SADOU!!!! (And other fun in Japan)

I expected to be coming into this entry with nothing more exciting than the tea ceremony (which was pretty darn exciting) and whining about seiza (which is also included), but instead I have several adventures to regale you with. So sit back, relax, and get ready for a LOOOOOONG entry. (Feel free to read it in pieces; I have a feeling I'm going to be WRITING it in the same way.)

LOST IN MITAKA:

A two part series, taking place over two days and will be supplemented by the video version once I can figure out why my computer isn't uploading video (hoping it's not the blog's fault but I'm kinda worried that it is).

On Sunday I went to go shopping for food for the week... and realized I couldn't remember which way I wanted to turn after I got past the dollar store. I thought I knew where I was/where I was going, but I didn't remember any of the buildings in about three blocks in either direction down the street that I was supposed to recognize. Luckily I still knew where I was with respect to the school so I just wandered around until I found some pretty main streets and headed in that direction. Once I got back I checked my directions and realized that I was much closer to where I wanted to be than I thought I was.

(7/23 EDIT: 'Lost in Mitaka, Part 1' video imbedded below



Transcript:
So I just spent the last half an hour being completely and utterly and hopelessly lost in Mitaka, which was actually kinda fun, uh, once I got over the fact that I was lost and just kinda decided to enjoy the experience. Also made very good use of the jidouhanbaiki slash... oh what do you call them in English? Vending machines. That's bad, that I've forgotten how to talk in English. And now, rather than just walk the rest of the way back to campus and, you know, gripe and whine and moan in my head about how RIDICULOUSLY overheated I am, I decided to gripe and whine and moan to you guys. Because it's more fun. Ooh look, there's a car! It's driving on the wrong side of the road! How freaked out are you? I'm not anymore, actually, it doesn't bother me. Anyway. You just get to see my lovely face, talking and moving and being highly entertaining. Because that's what I do. Take care!)

I went back yesterday with proper directions filed away in the back of my head...

(7/23 EDIT: 'Lost in Mitaka, Part 2' video is imbedded below.



Transcript:
So we're set up for Day Two of 'Lost in Mitaka'. Hopefully this time there will be less 'Lost' and more 'Mitaka'. And the cicadas are out in full swing, so I decided to go ahead and let you guys know what the plan is. I don't think there are going to be as many pictures this time, except possibly really tourist-y ones of the inside of J-Mart and Gourmet City. Uh, aside from that I'm just going to be walking, so. Enjoy!)

... and this time got lost in J-Mart, the Japanese equivalent of Target, because I couldn't read any of the labels to help me find what I was looking for.

(7/23 EDIT: 'Lost in Mitaka, Part 3' video imbedded below.



Transcript:
So after returning to ICU 85% successful as opposed to zero, and with my hair just as impeccable as when I left, [NOT!!!] I'm realizing that it would have been much more appropriate to refer to this as 'Lost in J-Mart' rather than 'Lost in Mitaka'. Spent no less than 20 minutes, and probably something more like half an hour, wandering around, lost, in what's essentially the Japanese version of Target. Because I couldn't read. Anything. And was not actually looking as hard as I probably should have been. Literally walked past the sunscreen three times. Walked past the towels that I wanted four times. And basically just had no idea what was going on. Eventually, though, I got three of the four things I went to get. Couldn't find any bug spray; found plenty of things to kill the bugs, you know, if they were on the floor or in my bed, but I figured Madeline wouldn't be too pleased with that and neither would my body. So, no bug spray, unfortunately, which means lots more, lots and lots more bug bites. Which I will, you know, have to whine and moan and complain about some more; they're HUGE, by the way, and really painful. But the moral of the story is not to try and go shopping in a store where you can't read anything because it will take you six times as long as it normally does. Was fun though, so, you know. I take it where I can get it.)

Eventually found what I needed and headed back to campus where I had...

SUIKA AND HANABI (Watermelon and Fireworks):

One of the girls that I met at Ikebana, Marina, invited me and a couple other exchange students to eat watermelon with her and another friend of hers, Mei. The watermelon is one of those things that just SCREAMS summer to most Japanese, so it was pretty cool that they let us join in. It was also a ridiculously delicious watermelon to boot, and apparently grown by Mei's grandmother.

Some of Marina and Mei's other friends--Haruka and Seira--joined us as we ate and between the nine of us we demolished the whole watermelon. Mei, Seira and I also had a watermelon seed spitting contest which was tons of fun.

After it got dark enough and we finished the food and were sternly reminded by the campus police that fireworks were not allowed on campus (before we'd even busted them out, by the way), Haruka left to find a good firework place while we grabbed bikes and then the rest of us we biked over there (I borrowed Andrea's bike because I still haven't bought one). We spent a good hour and a half or so with the fireworks. Another friend of the girls', Ayumi, showed up later on too. I would have a picture of everybody together at the end of the night, but my camera batteries died before the end of the night. :( I'm planning on stealing Erica's copy, though, so I'll slap that up ASAP.

So, other than the TONS of bug bites I got sitting in the grass, it was a GREAT night! (Even though I got basically NO studying done... Whatevs. I'M IN JAPAN. I can study/learn kanji and grammar anywhere, I can only eat watermelon/do fireworks with my Japanese tomodachi [friends] when I'm in Japan so... SUIKA AND HANABI WIN OVER STUDYING!!!)

SADOU/CHADOU:

Today was the TEA CEREMONY!!! Which is the reason for my whining and complaining about seiza at the beginning of the entry.

The image above is an example of the seiza sitting style. Yes, his feet ARE under his butt. And YES, I DID sit like that for most of the hour of the tea ceremony--both the demonstration and the one we participated in. x_x

(7/24 EDIT: 'Anna Whines About Seiza' video imbedded below:

Transcript:

So I'm realizing it probably would have been a good idea to do a pre-seiza in order for the post-seiza to be more effective, but, you know, whatever. This is Anna having spent forty of the last sixty minutes in seiza which is which is a Japanese sitting style where basically your feet are under your butt. And you have no circulation to the lower half of your legs. It's, you know, fine for the first five minutes and then REALLY horrible for about the next fifteen, and then once you're through that, you actually don't feel much of all--much at all unless you're stupid enough to get out of seiza and, uh, make your legs wake backup instead of being asleep and then you try to go back into seiza and your legs are like 'wait, wait, wait, I thought we were done with this shit!', which unfortunately I was dumb enough to do. On several occasions, actually. But that's okay because I had really awesome tea and went to a really awesome tea ceremony, and it was basically made of win. And got complimented on my sipping skills and on my ability to read. It was not actually my ability to read, my ability to apply my reading to my real world. So. Anyway. YAY TEA CEREMONY...)

As with most of the other activities, we began with a BRIEF demonstration of the ceremony before we got to participate in one. As with most of the other things that I've found in these cultural activities, it was really engaging and centering to watch a student of the art perform the ceremony with such precision and focus. This is perhaps ESPECIALLY true for the tea ceremony or sadou because of it's central properties, four of the most important of which are wa, harmony; kei, respect; sei, purity; and jaku, tranquility. It is the role of both the host and the guest(s) to respect and be aware of the ceremony and each other throughout the sadou. It was pretty amazing to watch. As the sadou was being performed, one of the other students explained what was going on to us and I'm going to do my best to convey some of the main points of the ceremony to you.

The guests enter the tatami room one at a time already in the seiza position and do not break it throughout the sadou. Once in the room, the guests move to appreciate the tokonoma (a special kind of alcove), usually containing seasonal decorations and a scroll with a Japanese proverb. Once all the guests have entered, the hostess moves to the front of the preparation room (which is separate from the serving/entry room) and the guests and hostess all bow to one another. The hostess then brings in the tools for the sadou (cups, tea [powder], whisk etc) from the preparation room, leaves, and returns with okashi--sweets served before the sadou. Although she presents the okashi to the guests, the guests do not eat them until instructed by the hostess which doesn't happen until she has begun making the tea.

It was at this point that the importance of the principles--namely sei and jaku--were first made very clear to me: The hostess 'cleans' the cups and several other implements even though everyone knows they were cleaned before the guests arrived; this shows the hostess's desire to let the guests know that the purity of the sadou is important, as well as to focus her mind on the ceremony at hand. After everything has been cleaned and the tea whisk is properly prepared by dipping it in hot water, (along with other specific, meaningful actions that were, unfortunately, totally lost on me, but seemed to revolve around preparing to make the tea in the proper order,) she places the (powdered) tea base in a bowl/cup and adds hot water. At this point she invites the guests to eat the okashi while she whisks the tea.

The okashi are served on a piece of paper with what looked to me like an oversized toothpick--it was essentially a small stick that was pointed on one end. Using this, the guest cuts the sweet and eats it in small pieces. After finishing, she places the (glorified) toothpick back on the paper, folds it over the toothpick and replaces it in front of her.

Shortly after this, the hostess brings the tea to the first guest who bows to the hostess, takes the tea, places it between her and the next guest, saying osakini meaning, loosely, "Excuse me for going before you". After that, she takes the tea bowl in her right hand and says to the hostess otemae choudai shimasu meaning, loosely, "Thank you for the tea". The guest then takes the bowl in her right hand, turns it (in approximately 45 degree turns) twice clockwise with her left hand so as not to drink from the front and begins to drink.

After finishing, she makes a sipping sound to let the hostess know that you enjoyed the tea (and also, I think, to let her know that she is done [reason that this is important to follow]). After this, the guest wipes the place where her lips touched the bowl with her fingers. She then turns the bowl counter clockwise twice so that the front is again facing the hostess and replaces it on the floor before her. The hostess comes to take the bowl and asks if the guest would like another cup. After the guest has had all the tea she wants, the hostess informs the guest that she is going to clean up the ceremony.

This, as with the initial preparation, is made up of many small, individual, mindful acts including, but not limited to, the 'cleaning' of the tea scoop, the replacing of the water ladle, and the rinsing out of the guest's bowl. (I don't actually remember if that last one comes before or after the hostess offers the guest another cup... bummer) After the cleaning is completed, the hostess leaves the room to the preparation room and she and the guests all bow to each other. This concludes the sadou.

These pieces were all performed (for one guest) in the demonstration sadou, but we only ate okashi, drank tea, and tried to remember all of the steps in the drinking of the tea. I should also mention that this is just the bare-bones version of the tea ceremony; higher-level sadou have many more guidelines.

One other point of note is with regard to the arrangement of the room:

The arrangement of our room was a little different from this, but this gets the main point across and lets you see where the tokonoma is with respect to the guest's entrance. The point that I wish to make here is that the hostess doesn't look at the guests throughout most of the ceremony. The diagram above is a little different, but for our demonstration sadou the hostess entered the room, prepared the tea and otherwise sat at a full 90 degree angle to the guests. I believe that this, as I said above, contributes to the guest's need to let the hostess know when she is done with her tea.

ALSO, I'm not sure if it's called sadou or chadou; the students at the ceremony called it sadou, but my friend Yoko called it chadou and my dictionary said you can use either one. Either way, it's written with the characters for tea (茶) and path(道). As with kendou, budou, and other traditional Japanese arts, the art in question is usually referred to by the base of the art and the character for path so that they mean, loosely, "The Way of ~~". Thus, the tea ceremony is called 茶道 which, depending on whether you use the Japanese (kun'yomi) or the Chinese (on'yomi) reading, is read chadou or sadou respectively. I decided to go with sadou since that's what the sadou students called it.

WHEW!! I'm not actually sure how I remembered as much of that as I did or if anybody made it through that it one piece, but YAY!! It is now documented for me for years to come. If anybody has other questions or curiosities feel free to drop me a comment or an e-mail and I'l do my best to answer.

ONE OTHER THING OF NOTE:

AH! I totally forgot the other thing that I did yesterday!! There was a demonstration of koto playing as well as rakugo, a type of historical Japanese one-man comedy. I wasn't originally planning on going which is part of why I forgot; I also didn't have my camera so I don't have any pictures right now, but I'm hoping to get some from Andrea later on.

The koto, as I'm sure some of you know, is a Japanese string instrument that rests on the floor and is played using picks attached to the thumb and first (two? three? I don't actually remember) of the right hand. Each of the koto strings has a (sort of) fret that is used to maintain the pitch of the string. Unlike a guitar though, rather than a tightening of the string, the frets are moved to change the pitch of a string. We had a group of four ICU students play two songs for us in a group. It was pretty exciting to watch them stay together and keep tempo without a conductor; it was pretty inspiring.

After that was rakugo which is one-man comedy in which the comedian sits on a stage or kouza in the seiza position and, using only a fan and a handkerchief as props, tells a long, humorous story. The stories usually have dialogue between two or three characters (sometimes more, sometimes only one), with the differences between them portrayed only by a slight voice change and/or turn of the head. One of the ICU students told us a few such stories in English, which was pretty exciting.

So... YEAH!! YAY FOR SURPRISE CULTURAL EVENTS!!

Okay... *thinks* I think that's all that I have for you guys for now... The pictures for the events described above will be up later.

(7/23 EDIT: Pictures can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031858&id=1186934580&l=8fc613089c

Enjoy!!)

Annnnnd.... I think that's all from me for now.

Hope you enjoyed!! Take care!

~ Anna