着物 (kim-Oh! No!)

After we attended the tea gathering our friends Etsuko-san and Nakano-san took us around the Asakusa market area. We had been there before, but it was nice since we were armed this time with Japanese guides. The market is a jaunty array of every type of vendor imaginable; food, clothing, pet clothing, swords, and yes, much of it is simply junk, but it is is fun to get lost in the fray. We went to what is considered the best tenpura (yes, the spelling is correct) restaurants in the area, and it was fantastic. The Japanese do things simply. They have a few recipes that are wholly Japanese and within those few recipes they have prepared them over and over in every different way possible using the same few ingredients in different ratios until it is, in their eyes, perfected. Tenpura is one of those recipes and this place delivered big time. We have always thought that staying in the restaurant business must be difficult, and here even more so when the majority of the competition is offering the same fare, one must get 100% right every time.

After lunch we walked around the streets some more and one of our friends casually mentioned that Jennifer should try on a kimono. Within the market area there are many vintage and recycled kimono shops, so we skimmed a few shops until Nakano-san emerged from behind a shelf with a beautiful garment. Before we could blink Jennifer was shoeless in front of mirror with Japanese women fluttering about her adorning her with this, that, and the other exclaiming how "suteiki" and "kawaii" she looked. Nakano-san and Etsuko-san were going around the store in a whirlwind returning to Jennifer in front of the mirror holding up other items such as, an obi, decorative ties, kerchiefs etc... next to the kimono and either exclaiming how beautiful it looked are crinkling their noses and going back into the whirlwind for another round. When all was said and done, Jennifer looked beautiful in the kimono. Most of the time westerners just look silly when they put on clothes like this. The idea sounds cool, but usually ends up looking oafish; some guy's big hairy legs protruding out of the bottom of an undersized robe that really just looks like an over elaborate bathrobe. This was far from the case with Jennifer.

Our friends promised to have their dancing teacher (Rui-sensei, who invited us to the tea ceremony) give Jennifer a lesson on wearing the kimono and with Nakano-san continually forcing the clerk at the shop to lower the price the whole ensemble was a steal that which we could not pass.

Rui-sensei met us a week later and spend about two hours showing us the correct way to wear each component. We both had to learn and I was taking notes the whole time. From start to finish, if one knows what one is doing, the process should take about forty minutes. It is complicated, and I am certain it will take the two of us well over two hours to complete the process on our own.

Tea for Two (hundred)

This past October we were invited to Asakusa (our favorite borough of Tokyo) for a tea ceremony. We actually went to what is called a tea gathering (chakai, 茶会); since it was not as intimate and there were hundreds of people. The invitation was extended to us as a thank you for escorting one of Nakano-san's friends (Rui) on base for pizza. Not sure sure how they are equivalent gestures, but I think we got the better end.

Rui is a Japanese dancing instructor and we therefore refer to her a "Rui-sensei". In the weeks preceding the event we filled our heads with hundreds of questions regarding etiquette. We were just told it was a formal event and to dress up. Our friends actually suggested Jennifer get a kimono for the event, but that is another blog update. Naturally our only knowledge of the Japanese tea ceremony were rooted in what we saw in Karate Kid II, we thought if Daniel-san could do it... Still there were questions, put yourselves in our shoes; someone tells you that you will be attending a Japanese tea ceremony; you cannot decline the invitation for fear of it being an insult. The image surrounding this event (to us gaijin) is one of solemn reverence that which cannot be broken. In reality this was not the case at all and the weeks of stressing over what to wear, how to act, sitting seiza for hours et cetera were for nothing.

The "gathering" was at an off-limits section of the Asakusa temple (the biggest one in Tokyo); so just starting out it felt special. We arrived (the only gaijin) with our group, Rui-sensei, Nakano-san, and Etsuko-san. EVERYONE was in full regalia, kimono, hakama, you name it. This made us at first feel a little out of place, but we noticed one family, the father in jeans, so we were good. We were scheduled to attend four teas. We were given tickets so that we could make reservations for each tea ceremony, kind of like the speed pass at Disney. Serving tea to hundreds of people forced each individual event to go quickly.

The first tea was nice, we sat in a small tatami floor hut, about 25 people and a trained expert in conducting the ceremony (the host) served us. There were all kinds of bows and verse to say, but we just got a spot in not at the front of the procession and mimicked the person next to us; it went swimmingly. It was much less formal and austere than we had expected. The mood was broken by one woman's attempt to swat a fly on the mat; everyone laughed including the host. Even sitting seiza was not bad.

The second tea was much different in style and flavor and we actually got to sit on little benches. The little snacks we were served tasted nothing like the looked. They look like little highly decorated cakes, but are in reality highly decorated mochi; Japanese pounded rice dough. Not horrible, just wasn't expecting it.

The third tea become the last because of time, and because of this the ceremony went longer than the others to fill the remaining time. The ceremony was in a beautiful tatami room over looking the temple garden. We were given zabuton cushions on which to kneel, I made the grave mistake of overcompensating the effectiveness of the cushion and plopped down on it. After about 15 minutes my feet began to tingle. The ceremony seemed to be moving at a snail's pace and with each passing minute the numbness in my feet crept higher on my legs. I kept looking at Jennifer, whom sitting seiza for so long seemed to have no negative effects; was she Japanese in a previous life? I was dying, sweating bullets to cope with the discomfort and finding every excuse to shift my position as subtly as possible. How could anyone do this for long and show no outward signs of what I had been feeling. There was a small child there and when the ceremony finally ended the host made a comment about how it was good for children to sit still through something like this to learn discipline. I was internally humiliated. To tell the truth I don't even remember how the tea tasted.

The day was not wasted on us (or me), it was an experience we shall never forget and it was, fanatstic to do it. Maybe I am growing up.