My Kimono Life 16: Hospitality

I wore my blue silk hitoe kimono to a citizen’s lecture. What is a citizen’s lecture, you ask? It is a sort of lecture by scholars or other smart people put on by the city to which any resident is allowed to go. The cost is very low or free. The idea is to not only give residents something interesting to do, but also to encourage people to study and constantly learn more things.

This lecture was about the concept of “omotenashi” (hospitality) in Japanese culture, the lecturer being Dr. Kumakura from Shizuoka Culture and Arts University. The lecture itself was free, but you could have some matcha tea and sweets for 500 yen beforehand in the lobby. The tea was served in a southeast asian style tea bowl and the sweet was a nagaimo manju in the shape of an ema (prayer plaque).

The lecture was about an hour and a half and included many interesting stories from the Namporoku and Chanoyu Ichieshu (two different Japanese tea classics). Let my give an example. In modern days, people always think hospitality, especially in tea ceremony, needs include lavish foods and no expenses spared. But back in Sen Sotan’s time, many of the great tea masters followed wabicha and were really poor. Thus in one story, Sen Sotan had a guest over in the evening for tea. They were having a very lovely time and enjoying it, when suddenly Sen Sotan was like, “Please go home now.” His guest was a bit surprised. Sotan had been so welcoming just a moment ago, but now he almost rudely told his guest to go home. Why? The reason, it turns out, was Sotan was out of lamp oil. If his guest stayed any longer, they would both be plunged into darkness. I enjoyed this story a lot, because far too often today people equate wealth with hospitality, and poverty with vulgarity. But in fact, this opposite is often true.

But the message, basically, was that omotenashi (hospitality) is not about “service”. It is not about doing everything for your guest. It is about having the same mind as your guest. When both the host and guest feel the same way and thus naturally take the same actions, this is true omotenashi. Dr. Kumakura used the phrase “omoi ga ichi”, or “thoughts are one”.  Furthermore, he said described omotenashi as almost a contest (shoubu), emphasizing how there should be a sort of energy between the guest and host. It isn’t the host doing everything for the guest: it is the host and guest working together.

Previously, I had been unimpressed with the dialogue I heard surrounding hospitality in the Japan (and also in the West). But I was newly moved by Kumakura’s views on it and now think their may be some merit to the concept. I am not sure I have done justice to Dr. Kumakura’s lecture in trying to summarize it here, but what are your thoughts on hospitality?

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A Cup of Tea 7: Dried Fruit

Back in the day, pure sucrose was quite hard to come by and people were more sensitive to the taste of sweetness. Thus even the sweetness of fruit was considered a real pleasure. Today, I enjoyed some tea with a palette of dried fruits including grape currents, preserved mango, and candied ginger.

I have a lot of dried fruits: Lilikoi, ginger, orange, mango, cranberry, plum, peach, and raisin.

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A Cup of Tea 6: Zenzai

I had matcha tea over at my friend’s house over in Kotoni the other day. During my visit she served this beautiful zenzai.

Zenzai is simply adzuki beans simmered in a sugar syrup and served with white rice dumplings. The winter version–which is served heated–is the most well known, but today of course I was served the summer version: chilled and in a delicate porcelain bell flower cup.

Another way to serve summer zenzai is to spoon it over a scoop of ice cream. This also sounds like a delightful treat, but as I cannot eat ice cream, my friend was so kind as to refrain from serving it in that way.

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My Kimono Life 16: Summer Tea

Leaf Hunting in the Park

A few friends of mine were visiting Sapporo, so I had a tea party for them. I was pretty busy as the hostess, so I wasn’t able to take many pictures of it, but I did of course wear kimono.

For the tea party, I decided to do a summer procedure called habuta. It isn’t so different from normal tea, but it utilizes fresh green leaves. So in the morning, one of my preparations tasks was to hunt from big, undamaged leaves in the park. This is where I took the picture above.

Many different kinds of leaves can be used in this procedure, but the most common kind is that of the paper mulberry. However, that isn’t so common in Hokkaido, so I picked wild mulberry leaves instead. Actually mulberry is a very charming and elegant tree, despite its common image. In the premodern period, mulberry was cultivated to serve as food for the silk worms which were raised as apart of the silk cottage industry. However in the classical period, poems used to composed on mulberry leaves and then sent to friends or lovers.

Anyway, I wore this light yellow summer kimono with a design of reeds splashed across it. With it is a blue obi, with a barely discernable design of grasses woven into it. Summer kimono are made of a see-through gauze in order to allow airflow through the whole garment. Sounds risque, but since I am also wrapped in an underkimono made of a similar gauze nothing can be seen. While out and about in the park, I also wore a red gauze coat to prevent any chance of dirtying my kimono before the tea party.

Anyway, the tea party went fairly well, although my choice of sweets ended up being poor. All three of my overseas guests barely managed to eat half of the sweet, saying “it was too sweet.” I thought this a bit ironic, because Japanese people always say that about Western sweets. I think the reason is two fold: one, modern Japanese people rarely actually eat traditional Japanese sweets anymore so they don’t know how sweet Japan’s own sweets are, and two, the type of sweetness is a little different and completely untempered by the taste of fat which is characteristic of many other sweets.

But despite the problem with the sweets, the rest of the afternoon went along lovely. With this, I will leave you with a reading of what the scroll displayed in the parlor said:

浄心生香 Scent emanates from a pure heart

 

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A Cup of Tea 4: Beautiful Paper

This evening, I had a cup of tea along with nightingale cake. For the last few months, I’ve been trying not to use electric light after eight o’clock, to prevent insomnia and it has been helping quite a bit. But the real reason I took this picture was to show off the lovely kaishi paper my friend gave me recently. It is from Katsura Villa of the Imperial family. The phoenix (瑞鳥) design is copied from one of the walls of the Imperial Palace and the kaishi paper is edged with a design popular in the Heian period called “ugen” (繧繝).　Below is a detail of the kaishi.

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A Cup of Tea 5: Red Perilla

July and August are currently the hottest months of the year. Even in the snowy frontier lands of Hokkaido, the days are balmy and the cool refreshments of summer make their appearance.

Yesterday, I visited a friend of mine at the temple nearby my house and she served me Japanese sweets (not pictured) along with this delightful red perilla tea she had made. Red Perilla (あかしそ) is a Japanese herb, and while I call it a tea, it is in fact the juice of the leaves. It is naturally this deep crimson colour.

It was extremely suitable for the heat of the day. The sharp aroma of the juice contrasted with the two pieces of ice floating in the cup. Glass, by the way is considered cool feeling (resembling ice as it does) and thus appropriate for summer. Furthermore, the truly elegant host will chill the cup in the refrigerator beforehand as well. This cup here, by the way, is lightly etched with morning glories, calling to mind the cool morning air in this humid season.

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My Kimono Life 14: I Hate Zori

Outside of Hokkaido Jingu

Today, my friend invited me to tea ceremony practice (okeiko) at her house. She is pretty amazing woman. Not only is she fluent in English as well as (of course) Japanese, she holds teaching licenses in both Urasenke and Omotesenke style tea. Anyway, although she said I could wear western style clothing if I’d like, since everyone else was wearing kimono, I thought it would better for me too.

Although it is July, which generally calls for sheer fabrics, I decided to wear my thin blue silk hitoe kimono, with a in-woven pattern of maple leaves floating on water. It is comfortable and quite cool, so I like it a lot. For my obi, I wore another favorite: ivory rough cotton obi with rustic blue and pink flowers embroidered on it. To match the flowers and offset the blue of the kimono, I paired with with a light pink obiage and obijime.

Anyway, I thought it was quite nice for tea, even though everyone else was wearing gauze sha kimono.

By the way, I took the subway to my friends house. It isn’t so far, but it did require a decent amount of walking. The kimono itself caused no problems in this. However, I wore formal zori shoes. I hate formal zori. They are as painful as high heels, I think. Who invented those awful style of shoes?! With a formal tea ceremony, having to wear formal zori can’t be helped. But I don’t think I’ll do it again for just practice. I will wear my geta or the more comfortable hakuo zori next time. Zori and high heels are clearly creations of the devil.

After okeiko, it was on my way, so I stopped by Hokkaido Jingu. It was after five so the gates were already shut, but I could still clap outside them. Actually quite a few people came and paid their respects even at that time. Afterwards, I sat for a bit in the forest. Perhaps it is because I was raised in a rural area, but sometimes I get a very strong desire to sit quietly in the deep woods. Not a city park, but true woods. Hokkaido Jingu is probably the closest I can get to that without a car.

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Practicing Japanese Arts

Japan has a wide variety of arts–praxes, really–whose names end in the character 道 (dou, or michi). “Michi” means “Way”, so all these arts are focused not merely on the result but in the way one gets to the result. Chado (tea), Kyudo (archery), Kendo (fencing), Kado (flowers), Kodo (incense), et cetera. “Shinto” is also in this group of arts.

Anyway, I was reading a sort of textbook about how to conduct Shinto rituals and naturally, it begins with the sort of spiritual mindset one should have when learning and practicing rituals. I think much of this advice is relevant not only to Shinto, but also to those other “michi” arts such as Tea ceremony and Japanese archery. So I thought I would share some of the things it says. The book, by the way, is called “The New Textbook of Shrine Ritual Events’ Etiquette” edited by NUMABE Harutomo and MOTEGI Sadasumi.

The order in which one should learn:

1. Listen carefully
2. Watch carefully
3. Practice it yourself
4. Master it, ie: Practice it until you thoroughly can do it
5. Research, ie: don’t merely do the rituals by rote, but investigate their meaning and different ways
6. Perform it, ie: only after all this can you truly conduct the ritual for real

Particularly, number 5 is quite interesting. Japan is often accused of lacking creativity and initiative. But I don’t think that is true and number 5 demonstrates this. To truly practice an art for real, it is important to investigate and research it yourself, not merely copy what has been taught by your teacher. I think there is creativity and a great deal of initiative in Japanese arts, but it is done with a slow carefulness that isn’t generally praised in Western culture. I think for many Western new learners of Japanese arts, number 4 is the most important. There is a tendency for Westerners to jump to innovation before truly mastering the skills they are learning.

When reviewing what we are learning, the book tells us that we should review the material until it clicks, so to speak: to practice by ourselves until the art becomes second nature to us. There has been a great deal of scientific study about the importance of practice, and that only reminds us of this.

Actually, there is another section which is titled the “relation between Mind and Form“. I will just translate it:

“After the Form has become second nature to you, do not be a slave to the Form in conducting the actual ritual. Rather, make your best effort to properly perform your responsibilities with a sincere heart. If you exert yourself in this, as time passes you will develop your own etiquette that is appropriate to you as an individual.” p3

Again, this reminds us that merely copying is not enough. I think there is some parallel in Kyudo when we are told that merely hitting the target is not enough. If we want to merely hit the target, a modern Western bow equipped with technological sights is a better choice. We should hit the target, but that shot must incorporate our whole self and be completely ours all the while maintaining the established harmonious etiquette with our classmates.

Finally, the book as gives some suggestions on when performing a ritual. A couple of them are not so relevant to the other arts (ex: Be sure the offerings are arranged firmly so they don’t fall down…). But most of them are.

• Remind yourself of the ritual’s purpose.
• Make and review a plan for the ritual.
• Work together with all the participants.
• When finished, reflect and record the ritual in order to continually improve it.

Anyway, I think this advice is good not only for the various “michi” arts, but in fact has a lot of relevance in striving to improve everyday of our lives. Nothing does it seem especially mystic to me. But then again I am pretty involved in this stuff, so I could just be used to it. What do you think?

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A Cup of Tea 2

A cup of good, black Chinese tea and castella from Rokkatei. So delightful!

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My Kimono Life 10: A Dolls’ Festival

和洋折衷ティーパーティ？

Recently, my friend gave me all his hina dolls. His children are grown and he is moving houses, and his daughter didn’t want them. So I said I’d take them. Hina dolls are usually displayed for Momo-no-Sekku, one of the five seasonal holidays and more commonly known as Girl’s Day or the Doll Festival. It is considered bad taste to display the dolls after the holiday has ended, so it can be quite a trouble to store all the dolls. Fortunately, I am a foreigner, so those rules don’t apply to me. My friend (so now I!) has a “seven level” set of dolls, meaning it contains 12 dolls along with all sorts of doll furniture and decorations.

Thinking to dolls must be lonely and frightened from being packed up and moved around so much, I decided to have a Western-style tea party for them. In this picture here are the Prince and Princess dolls. All the other dolls are their retainers, so they ate in the other room. We had tea along with an apple tart, dried grapes, and confettio. It was quite nice, minus a slight mishap with the tea pot. But I could clean that mess up quite quickly.

In order to create a festive yet elegant atmosphere, I decided to wear this yellow kimono with a pink and silver obi. This kimono and obi were given to me by my tea ceremony teacher, so when ever I wear it I always think fondly upon my time studying with her. They both are so easy to wear. The obijime cord, by the way, I made myself. It was the first one I ever made and it was from very cheap cotton yarn, so it isn’t so fancy, but I like it all the same. The braiding pattern is called “Kongou”.

Stylish Coat

Also, did you notice the Prince’s extremely stylish black coat? I was really impressed with its modern gold “wind” design. The Princess’s undercoat is made of the same fabric. In fact, I think the Prince has a very modern turn of mind. Not only has he given up painting his teeth black, he insisted on sitting to the left of his Princess like Westerners do. I think we shall get along quite fine together.

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