It's been a week now since I last updated. With midterms and other things happening, I have been pretty busy. I think I will be discontinuing my Wednesday updates for a while. There will be an update on Sunday as usual (sorry for missing this last one!) and then I will update on a weekly basis unless a lot of things start happening at once. Anyway, today I want to talk about a really cool and uniquely Japanese experience I participated in on Sunday June 1.
Tea Ceremony - Background
The Tea Ceremony is one of Japan's most famous cultural practice. For a brief overview of its history and its various forms, feel free to check out this wikipedia article, also located on the sidebar. Tea Ceremonies are generally small and intimate affairs, and can take place in one's home or in special tea houses designed for this purpose. The ceremony itself is usually pretty formal, with specific rituals and actions performed in the making of the tea and in conversation. It is characterized by a sparse and almost rigid ritualism, and is often hard to understand from a Western perspective where constant stimulus and action are the norm. This sparseness comes from its Zen Buddhist heritage; the specific and controlled movements and rituals of the ceremony offer the opportunity to powerfully focus on the present moment, allowing all other thoughts to fall away. It can therefore be a unique way of meditating. If this is confusing to you, I encourage you to read up on the practices of Buddhist meditation and Zen Buddhism, which will help you appreciate the Tea Ceremony on a richer level. In the end, the Tea Ceremony provides an escape from the hectic business of the world around us, and offers a quiet and intimate social experience where we can focus on really being with each other and enjoying each other's company. I will come back to this at the end of today's post. For now, let me move on and talk about my actual involvement.
I have been participating in a Tea Ceremony club at AIU. Our main efforts for this first half of the semester have been in preparation for the June 1 public Tea Gathering (Gathering in the sense that there was a large gathering of people, not that we were literally gathering tea). This was going to be an atypical tea ceremony in that it was going to be a huge public event, with thousands of people in attendance over the course of the day and six or seven different universities and tea schools participating in serving the tea. It was to be held in Senshu-kouen (Senshu Park) in Akita city (see my albums on the right for pictures of the park during early spring and during the hanami matsuri). The tea ceremony normally involves the host making tea for each of his or her guests one by one, however with this volume of people that would be impossible. Instead, this event would feature one person performing the formal ceremony for the guests while, behind a screen or at another discreet location, many other women would follow the host's progress in making their own tea, not following the formal rituals but just getting the other tea bowls ready. That way, once the host was done with preparing her first bowl of tea, there were already a hundred bowls of tea ready to be served to the guests. The whole process takes about thirty minutes, after which new guests file in and we prepared for another round, a different woman performing the ceremony each time.
The AIU students who were participating (about 6/7 international students and an equal number of Japanese students) would be serving the sweets and the tea to the guests while other women would be making the tea and performing the ceremony. So the first few weeks were spent teaching us the correct movements and phrases as someone who serves the tea. Although the phrases were a bit unfamiliar (especially since they are quite formal in language) they were easy enough to learn. I looked forward with great anticipation to the tea gathering, which took place June 1.
Senshu-kouen Tea Gathering
The day began close to sunrise, at 4:30am. I washed my face and got my things together, including the kimono they were loaning to me to wear for the occasion. I carefully made my way to where we were meeting to get dressed, arriving around 5:00am. They had taught the guys (all two of us) how to put our kimono on the previous Wednesday, and I had practiced again once or twice in the mean time, so I had no problem putting on my kimono, obi (long sash which holds the kimono together), and then my hakama (a long skirt garment that men wear over their kimono. they sometimes come in a wide-pant like style). I also put on the pair of tabi that I had bought (tabi are special socks, often made of silk, and worn with kimono instead of regular cotton socks). They had tried to get the largest kimono that was readily available for me, but it was still hilariously short (a good two or three inches). More worrisome for me, though, were the zori, which are a special kind of sandal worn with kimono. The zori they had were not a little short; they were very short. With great difficulty I was able to literally squeeze my way into the thong, my heels dangling off of the back. For a couple of hours, I could probably live with the arrangement. As you will see, though, I did not wear them for a "couple" of hours. The entire day, they were the bane of my existence, and I was glad to return them at the end of the day. Being so tall in Japan really does have its disadvantages. Despite these shortcomings (literally) I have to admit that I looked pretty good with the kimono. I helped Dorian, the other guy who was participating (he's from England) with his kimono and hakama. The trick is to tie the sashes as tight as possible. Then, it's actually quite comfortable, and much more breathable than the formal suits I usually wear at home.
Full length portrait showcasing my hilariously short kimono and hakama.
My zori, which were simply way too small, and the bane of my existence.
Dorian and I waited near the dressing rooms where assistants were putting kimonos on the female students. Women can't put kimonos on themselves; it is simply impossible. There are literally layers upon layers of garments and kimonos that are worn, not to mention the incredibly long obi (wide sash) that would be impossible to wear yourself. As they stepped out of the room one by one, we took pictures in various groups, admiring each other's kimonos and laughing at the hilariously short kimono I was stuck with (Dorian was a little bit shorter than me, but also had length problems). By 7:00am we were on the bus that would take us to the Tea Gathering.
Some of the girls early Sunday morning after getting dressed.
Left to Right: Me, Masha (Russia), Dorian (England)
Sunday was rainy, unfortunately, so we did not end up having the Gathering at the park. We instead moved to the designated rain location, a conference building just down the street from the park. On the basement floor of the building were many very large conference rooms, which had been cleared of tables and chairs. Different tea schools were assigned different rooms. After an hour of waiting and having some breakfast, which was provided for us, we set to work decorating and preparing the space for the gathering. Everyone seemed to know what to do except the students, so we lent a hand here and there when someone asked us. Despite being indoors, we were able to give the space an outdoorsy, natural feel to it with the inclusion of a small stone garden, umbrella, lanterns, and the like. At one point, two really fun and really nice old Japanese women came up to me and informed me "Excuse me, but your hakama is too high!" (that was an understatement). They then helped me retie the hakama and my obi so that it would fall a bit closer to my ankles, maybe an inch lower, but still an improvement. I thanked them very much, but still felt a bit ridiculous.
Waiting outside the convention center.
Getting some much needed assistance from these kind Japanese women. Unfortunately they couldn't make my clothes any longer.
We set down benches for the guests, who faced a small black table designed specifically for the Tea Ceremony, with a small charcoal pit built in for boiling water. Three large screens were erected and decorated with fake foliage and beautiful purple banners, concealing the work area behind. In this work area was where the sweets were prepared as well as all of the rest of tea bowls as the host formally performed the ceremony on the other side of the screen in front of the guests. In addition, there was a table with special tea bowls (called chawan) which had been made from countries around the world, mostly from the US but also from England, Mexico, South Africa, and India.
The tea table. The woman is adjusting the bronze brazier (for boiling water) that sits over a small charcoal pit.
The whole ceremony generally went in the following manner. Most of the servers would be waiting behind the screens, concealed from the 100 or so guests. Chiba-sensei, a teacher at AIU who was in charge of our particular group, explained the theme for this particular ceremony, which was the idea of making connections with people across the the oceans, hence the American and European chawan. After her introduction, as she continued to talk more about the ceremony the woman who would perform the ceremony began (someone different performed the ceremony each time). As she started, some servers would then pass out sweets to the guests, which would provide a contrast to the bitter green tea (matcha) that would be served later. Once the Ceremony was completed and the first bowl of tea was prepared, the rest of the serving staff would then serve our own chawan with already prepared tea to the rest of the guests. We were divided into groups which were responsible for one row of guests. The guests would drink the tea, admire the bowls, and then we would return after five minutes or so to take the bowls back. After everyone had enjoyed the tea and the host had finished cleaning the table, then the guests were invited to take a closer look at the tea table before leaving. We performed the ceremony about 11 times between 9:30am and 3:00pm without a break.
Some o-kashi, or sweets. They were delicious. Notice that they also stay in line with theme of crossing oceans.
Waiting to serve the o-kashi to the guests.
"Regular" tea bowls all ready with their portions of matcha (green tea).
Women hard at work making the tea behind the curtain as the formal host prepares the tea during the tea ceremony.
A crowd of us waiting for our bowls of tea to be ready so we can serve the guests.
I was a part of one of two groups which were responsible for the special bowls from around the world. In addition to the normal rituals and phrases, we had to also briefly talk about the bowls, informing the guest where they came from and perhaps who made them. Initially, every server was responsible for three bowls only, which we were to become familiar with. This proved to be too cumbersome of a system, however, as there were only so many women preparing tea, and inevitably some servers would be given all their bowls at once while others had to wait a while before receiving their first one. In addition, everyone was assigned specific seats to serve. This method proved to be quite inefficient; inevitably there were guests who had to wait a long time before receiving tea, and it was mildly chaotic. In fact, during the first round the other tea servers (with more generic tea bowls) had to serve some of our guests because things were taking too long.
Ito-san was the woman who was in charge of my group of special servers. She was a really nice woman, somewhere in her thirties. What I really liked about her, though, was her quick thinking, adaptability and kindness all mixed in. After the first round, seeing that things worked so inelegantly, she decided that instead of having each server be assigned specific bowls, we would instead just take whatever bowl was ready, allowing the women to work more efficiently and preventing us from having to wait a long time before serving our guests. With each special chawan was a photograph of the bowl along with a short description in English and Japanese with information of where it came from and who made it, so we were still able to tell the guests where the bowl came from and other details like that. Additionally, after the second round we decided it was better for our group to work down the row one by one instead of being focused on three specific guests, improving the serving efficiency even more. I was glad that Ito-san took the initiative immediately and modified the system in a way that allowed for more flexibility; Japanese culture is notorious for being very order-driven and precise, but Ito-san (and many other Japanese, to be fair) was quite capable of bending the rules for the sake of making the process go much smoother. By the time we got to our third and fourth ceremonies, we had the system working beautifully, and did not have any mishaps or bumps for the rest of the day.
As the hours ticked by, I quickly began to feel like I was reminded of my days in the theater back in high school. Every round of guests became like a small performance; we all had our roles to play, and new the timing for those roles. There was a flurry of activity and tension behind the screen as we busily got ready, especially since I had to quickly learn the origin of the bowl I was given every time I had to serve the tea. This nervous energy was quickly subsumed under a mask of polite smiles, bows and rehearsed lines as I served the tea to my guests. Like a real show, when there were little bumps in the performance we quickly adapted and ran with it, never indicating to our audience that anything was going slightly off plan. It was elegant, stressful, and really fun.
In between serving times I sat off to the side and removed my zori to give my feet a rest. They provided us with rice balls and drinks for lunch, although we had to eat in between ceremonies, there were no breaks. I served the sweets two or three times to give people a break. The guests were very nice, on the whole, mostly older Japanese dressed in suits (for the men, although some of the older men did wear kimono) and kimono (the women). The Japanese guests were generally very tickled to be served by an International student dressed in a kimono, and once or twice I was asked where I was from. A couple of times I fumbled my lines a little bit, and we all giggled, not in a depreciative way but in a light hearted way that recognized that I was trying my best and that they were thrilled to have me. For one ceremony, we had all high school students from one of the local schools. The girls were quite shy of me, which I found to be funny. Some of my friends from AIU also came to see us, and they had a great time. They took some photos of me as well, which I will share below. A couple of times, I noticed a few Japanese people pull out their cameras when they saw me serving sweets and tea, and I giggled on the inside because that's exactly what I would be doing if I was in their place (in fact, I had been doing it for the past two months!).
Me serving some o-kashi to the guests. Photoes courtesy of my friend Maggie.
During the last ceremony, they invited the students to act as the guests, as there were only a couple of guests from the outside. I was exhausted by this point (remember I had been awake since 4:30am that morning, and it was now almost 12 hours later). I sat down and took some pictures, and Chiba-sensei gave us the usual introduction, this time in English. One of the AIU students who had been practicing the ceremony for weeks now performed the ceremony for us, which was a nice treat. Ito-san served my row sweets and tea. As I relaxed and began to settle after many hours of nervous tension and excitement, I focused on the movements of my classmate who was performing the ceremony. I think that most Westerners would see the ceremony and maybe find it interesting and different, but would be quickly bored. After so many hours of work, though, I could feel myself settle quietly, and I fell into a trance-like state as I watched her movements. Because I was so tired, my mind likewise was calm, and in this state of tranquility, I found the ceremony to be quite elegant and beautiful. As I followed her movements, not thinking of anything but simply enjoying the colors, the tastes, and the moment, I could feel a sense of peace fall over me that pleasantly contrasted with the chaotic hours that had just preceded it. I could understand why this would be an important social activity, and how it could act as a powerful and pleasing release to the hectic daily lives we lead. I imagined that a more intimate affair would be even more enjoyable. For me, the ultimate pleasure of the ceremony was not in the performance itself, but rather in the tranquility it inspired in me which contrasted beautifully with the energy and excitement of before.
A somewhat blurry (sorry) picture of Chiba-sensei, who coordinated our tea gathering.
A fellow AIU student performing the tea ceremony for us.
Ito-san serving us sweets. She was great, I really enjoyed working with her.
A group of my fellow AIU students enjoying the o-kashi and eagerly awaiting the delicious tea.
After we had enjoyed our sweets and our tea, we changed into regular clothes and returned our borrowed kimonos to be dry cleaned. I was exhausted when we arrived in AIU around 3:30, opting to shower and sleep right away. But all in all I had a wonderful time, and am so happy I could participate in an event like this. I hope I'll be able to participate in other, smaller tea ceremonies in the future, and look forward to sharing them with you if I do. In the meantime, here is a link to the full album of the pictures I took during the day (you can also find it on the right labeled "June 1 Tea Gathering"). Enjoy!
Full length portrait showcasing my hilariously short kimono and hakama. 
My zori, which were simply way too small, and the bane of my existence. Dorian and I waited near the dressing rooms where assistants were putting kimonos on the female students. Women can't put kimonos on themselves; it is simply impossible. There are literally layers upon layers of garments and kimonos that are worn, not to mention the incredibly long obi (wide sash) that would be impossible to wear yourself. As they stepped out of the room one by one, we took pictures in various groups, admiring each other's kimonos and laughing at the hilariously short kimono I was stuck with (Dorian was a little bit shorter than me, but also had length problems). By 7:00am we were on the bus that would take us to the Tea Gathering.
Some of the girls early Sunday morning after getting dressed.
Left to Right: Me, Masha (Russia), Dorian (England)Sunday was rainy, unfortunately, so we did not end up having the Gathering at the park. We instead moved to the designated rain location, a conference building just down the street from the park. On the basement floor of the building were many very large conference rooms, which had been cleared of tables and chairs. Different tea schools were assigned different rooms. After an hour of waiting and having some breakfast, which was provided for us, we set to work decorating and preparing the space for the gathering. Everyone seemed to know what to do except the students, so we lent a hand here and there when someone asked us. Despite being indoors, we were able to give the space an outdoorsy, natural feel to it with the inclusion of a small stone garden, umbrella, lanterns, and the like. At one point, two really fun and really nice old Japanese women came up to me and informed me "Excuse me, but your hakama is too high!" (that was an understatement). They then helped me retie the hakama and my obi so that it would fall a bit closer to my ankles, maybe an inch lower, but still an improvement. I thanked them very much, but still felt a bit ridiculous.
Waiting outside the convention center.
Getting some much needed assistance from these kind Japanese women. Unfortunately they couldn't make my clothes any longer. 
We set down benches for the guests, who faced a small black table designed specifically for the Tea Ceremony, with a small charcoal pit built in for boiling water. Three large screens were erected and decorated with fake foliage and beautiful purple banners, concealing the work area behind. In this work area was where the sweets were prepared as well as all of the rest of tea bowls as the host formally performed the ceremony on the other side of the screen in front of the guests. In addition, there was a table with special tea bowls (called chawan) which had been made from countries around the world, mostly from the US but also from England, Mexico, South Africa, and India.
The tea table. The woman is adjusting the bronze brazier (for boiling water) that sits over a small charcoal pit. The whole ceremony generally went in the following manner. Most of the servers would be waiting behind the screens, concealed from the 100 or so guests. Chiba-sensei, a teacher at AIU who was in charge of our particular group, explained the theme for this particular ceremony, which was the idea of making connections with people across the the oceans, hence the American and European chawan. After her introduction, as she continued to talk more about the ceremony the woman who would perform the ceremony began (someone different performed the ceremony each time). As she started, some servers would then pass out sweets to the guests, which would provide a contrast to the bitter green tea (matcha) that would be served later. Once the Ceremony was completed and the first bowl of tea was prepared, the rest of the serving staff would then serve our own chawan with already prepared tea to the rest of the guests. We were divided into groups which were responsible for one row of guests. The guests would drink the tea, admire the bowls, and then we would return after five minutes or so to take the bowls back. After everyone had enjoyed the tea and the host had finished cleaning the table, then the guests were invited to take a closer look at the tea table before leaving. We performed the ceremony about 11 times between 9:30am and 3:00pm without a break.
Some o-kashi, or sweets. They were delicious. Notice that they also stay in line with theme of crossing oceans. 
Waiting to serve the o-kashi to the guests. 
"Regular" tea bowls all ready with their portions of matcha (green tea). 
The "special bowls" which I was to use for the ceremony, and all set with their portions of matcha. The little bamboo whisks are used to stir the tea in hot water to make a thick, frothy, tea.
Women hard at work making the tea behind the curtain as the formal host prepares the tea during the tea ceremony. 
A crowd of us waiting for our bowls of tea to be ready so we can serve the guests. I was a part of one of two groups which were responsible for the special bowls from around the world. In addition to the normal rituals and phrases, we had to also briefly talk about the bowls, informing the guest where they came from and perhaps who made them. Initially, every server was responsible for three bowls only, which we were to become familiar with. This proved to be too cumbersome of a system, however, as there were only so many women preparing tea, and inevitably some servers would be given all their bowls at once while others had to wait a while before receiving their first one. In addition, everyone was assigned specific seats to serve. This method proved to be quite inefficient; inevitably there were guests who had to wait a long time before receiving tea, and it was mildly chaotic. In fact, during the first round the other tea servers (with more generic tea bowls) had to serve some of our guests because things were taking too long.
Ito-san was the woman who was in charge of my group of special servers. She was a really nice woman, somewhere in her thirties. What I really liked about her, though, was her quick thinking, adaptability and kindness all mixed in. After the first round, seeing that things worked so inelegantly, she decided that instead of having each server be assigned specific bowls, we would instead just take whatever bowl was ready, allowing the women to work more efficiently and preventing us from having to wait a long time before serving our guests. With each special chawan was a photograph of the bowl along with a short description in English and Japanese with information of where it came from and who made it, so we were still able to tell the guests where the bowl came from and other details like that. Additionally, after the second round we decided it was better for our group to work down the row one by one instead of being focused on three specific guests, improving the serving efficiency even more. I was glad that Ito-san took the initiative immediately and modified the system in a way that allowed for more flexibility; Japanese culture is notorious for being very order-driven and precise, but Ito-san (and many other Japanese, to be fair) was quite capable of bending the rules for the sake of making the process go much smoother. By the time we got to our third and fourth ceremonies, we had the system working beautifully, and did not have any mishaps or bumps for the rest of the day.
As the hours ticked by, I quickly began to feel like I was reminded of my days in the theater back in high school. Every round of guests became like a small performance; we all had our roles to play, and new the timing for those roles. There was a flurry of activity and tension behind the screen as we busily got ready, especially since I had to quickly learn the origin of the bowl I was given every time I had to serve the tea. This nervous energy was quickly subsumed under a mask of polite smiles, bows and rehearsed lines as I served the tea to my guests. Like a real show, when there were little bumps in the performance we quickly adapted and ran with it, never indicating to our audience that anything was going slightly off plan. It was elegant, stressful, and really fun.
In between serving times I sat off to the side and removed my zori to give my feet a rest. They provided us with rice balls and drinks for lunch, although we had to eat in between ceremonies, there were no breaks. I served the sweets two or three times to give people a break. The guests were very nice, on the whole, mostly older Japanese dressed in suits (for the men, although some of the older men did wear kimono) and kimono (the women). The Japanese guests were generally very tickled to be served by an International student dressed in a kimono, and once or twice I was asked where I was from. A couple of times I fumbled my lines a little bit, and we all giggled, not in a depreciative way but in a light hearted way that recognized that I was trying my best and that they were thrilled to have me. For one ceremony, we had all high school students from one of the local schools. The girls were quite shy of me, which I found to be funny. Some of my friends from AIU also came to see us, and they had a great time. They took some photos of me as well, which I will share below. A couple of times, I noticed a few Japanese people pull out their cameras when they saw me serving sweets and tea, and I giggled on the inside because that's exactly what I would be doing if I was in their place (in fact, I had been doing it for the past two months!).
Me serving some o-kashi to the guests. Photoes courtesy of my friend Maggie.
During the last ceremony, they invited the students to act as the guests, as there were only a couple of guests from the outside. I was exhausted by this point (remember I had been awake since 4:30am that morning, and it was now almost 12 hours later). I sat down and took some pictures, and Chiba-sensei gave us the usual introduction, this time in English. One of the AIU students who had been practicing the ceremony for weeks now performed the ceremony for us, which was a nice treat. Ito-san served my row sweets and tea. As I relaxed and began to settle after many hours of nervous tension and excitement, I focused on the movements of my classmate who was performing the ceremony. I think that most Westerners would see the ceremony and maybe find it interesting and different, but would be quickly bored. After so many hours of work, though, I could feel myself settle quietly, and I fell into a trance-like state as I watched her movements. Because I was so tired, my mind likewise was calm, and in this state of tranquility, I found the ceremony to be quite elegant and beautiful. As I followed her movements, not thinking of anything but simply enjoying the colors, the tastes, and the moment, I could feel a sense of peace fall over me that pleasantly contrasted with the chaotic hours that had just preceded it. I could understand why this would be an important social activity, and how it could act as a powerful and pleasing release to the hectic daily lives we lead. I imagined that a more intimate affair would be even more enjoyable. For me, the ultimate pleasure of the ceremony was not in the performance itself, but rather in the tranquility it inspired in me which contrasted beautifully with the energy and excitement of before.
A somewhat blurry (sorry) picture of Chiba-sensei, who coordinated our tea gathering.
A fellow AIU student performing the tea ceremony for us. 
Ito-san serving us sweets. She was great, I really enjoyed working with her.
A group of my fellow AIU students enjoying the o-kashi and eagerly awaiting the delicious tea. After we had enjoyed our sweets and our tea, we changed into regular clothes and returned our borrowed kimonos to be dry cleaned. I was exhausted when we arrived in AIU around 3:30, opting to shower and sleep right away. But all in all I had a wonderful time, and am so happy I could participate in an event like this. I hope I'll be able to participate in other, smaller tea ceremonies in the future, and look forward to sharing them with you if I do. In the meantime, here is a link to the full album of the pictures I took during the day (you can also find it on the right labeled "June 1 Tea Gathering"). Enjoy!
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