japanese tea ceremony

This weekend has been great, and it's not quite over yet. On Saturday I went to a camp in Tachibana Village. There were lots of AFS and EF students there. They included:

Me :)
Noemi, from Italy, AFS
Cameron, from Illinois, AFS
Daniel, from New York, AFS
Alex, from Los Angeles, AFS
Michelle, from Switzerland, AFS
Oscar, from Australia, EF
Sarah, from Germany EF

Everyone there was great, and a few Japanese students joined us as well, but I am sorry to say I forgot their names!


The site was beautiful, and I have lots of new pictures! There was a stream that ran directly through that had a bridge and a small waterfall, and a mountain path that we walked. The cutest thing happened while we were there. There was apparently a bunch of elementary school kids that were on a baseball/softball team also using the facility. Next to the eating area was a large square shallow concrete pool. It was filled with water and the Japanese children were going crazy running around the pool and splashing and grabbing at the water. When Noemi and I got closer, we saw that the pool was filled with mackeral, small fish! And the kids were supposed to catch the fish with their hands and put them in a big trash can filled with water (we didn't know until later that after all the fish we caught, they were put on sticks for the kids to cook in the fire). But they smiled at the small group of teenage foreigners that surrounded them and invited us to join. Michelle and I were the only students out of the 8 of us who would! Haha, so we rolled up our jeans and hopped in. It was hilarious. The fish were insanely fast, and so were the little kids. Finally Michelle and I each caught a fish and help them up and took pictures. Then we all ate dinner, played cards for a couple hours, and went to bed.

The next morning (Sunday), we packed up our stuff and headed home. After taking showers, Noemi and I had the honor of attending a tea ceremony at one of my neighbor's house. I will warn you right now that there were a million tiny details to this ceremony and it was beautiful, but my description will definitely not do it justice so I apologize in advance.

We walked in and took off our shoes as usual. Then we were escorted into a traditional Japanese room, with tatami mats and sliding doors with screens. Everyone else knelt while Noemi and I were led to chairs! We were obviously were being given special treatment, so we said it was really okay for us to kneel. We had been to a couple restaraunts where you removed your shoes and knelt the whole meal, so we thought we could handle it. I can't speak for Noemi, but kneeling for that long was extremely painful! Finally they offered us small stools that you sit on and tuck your legs on each side, so it mimics kneeling without putting so much pressure on your ankles and making your toes numb. I saw later that both of my host parents have caulics (spelling?) on their feel from kneeling so much during their lives, and it was obviously painful. Anyway, once we sat down and it was apparent that the ceremony was about to start, Noemi motioned to her camera and asked if it was ok for us to take pictures. My okaasan (host mother) shook her head a little sharply, so we put them away. We didn't really know what to do or when to bow and we obviously looked as clueless as we were. But we soon found that the man running the ceremony didn't mind at all. He told us we were welcome to take pictures and helped give us some instruction. Roughly, this is the order of the ceremony:

1. After kneeling, everyone is given a small paper napkin and a plate with two types of candy on it is passed around and you are to take one of each. One was a small flower shape and one was circular and wrapped in paper.

2. Then the man who runs the ceremony does a lot of stuff. He has what looks like a thick cloth dinner napkin tucked in his waistband. There are lots of ceramic cups and bowls in from of him as well as a couple unfamiliar utensils. He takes the cloth out of his waistband and wipes off some of the utensils and containers. He folds the cloth a different way to wipe each item, opening containers and checking them and such. I'm sure I am leaving some things out and will continue to, so again I apologize.

3. After all of this is done, the cloth goes back into his waistband and the actual tea part of the ceremony begins. He removes the lid from one container that contains green tea powder, and uses one of the utensils to take 2 and 1/2 scoops from the powder and puts them in a small bowl. He closes it and puts it back, and then uses what looks kind of like a wooden ladle to take hot water from a container and pour it into the bowl with the powder. After again putting everything back where it previously was, he takes what I can best describe as a small wooden whisk with a short handle and mixed it quicky. He replaces the which and uses his right hand to place the bowl on the other side of him. Then he shuffles to face the bowl, picks it up and kneels in front of the first person (which happened to be me) and places it in front of them and bows. I was expected to bow back and I did, but later my okaasan showed me the proper way to bow during a tea ceremony. Before you drink the tea you eat the flower shaped piece of candy, which sort of melts in your mouth. Then you drink the entire bowl of hot green tea placed in front of you. I later learned that I was supposed to drink it in three gulps, but at the time I had no idea. After drinking the tea, it is polite to say "oishii katta," which means " it was good." Then you unwrap and eat the round piece of candy, and the ceremony continues on down the line. After everyone has had hot tea, the bowls are collected. Then the action is basically repeated as was my understanding, but with cold green tea. It sounds so short, but when each person's tea is prepared and presented indiviually (and there were 8 or 9 people there), and the same actions are so meticulously repeated with each person, it takes a while. It was a beautiful thing to see, even if I messed up and can't remember or understand all the actions of the man preparing the tea.

After this, the man ( whose name I have also forgotten, sorry!) gave Noemi and I both photocopies of a short book called The Book Of Tea, which was written both in Japanese and English. Once I read it, maybe I will be able to better understand everything, haha. We were also served vanilla ice cream in bowls, and when I asked if this was also a part of the tea ceremony everyone laughed. "They just thought you'd like some ice cream," my otoosan laughed.

Then the man who had performed the ceremony asked if Noemi and I would like to learn. Obviously we said yes, and we got to scoop the green tea powder, fill the bowl with hot water, mix it, and present it. I hadn't realized until then that there was a specific way to hold and use each of the utensils! My okaasan took pictures of me, and they look really funny. It was an interesting experience and I am glad I had the honor to be a part of it.

Anyway, tonight we are going out for sushi at what my okaasan described as a "rotating sushi bar," so I am excited. Sushi isn't my favorite, but it's really not bad. While in Japan I have only had three things that I truly thought were, well gross. Everything else had been delicious; my okaasan is a great cook. But the three things I didn't like were:

Nato: beans with some kind of thick, sticky paste around it. I only had two or three of the beans in my mouth, but it was a taste that I can't describe as anything but bitter.

Sea Urchin: I had this when I went to lunch with my friends and the dentist. It was orange and squishy and left a horrible aftertaste. We ate Mister Donuts afterward to get rid of the bad taste.

Wasabi: I had only had wasabi in small portions before, and it wasn't bad. But when we were eating sushi that day with the dentist, we honestly had no idea what we were eating. There was a roll of rice wrapped in sushi with something green and red in the middle. Without thinking, I out the whole thing in my mouth. It was then I realized that the thick green part in the middle was wasabi. If you've ever had wasabi, especially a chunk as big as what was in that roll, you might understand why I am no longer quite so fond of it! Haha.

The funny thing is that I can only remember the names of the foods I didn't like. My host mom is a wonderful cook, but the names of the dishes are so long that I can't remember. So I have instead begun taking pictures of my dinner every night, which I think my family finds amusing.

Thanks again to everyone who reads this. Sorry this one is so long. :)