This week I received an unexpected email from my previous host mother
from when I studied abroad at Kansai Gaidai, asking if I was in Japan yet and
if I had time this Sunday for a ‘tea party.’
My host mother (hereafter Okaasan) is very much into various Japanese
traditional and non-traditional arts.
She regularly attends tea ceremonies, wears kimono, does flower
arranging, and the two of us bonded over our love of sewing and other fabric crafts. We even both entered a basket decorating
contest at the local craft store when I was here last. She beat me pretty handily.
In any case, Okaasan had two tickets two a tea ceremony event at the
Heian Jingu Shrine in Kyoto this Sunday, but because of other commitments could
not make it. Instead, she offered to
mail the tickets to me so I could take a friend and go. I had always wanted to try a tea ceremony
with my host mother when I was here last, so although this would not be with
her, I jumped at the opportunity. The
tickets arrived in the mail the next day with a detailed explanation of what to
do and what not to do at a tea ceremony from Okaasan, plus a pair of little
bamboo sticks and some rice paper napkins to eat tea ceremony sweets with.
I invited one of my grad school classmates to come with me, but she
backed out at the last minute, so I went to the event by myself. My kimono is still in the US, waiting for my
family to visit in November and bring it with them, and a cotton yukata is too
informal for such an event, so I put on my nicest cotton dress and headed to
the shrine.
The Heian Jingu is a huge temple in eastern Kyoto, the history of which
I am unfortunately rusty on, but it is a pretty spectacular compound and a
major tourist trap. What I didn’t
realize is that it also has some expansive, gorgeous gardens. The tea ceremony event had representatives
from six different schools of tea ceremony.
Each of the six groups had set up in one of several pavilions on the
temple compound. Not only were these
rooms usually closed to the public, but the two ceremonies I went to were in a
part of the gardens that were usually completely off-limits to the public.
I arrived at the temple gates and found the welcome desk for the tea
ceremony event, and showed them my ticket.
They gave me a little red ribbon to pin to my purse so that I would be
allowed into the restricted parts of the temple. They asked me which of the six schools I
wanted to go to, and having no clue at the difference between them, I asked the
two women for a recommendation. They
both enthusiastically pointed to the first school on the list and told me how
to get there.
I found the first school’s pavilion in the restricted garden,
overlooking a serene pond garden. I was
told that there was only room left in the last party of the day, in two hours,
but if I took a number, I could come back then.
Riding on the firm recommendation of the two women up front, I
agreed. Seeing another pavilion just
across the path, I walked over and asked them when the next open ceremony was
and they said, “Right now, go on it!” I
was given one of the last three spots.
Before I could step up the stairs into the building, I had to remove my
shoes. But, instead of walking them over
to the shoe rack myself, it was sort of valet shoes. Two men by the door told me to step out of my
shoes onto the wooden platform, then they took my shoes for me and gave me a
number to claim then when I returned.
Now that is fancy shoe service.
It makes me wish I had been wearing fancier shoes than my beat-up
walking flats.
Inside was a large tatami mat room (traditional woven mat flooring) with
long, narrow felt mats around the outside for guests to kneel on. You are expected to sit on your knees for the
entire 45 minute ceremony. There were
probably 30-40 guests partaking in the ceremony. No sooner had I gotten inside then the
ceremony started. A pleasant elderly
woman in the center of the room had a full set of tea-making instruments bowed
to the room and we all bowed back. She
began the process of making tea that seemed to be part ceremony, part art, and
part practical tea-making. As she was
preparing the tea, several other women came around with platters of
sweets. This is what Okaasan’s rice
paper and bamboo stick was for.
The open spot I had seated myself in was in the middle of the room, so I
figured it was a safe place to follow Okaasan’s instructions of, “Watch the
other people and do what they do.”
However, the tray of sweets for our section started with me. The woman put it down in front of me, bowed,
and left. Glancing to my right and left,
I couldn’t see any cues to follow, so I took the chopsticks, took one of the
peach-shaped sweets, put it on my rice paper then returned the chopsticks to
the bowl. I looked at the woman to my
left with an embarrassed shrug, and she looked a bit confused before she slid
the platter to herself and continued. As
I watched everyone else, I realized that I was supposed to first bow to the
woman after me, as an apology for going first, take my snack, then wipe off the
ends of the chopsticks with the top right corner of my rice paper before
putting them back on the platter, writing facing up. As the only foreigner in the room, she seemed
to forgive me for that, especially since I explained that it was my first time.
Sweets on our rice papers in front of us, we were not to eat them just
yet. Meanwhile, the woman in the middle
of the room finished making five cups of tea, which were given to the first
five people to her left. The women who
had given us our sweets came out with trays of tea cups and handed each
out. After bowing once when given our
cup and again when she emptied her tray to our whole section, then we could
drink the tea, followed my mandatory admiring of the ceramic tea cups.
Unlike the tea ceremony I had tried in college, this was leaf green tea
and not powdered matcha. Though, still
bitter, the sweet is meant to cleans the palate before tea round two. The sweet was some kind of mochi with red
bean paste in the middle. After that
came the second round of tea, and then the woman in the center tidied up her
tea station, left the room, and bowed to us all, for us to bow back.
After nearly 45 minutes of sitting on my knees I did pretty well to
stand up straight, retrieve my shoes and stagger over to the nearest bench to
wait out my legs coming out being completely numb. After I got over that painful process, I
still had an hour before my second ceremony (the ticket was good for two
ceremonies). I crossed the street from
the temple to have lunch at the touristy temple café with overpriced foods (I
was intrigued by the curry and cheese Heian hot dog, but they were all out).
On my way back in, an older woman noticed me following her towards the tea
gardens and asked me if I was going back for more tea, noting that she had seen
me at the other ceremony. I suppose I am
hard to miss. Coincidentally, she also
had a ticket for the same ceremony, still in 45 minutes. I wound up spending the rest of my time
sitting with her, Ota-san, in the gardens and chatting. Ota-san is an unmarried, retired middle
school teacher and gymnastics coach in her 70s that really loves tea ceremony,
Kyoto, and other traditional Japanese arts.
When I said that I really love Japanese gardens, she said that her
favorite was at a temple near her home, then gave me her phone number so I
could let her know if I ever came to see it and was in her neighborhood. I seem to have a knack for making friends
with women a few generations ahead of me, and I really do love it. I think I will have to take her up on it
sometime later.
The second pavilion was even more beautiful than the first. It was right on the water, and they left the
sliding doors open to a view of the pond and gardens. On the opposite wall were gold leafed
paintings of trees and an stunningly decorated alter with incense. When we sat down, Ota-san lent me a piece of
kimono fabric to put over my knees, as she seemed to be concerned that my skirt
was a bit too short when I was sitting down.
The second ceremony was very much like the first, with one major
difference: this school of tea ceremony is practiced entirely by men. A young man began to make tea in the center
of the room while a woman narrated what he was doing and about the history of
the school. Meanwhile other men came out
with trays of the sweets again. I will
admit I was a bit disappointed when the sweets were passed out on individual
saucers, as I was totally ready with the chopsticks and rice paper procedures
after messing that up the first time.
The saucers, the sweet, and the cups all had yin-yang symbols
incorporated into them, which must have been the symbol of the school. The tea was then passed out, and each cup
only had about three drops of tea in it, but it was really flavorful. After tea was snacks, a second round of tea,
and then a third round that was warm water in the now tea-flavored cups. I have to agree with Ota-san, being served by
men in kimono and hakama, who held the trays steady and high in front of their
chests, practically marching in a theatrical Noh style was pretty
striking. I never thought a tea party
could be manly and handsome, but this definitely was.
While I am pretty good at sitting seiza on my knees for a white
person, this one pushed the limits of it.
When it came time to go, I could hardly stand. I did quite a bit of stumbling trying to get
myself righted and hand trouble standing in one place as I painfully got
feeling back to my legs. I don’t know
how everyone else did it, just standing up and walking away like it was
nothing. A man had come over when I
first sat down to ask me if my legs would be alright and if I needed a sitting
cushion (at least I think that was what he asked), but I was a bit prideful and
refused. When we were done and I was
teetering to my feet, he was back and asking to make sure I was okay, and
asking what I thought of the ceremony, if I had ever done that before, and how
long I was in Kyoto for. It was really
sweet of him, and he said that their school would be back in Tokyo next March
for Golden Week, if I wanted to come again.
It was a bit of a rushed day, and my knees still ache, but they will
recover, and I had a great time. Now, I
would love to be able to do that with Okaasan sometime.