, or the taste of the tea. Maybe it was just a whim.
As I progressed in my studies, the tearoom became my safe zone – a space away from the stress of classes and my part-time job, where I could sit and relax and not worry about anything else for a while. I don’t think I realized until much later how much I needed that.
The short answer is pretty straightforward: When I was a student at La Salle University, they had undergraduate courses in tea ceremony. I took the course and really loved it, so I kept practicing.
But really, my fascination with tea started long before then. When I was in my early teens, I remember reading an article in the paper about tea ceremony. I was so fascinated by the idea of an entire ritual built around drinking tea that I clipped out the article and had it hanging on my wall for years afterward.
Was it fate that life brought me to the one place in the Philadelphia area – heck, in the state of Pennsylvania – that I could actually learn about tea ceremony? When I applied, I didn’t even know about the tea ceremony program there. To be honest, at the time, I’m not sure it would have made a difference. When I signed up for the course, I was curious more than anything else.
My earliest experience in chanoyu was unusual for a tea person – learning tea in the context of a college course where there was classroom work and essays as well as hands-on instruction. My first teacher was Brother Joseph Keenan, one of the Christian Brothers at La Salle. He started learning tea at the New York branch of the Urasenke tea school, and later spent time studying at Urasenke’s headquarters in Kyoto. He had a great sense of humor, and he was always making jokes. It made the class seem much easier, even though he was as strict as any other teacher. I remember back in my room I put together mock tea utensils with whatever I could find, and I kept practicing until I got everything right. At the end of the course, when we had our tea “finals,” I did the tray-style tea from beginning to end with only one mistake (I forgot to turn around and bow at the very end). I still remember what a feeling of accomplishment that was – and how hard it seemed to get through that one temae (tea procedure). I still do that temae, but now it seems so easy!
It’s funny, but looking back, I don’t remember what it was that inspired me to ask about continuing studies after the course was over. Maybe it was a beauty of the movements, or the ritualistic aspects, or the taste of the tea. Maybe it was just a whim.
As I progressed in my studies, the tearoom became my safe zone – a space away from the stress of classes and my part-time job, where I could sit and relax and not worry about anything else for a while. I don’t think I realized until much later how much I needed that.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Demos!
These past two weekends we did demonstrations at the Horticultural Center and at Shofuso as part of the Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival.
The busiest day of the two-week festival is Sakura Sunday, when vendors and performers all convene on the Horticultural Center underneath the cherry blossoms. There are demonstrations of dancing, singing, aikido, reiki, shiatsu, calligraphy, origami, and … hmmm … what am I forgetting?
We had a slightly different venue for our tea ceremony demonstrations this year. In the past, we did our demo in a small room off to the side. This year, we moved into one of the Horticultural Center’s indoor spaces, in the middle of one of their perennial foliage displays. The good news was that a lot more people came to watch this year, and the bad news was that the space was so noisy that the ones who came had a tough time hearing what was going on. Still, it was great to see so much interest – we literally had people packed around on all sides watching what was happening.
Here’s a photo of the audience listening to me talk about tea:
At one point I ran down to Shofuso to grab some supplies – well, okay, in kimono it’s more like a brisk hobble – and there were huge crowds outside enjoying the trees. It was a beautiful, warm day, and the cherry trees were just a little bit past their peak, but still gorgeous. There are literally dozens of cherry trees on the grounds, of all different types. Most of them are pretty young, but there are a couple of fairly old ones (I’m sorry, I don’t know how old). Here’s a photo of one:
And while I'm at it, here's a picture of Shofuso, with its weeping cherry tree in bloom. (This is where we have lessons, although you can’t see the tearoom in this photo.)
This past Saturday, there was another demonstration, this time on the veranda at Shofuso, overlooking the pond. This was a semi-private event, open only to people who reserve in advance. Taeko-sensei, one of my teachers, did a type of tea called chabako, which literally means “tea box.” The idea is that all of the utensils needed to make tea are miniaturized and packed into the box so that they can be easily transported to make tea outside. You can do it any time of year, but it’s especially popular during cherry blossom season and in the fall, when the leaves are changing colors.
We did two sittings of about twenty people each, serving tea and sweets to each person. The traditional sweets for chabako are something called konpeito, which are basically small, hard, round sugar candies. But for demonstrations we like to give people something more substantial to eat, so Taeko-sensei made sakura mochi. The innermost layer is a sweet bean paste (“an” in Japanese), surrounded by layer of steamed sweet rice dough (mochi), wrapped in a pickled cherry leaf. Delicious! But the people who were helping behind the scenes were good and let the guests have some.
After the demonstrations, a photographer from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation took some photos of Taeko-sensei and the rest of us to use on Shofuso’s web site and in other Philadelphia marketing efforts. So if you live in the Philadelphia area, or like to read Philadelphia marketing pieces for fun, keep an eye out for photos of women in kimono – it could be one of us!
The busiest day of the two-week festival is Sakura Sunday, when vendors and performers all convene on the Horticultural Center underneath the cherry blossoms. There are demonstrations of dancing, singing, aikido, reiki, shiatsu, calligraphy, origami, and … hmmm … what am I forgetting?
We had a slightly different venue for our tea ceremony demonstrations this year. In the past, we did our demo in a small room off to the side. This year, we moved into one of the Horticultural Center’s indoor spaces, in the middle of one of their perennial foliage displays. The good news was that a lot more people came to watch this year, and the bad news was that the space was so noisy that the ones who came had a tough time hearing what was going on. Still, it was great to see so much interest – we literally had people packed around on all sides watching what was happening.
Here’s a photo of the audience listening to me talk about tea:
At one point I ran down to Shofuso to grab some supplies – well, okay, in kimono it’s more like a brisk hobble – and there were huge crowds outside enjoying the trees. It was a beautiful, warm day, and the cherry trees were just a little bit past their peak, but still gorgeous. There are literally dozens of cherry trees on the grounds, of all different types. Most of them are pretty young, but there are a couple of fairly old ones (I’m sorry, I don’t know how old). Here’s a photo of one:
And while I'm at it, here's a picture of Shofuso, with its weeping cherry tree in bloom. (This is where we have lessons, although you can’t see the tearoom in this photo.)
This past Saturday, there was another demonstration, this time on the veranda at Shofuso, overlooking the pond. This was a semi-private event, open only to people who reserve in advance. Taeko-sensei, one of my teachers, did a type of tea called chabako, which literally means “tea box.” The idea is that all of the utensils needed to make tea are miniaturized and packed into the box so that they can be easily transported to make tea outside. You can do it any time of year, but it’s especially popular during cherry blossom season and in the fall, when the leaves are changing colors.
We did two sittings of about twenty people each, serving tea and sweets to each person. The traditional sweets for chabako are something called konpeito, which are basically small, hard, round sugar candies. But for demonstrations we like to give people something more substantial to eat, so Taeko-sensei made sakura mochi. The innermost layer is a sweet bean paste (“an” in Japanese), surrounded by layer of steamed sweet rice dough (mochi), wrapped in a pickled cherry leaf. Delicious! But the people who were helping behind the scenes were good and let the guests have some.
After the demonstrations, a photographer from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation took some photos of Taeko-sensei and the rest of us to use on Shofuso’s web site and in other Philadelphia marketing efforts. So if you live in the Philadelphia area, or like to read Philadelphia marketing pieces for fun, keep an eye out for photos of women in kimono – it could be one of us!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
New Buds
April is one of the busiest months of the year for tea people, mostly because of cherry blossoms. In Japan, when the cherry trees bloom, it’s a huge event – people take blankets and pack up food and drinks (often of the alcoholic sort) and head to the nearest patch of cherry trees to sit and admire the new flowers. Some of the more famous cherry-blossom-viewing sites get so packed you have to make reservations in advance!
Here in Philadelphia, the cherry trees aren’t quite such a big deal, although thanks to the Japan-America Society of Greater Philadelphia, you can’t help but notice the cherry trees – they’re planted in abundance along the Schuylkill River, and all over the grounds of the Horticultural Center, where the Japanese House is located. Driving in for lessons today, I noticed that most of the cherry trees are either in bloom or budding away – about a week earlier than usual, but somehow I can’t complain about having an early spring!
Today is the start of the Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival, although most of the big events are taking place next weekend – including the first of a series of three tea ceremony demonstrations, all within the space of a week. See what I mean about it being the busy time of year for us?
But the really exciting thing that happened today was the start of a new beginner’s tea class at the Japanese House, where we hold lessons. This was new for us. Before, we’d add new students to our group one or two at a time; they’d be taught separately, and sit in and observe lessons with the senior students. But over the years, we’ve found that students have more fun (and tend to stick with tea longer) when they’re learning with a group of other beginners. So when we moved to the Japanese House, we started planning a course specifically for beginners – twelve weeks of instruction that takes newcomers through the first tea ceremony (temae) in the Urasenke curriculum.
We had seven students start today for our first course. They’re a really great group – six women and one man (pretty typical gender ratio for tea ceremony), all with different goals. Some came because they were interested in Japanese culture, some because they were interested in the tea itself, and a couple because they were interested in the calming, meditative aspects of tea.
But you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful place to learn tea – it was a warm day, and we were in the big (15-tatami-mat) room overlooking Shofuso’s koi pond – or, for a teacher, a better group of students to start with. I think it must be a sign of great things to come.
Here in Philadelphia, the cherry trees aren’t quite such a big deal, although thanks to the Japan-America Society of Greater Philadelphia, you can’t help but notice the cherry trees – they’re planted in abundance along the Schuylkill River, and all over the grounds of the Horticultural Center, where the Japanese House is located. Driving in for lessons today, I noticed that most of the cherry trees are either in bloom or budding away – about a week earlier than usual, but somehow I can’t complain about having an early spring!
Today is the start of the Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival, although most of the big events are taking place next weekend – including the first of a series of three tea ceremony demonstrations, all within the space of a week. See what I mean about it being the busy time of year for us?
But the really exciting thing that happened today was the start of a new beginner’s tea class at the Japanese House, where we hold lessons. This was new for us. Before, we’d add new students to our group one or two at a time; they’d be taught separately, and sit in and observe lessons with the senior students. But over the years, we’ve found that students have more fun (and tend to stick with tea longer) when they’re learning with a group of other beginners. So when we moved to the Japanese House, we started planning a course specifically for beginners – twelve weeks of instruction that takes newcomers through the first tea ceremony (temae) in the Urasenke curriculum.
We had seven students start today for our first course. They’re a really great group – six women and one man (pretty typical gender ratio for tea ceremony), all with different goals. Some came because they were interested in Japanese culture, some because they were interested in the tea itself, and a couple because they were interested in the calming, meditative aspects of tea.
But you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful place to learn tea – it was a warm day, and we were in the big (15-tatami-mat) room overlooking Shofuso’s koi pond – or, for a teacher, a better group of students to start with. I think it must be a sign of great things to come.
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