Tea Ceremony

A Monday Morning Bonus Blog!

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As a reward for my shameless plugging, the school let me join one of their traditional culture classes for free last week.

Short explanation: GenkiJACS offers a variety of course things, of which I'm taking the simplest (and cheapest!) one; just four hours of straight up language class per day. If you want to, you can supplement by having additional conversation classes or some level of culture class (traditional or pop (yes, pop culture does indeed mean what you think it means. Otakus of the world rejoice!)).

So I went to a "n00bs introduction to tea ceremony" last Thursday. This involved borrowing a yukata (simple summer Kimono thing),

The pretty colours are pretty! <3

taking a shoji screen selfie (of course),

Votes are up: Do I love selfies too much?

making tea,

I am apparently something of a tea-whisker natural talent. Who knew!

and then drinking it.

Very carefully crafted yum!

And yes, this did involve me sitting like that (in traditional "seiza" position) for 45 minutes. No I did not give up. After the first 20 it didn't hurt anymore anyway, because I completely lost contact with every sensory organ below my waist. Although admittedly, when the ceremony was done, my process of standing up was not the most graceful moment of my life so far, nor was it a particularly expeditious affair.

But in all seriousness, this was a very cool experience. This tradition is (I think) uniquely Japanese, and very fascinating. As this class was a primarily explanatory thing, I would love to do it again in a more organic fashion to really get into the spirit of the thing.

There is still so much I don't understand about Japan, but I really enjoy learning a little bit more every day. And on that sappy note, I wish you a very happy Monday.