Tea “Beyond” Japan Part 2: Chanoyu in the Diaspora

Tea “Beyond” Japan 

Tea Beyond Japan @ Daibosatsu NY 2009

Part 2: Chanoyu in the Diaspora
Originally published Kyoto Journal #71, 2009



Please also see Part 1: Americans Studying the Traditional Japanese Art of the Tea Ceremony: The Internationalizing of a Traditional Art by the late Barbara Lynn Mori)

I am not your typical or natural tea student: a left-handed, cross-country skiing, Jewish feminist. Studying chanoyu for the past 24 years has been both challenging and intriguing for all those reasons. I have been fortunate to find a great teacher who can teach me. I have been encouraged by her to make the practice my own within her very formal teaching.


In 1987, after having studied Urasenke chado in Los Angeles for almost three years as one of less than a handful of students of non-Japanese heritage of the Distinguished Tea Master Sosei Matsumoto, sensei, I was invited to apply to the Midorikai program for non-Japanese people at Konnichian in Kyoto for the first of three short-courses (i.e. part-time); the others being in 1989 and 1991. Now 24 years into the practice, I’m anxious to write the next “chapter” about American tea practitioners of chado. It will chronicle how tea “beyond” Japan has been manifest in the “diaspora” through the individual and collective efforts of those of us who have embraced the premise and practice of chado. Here is a taste.



Formali-tea



While Urasenke has the largest number of non-Japanese tea student ranks, other schools have gaijin and nihonjin (people of Japanese nationalities) students, teachers and practitioners, including Omotesenke and Mushanokojisenke (who with Urasenke, constitute the largest and primary progeny of Sen no Rikyu, the root teacher of tea practice established in the mid-16th century). There are many other formal tea schools, including but not limited to Edosenke, Dainippon Chado Gakkai, Enshuryu, Sohenryu and Yabunouchiryu, among others (See Wikipedia for an interesting extensive list.)  with branches wherever people of Japanese heritage live. Periodically, their top teachers are sent forth from the headquarters to us in the hinterlands to teach, and expat devotees make pilgrimages to take refresher courses, participate in annual and special events, etc. back in Japan.



American chajin are encouraged to go to Japan to study in advanced courses, but these programs are conducted in Japanese language only. Annually for Urasenke, there is a conference, in Japanese language with translation, that is held in Hawaii. It is attended by many folks who wish direct connection with the grand tea master and other top members of the family.



Urasenke, has a Seinen-bu “youth group” system which encourages visits from Japanese counterparts. In Los Angeles, the “youth” group, which includes folks up to 45(!) years of age, hosted a group from Kanazawa.. The entourage, headed by the 10th generation grand master of the Ohi pottery family Chozaemon, participated in a large, beautiful public event at the Huntington Gardens’ Japanese House. They brought wonderful utensils and even water from a famous well. On another occasion, that of the start of the Pan-Pacific Yacht Race, another official Urasenke group was hosted at the famous Marina del Rey with festive public tea demonstrations and a kencha offertory tea ritual held for the sailors’ safety on the high seas. 

These unquestionably lovely events have been held on Japanese terms. The question of the integrity and sustainability of a universality of chado practice – one outside Japan – needs to be explored on if it is to be proven truly universal in spirit.

 [Note: Since that time, the Huntington's Japanese Garden has been redesigned, the Japanese House restored and Seifu-an, Arbor of Pure Breeze) a Japanese Tea House has been added.]

Always a Guest ... 



When I first was a guest student at Midorikai in 1987, I was quite lost, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, in my own wonderland of tea. I had no benefit of any life-sustaining proficiency in Japanese language and discovered that use of tea ceremony conversation in “secular” settings was not productive or even appropriate. I can’t read kanji, and in fact, when I reported for the first day’s class, kimono and new tabi socks in a bulging furoshiki carrying cloth, it was to the wrong school’s headquarters! Once set on the right path, it became perfectly clear to me that to get the most out of the experience the best strategy was to err on the side of formality by focusing on acquiring the skills of a good guest. Was it audacious to think that I, a foreigner, could be the host sometimes as well?



It was easy to develop a sense of privilege as a “foreigner” in this environment, both as one who was visiting at the behest of the Grand Tea Master and the other, as one whose place in the full, orthodox chajin hierarchy was most likely always going to be off the radar screen if only Japanese standards were applied.



That sense of being a “foreigner” in tea upon returning to the USA, continued, inappropriately I felt, especially as I was drawn deeper into the study and practice. it seems most appropriate to practice in a vernacular that enables me to access more of the spirit from which a bowl of tea can be made. I found that I wasn’t alone. There are lots of folks who are into tea in and “beyond” Japan. How to find them?



Urasenke’s Resources for Foreigners



The Urasenke International Association Kokusaibu (headquarters in Kyoto) has employed several graduates as teachers editors and administrators of the Midorikai program. They have been, for the most part North American bilingual males, many of whom had begun their tea studies in Japan around the time of the Vietnam War. Despite their excellent proficiency and loyalties to their teachers / employer, they have never been admitted to the formal ranks of gyotei and mizuya teachers, the official ranks of men whose families historically are patronized to serve at the discretion of the grand masters’ family, I hope they will find a way to share some of their experiences with us by composing their own memoirs when the time is appropriate (1). 

The long-lived Midorikai students were then, and it seems remain, a mix of free-spirited and deeply serious 20–30-year-old college graduates from the Americans, Middle East, other parts of Asia, the Soviet Union, Australia / New Zealand, South America and Europe. All were extremely helpful to me when I was visiting. 

As then Hounsai Oiemoto, now the retired Grand Master Daisosho Genshitsu Sen, Urasenke XV had hoped, a number of Midorikai graduates became the vanguard of Kyoto-supported Urasenke Foundation branches or who work in liaison offices 21-cities world-wide; others are teaching chanoyu independently throughout the USA and in their homelands (2). But, sadly, the vast majority have not institutionalized their practice with the same vigor. This has been a disappointment to the family enterprise, and, in light of the bursting of Japan’s economic bubble, a realignment of the program took place.



Another critical change has been the cessation in 1999 of publication of the scholarly and useful Chanoyu Quarterly, a journal with translations of other works and new articles in English which was excellently managed by editor Gretchen K. Mittwer through 88 volumes (3). In 2008, now six years since the ascendance of Zabosai Oiemoto, as Sen Soshitsu XVI, there is are several fine English language publications of use to non-Japanese literate practitioners, including A Chanoyu Vocabulary: Practical Terms for the Way of Tea, Urasenke Chado Textbook and English for Use in the Way of Tea (with kana references that are handy for us who do not read but who do understand the audible conversations, vocabulary, etc.), all of which may be found online. While there is a two-volume beginner “guide” to studying Urasenke Chanoyu sourced from Chanoyu Quarterly, and a few other general publications authored by members of his family, unfortunately, most of the other, more technical books -- especially the "Green Books" and contemporary periodicals - Tanko, Nagome, titles on flower arrangements, cooking, and others of a more general nature -- issued by Urasenke’s Tankosha publishing arm are not translated from Japanese. 

While one cannot learn tea from a book (or even the Japanese language videos now offered), it leaves those of us who continue to study without language proficiency at a loss. This is all the more reason to find other tea folks with whom to create a critical mass of like-minded community.



Sustainabili-tea


"we" Chajins @ Sunrise Springs NM, 2000

 
In 2000 a group of Midorikai alumni, other Urasenke students and a few active tea practitioners from Omotesenke, some 30 women and men mostly Americans with 10 – 30 years chado experience -- decided it was time to get together. The group had no structured or formal “we;” its impetus was a reaction to various urges of dedication: to tea practice, to Urasenke, to each other as long-distance acquaintances. The “reunion” was unofficial, neither sanctioned nor supported by the Kokusaibu. It was decidedly “informal” within an otherwise very formal world. (In a most perfect world, I was to have asked my sensei for permission to attend.) We connected without pretense, purely on our own terms, to assess our collective resources, expressed in our own vernacular, to witness the spirit of tea, as we expressed it, “beyond Japan.” 



While it was a bold, perhaps radical undertaking contrasted to the be-true-to-your-school path that is the hallmark of most institutions in Japan, at no time was there any will to discount lineage or to create a new way of tea for 21st Century outside Japan. We sought to strengthen our individual experiences of chanoyu by finding others who were entrusted with other pieces of the “puzzle”.


The first one was held at Sunrise Springs, a retreat center in Santa Fe New Mexico, with four other biannual gatherings at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center (north of San Francisco) and Daibosatsu Zen Center (New York State) since then. Anyone who had a chado practice that wanted to come and contribute was and continues to be welcome. Most Japanese-native tea folks have no idea what to make of it. It falls outside their realm of activity. In 2009 another gathering, “Friends of Tea” will be held at Daibosatsu, June 10 - 14.(4)



At the first gathering, after the initial excitement of the social “reunion” of folks who hadn’t seen each other since Kyoto, we decided to figure out what we wanted to accomplish during the few days together. In addition to the residential facilities, there was tea room, utensils and lots of tea. Tea gatherings were held at-will, available 24/7, as long as host found a guest. This included the most informal styles of chabako, a picnic box style of tea procedure, which was employed daily before sunrise on the dock of the small pond on the land.



The Way to Sunrise Springs: Coffee Shop Temae

When we convened as a group, discussions were deeply serious and became an unofficial manifesto on what chado in its most seriously practiced form could mean “beyond” Japan, the role of a chajin tea person in the larger pan-national world and how we viewed our relationships with Japan. We had earnest discussions about how those of us, without formal employment by or other relationship to Urasenke, expressed our commitments to the school; some want to “give back in some way of thanks for the life-changing experience,” others want to declare a certain independence, and still others, isolated by not actively studying with a teacher, feel they have become like ronin, samurai without a lord. 

 

Some live near Japanese “towns” in their communities with access to utensils, tea, sweets and spaces to support the practice. Others, considering themselves “outlaw” practitioners, relied on the internet and mail order to stock up. Many of us developed crafts skills to create our own utensils or had commissioned works by domestic artisans. We discussed what we needed to keep our practice alive outside Japan, including making the charcoal, forging iron kettles and even growing tea! 



All in attendance seemed to embrace the concept of Daisosho’s mission in spirit, that there can be found “Peace in a bowl of Tea” wherever it can be shared by like-minded individuals. We have had no desire to create new ritual forms, but to find a way to witness each other’s chado, watching how our processes vary from each other, and to try to find ways that they can work together. Seeking ways to incorporate locally accessible resources, whether wood to build a tea room or foodstuffs for a new recipe for a kaiseki dish, it was tea presented in the spirit of sustainability!



At the final session of the first gathering, a tea ritual, we honored the teachers among us who were actively pursuing their vocation and memorialized those pioneers – our own tea ancestors -- who were not with us.



The next gatherings had more structured topical workshops and lectures, and incorporated the now signature elements of impromptu tea-making and, at the conclusion, a temae tea service performed in tandem by Urasenke and Omotesenke hosts, to seal our collective effort in time and space. Topics of discussion included philosophical foundation of chanoyu, poetry, historic writings, kaiseki tea meals preparation, and hand-made tearooms and gardens. There were practicum sessions on calligraphy, crafting tea utensils and sweets, surviving the physicality of sitting seiza, and talks by resident scholars. We’ve also welcomed craftspeople who make utensils – most notably ceramicists – who want to find new patrons for their handwork. During the gatherings at the zen centers, we were invited by the sangha to join them in meditation and service. In turn, we invited them for tea. The spirit of living with tea 24/7 was energizing.



Very few Japanese nationals have joined in; those who did have told us they are encouraged by our independent spirit of chado, something they are not necessary at liberty to find at home. Most of my Japan-born tea colleagues in Los Angeles just can’t understand what we could possibly do in that setting. My dear teacher finds them “interesting”. Folks from Europe see our model as a useful example to assemble a critical mass of practitioners across national boundaries. 

These events have also inspired another pan-school gathering, the autumn Daichakai at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga California. Established by the late Omotesenke teacher Stuart Lenox with support of teachers and students in Northern California from a variety of traditions – Urasenke, Omotesenke, Mushanokojisenke, Yabonouchi, Dai Nippon Chado Gakkai, Edosenke and others -- the annual day-long multiple-venue event is staged throughout locations in the garden that support both formal (thick) and less formal (thin) procedures, with guests (kimono preferred) accommodated on chairs and tatami, inside tea rooms and outside in the garden. John Larissou's comments about the first one remains interesting.

The “virtual” chado community has several forms. “wakeiseijaku” is an English language online group at Yahoo.com that is a network of chado practitioners, with input from people of various traditions / lineages and experiences. Since this article was written, Facebook pages (official and unofficial), blogs and other web-based sites have also been added by various individuals and schools' headquarters and branches. Additionally some of the commercial purveyors of tea, sweets, dogu and other items of necessity are being translated. There are archives, including photos and some recipes, diagrams for making tea related utensils and structures.

-----------------------------

1 For another “backstage” look at the Urasenke tea world and the practice of chado, see An Introduction to Japanese Tea Ritual by anthropologist / tea instructor Jennifer L. Anderson, State University of New York, 1991



2 It should be pointed out that all teachers of Urasenke chado are not employed by the school, family or business. Most teachers are “free-lancers” who have been granted licenses to teach from the Kyoto headquarters. Midorikai alumni are among them, as well as some having been hired to run Urasenke Foundation schools. Urasenke International Liaison offices and Foundation Branches can be found Asia: Kyoto (headquarters), Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Tianjin; Australia: Sidney, Brisbane; Europe: London, Rome, Paris, Dusseldorf, Mevzhaussen, Amstellaan; The Americas: New York, Hawaii, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC / McLean, Virginia, Vancouver, Mexico City, Sao Paulo. For more information: http://www.urasenke.or.jp/texte/world/agency.html


3 A full index can be downloaded at www.urasenke.or.jp/texte/study/book/image/chanoyu-quarterly.pdf



4 A fully volunteer-developed opportunity that has no online presence at this time, the programs have included okashi making, chashaku carving, making shifuku, discussions on the roji, tea garden and architecture, poetry and tea philosophy and many opportunities to make tea, practice zazen with the residents. A past gathering remains online http://www.friendsintea.org/.




I welcome anyone who has experience in chado to contact me to strengthen our community and celebrate this wonderful practice. lwdeutsch@earthlink.net

Tea "Beyond" Japan Part 1: Getting In the Way of Tea

Tea "Beyond" Japan   Part 1: Getting in the Way of Tea

Book Review

Americans Studying the Traditional Japanese Art of the Tea Ceremony: The Internationalizing of a Traditional Art by Barbara Mori, (Mellen Research University Press, San Francisco, 1992)

(Originally Published in Kyoto Journal, Issue #71, 2009)

It is said it takes a minimum of 10 years to begin to master (small “m”) any of the formal Japanese cultural arts, from tea ceremony to scroll mounting, karate to flower arrangement. This little black book, originally published as a dissertation but easily read and enjoyed for its balance of detail and insight, is the ultimate back-stage pass to the often frenetic world of Midorikai, the Japanese tea ceremony school for foreigners established in 1973 in Kyoto at the farsighted Sen Family’s back-lot branch, Urasenke. It is a good introduction to the history and practice of chanoyu for the uninitiated and for anyone who would seek a window on formal training in the cultural arts of Japan.

The author, Asian sociologist Professor Barbara Mori, was a student from 1983 – 1985 at the intercultural peacemaker project founded in 1973[1] by now Retired Grand Master (Daisosho) Genshitsu, then Hounsai, Dr. Sen Soshitsu, XV, as a gift to the world. Like a well-schooled teishu (tea host), Mori offers a deeply-dipped scoop on the post-graduate residential training program through which hundreds of well intentioned gaijin-cum-chajin passed for nearly three decades. Given the carefully managed relationships within this tightly regulated cultural matrix, to her credit she is relatively unabashed and, from my experience as a visitor to the program on three occasions after that, quite accurate.

                                            

At the time of writing, the Midorikai (literally “green” group) was a three-year residency program at the Konnichian compound along the Horikawa Avenue in the north-central area of Kyoto, the historic home of the Sen families since their famous ancestor, Rikyu in the 16^th century. Students were college graduates at minimum, often in Japanese studies, and some were studying on scholarships provided by Dr. Sen to institutions with which he had established direct academic relationships. Others, who were studying with teachers abroad, were fortunate enough to be invited join the full-time students in lectures, on outings and to participate in the training exercises for short periods of time. The experience was unparalleled in its exposure to the very heart of the “high” part of Japanese culture at levels very few Japanese themselves ever experience. In total over 400 people from 30 countries have participated in the program.

It has been Daishoso’s hope that once adept in the history and practice of creating chanoyu, literally the tea’s hot water, his deshi, students with a formal relationship to a teacher, would carry their knowledge and enthusiasm as teachers back to their home countries and establish chanoyu training centers throughout the world. They would promote his vision of  “Peace through a bowl of Tea”. The Midorikai program has continued with modification by his son, now Grand Master Zabosai, Sen Soshitsu XVI, to this day.

Daishoso’s plan in action incorporated strict adherence to the Japanese way of learning and doing, and embraced, in appropriate measures, the diverse cultural distinctions that could complement the signature Japanese tea aesthetic. It would be safe to say that men and women from every country with which Japan has political relations have passed through the nijiri-guchi (the small guest entrance to the tea room) of Midorikai. Americans have numbered significantly high among attendees and a handful of foreigners have served as teachers and administrators at the Kokusaibu (foreign office) in Kyoto for years, placing them among the rank of highly accomplished chajin.

Mori's book is their story. She quotes them anonymously, revealing problems coping with daily life in Japan and the school’s rigorous standards, their deflated mystiques about the exotic nature of Japanese culture and tea ceremony, and their struggles living along the dictates of a foreign social standard. Many didn’t speak or read Japanese when they arrived and had to rely on English, which was the second language of the program. Formally and informally students were expected to know and behave in accord with their place in the hierarchy of the sempai – kohai (upper / under class(wo)men), and even higher, to teachers and the school’s staff and the Sen family.

To learn chanoyu, one needs to know much more than how to boil water for powdered tea, to select and handle a utensil, to know the name of a historic fabric pattern, to prepare and serve seasonal kaiseki meals, to build a fire or hang a scroll. Chanoyu is a physical, aesthetic, psychological and social experience, one that requires a person to rely on innate instincts and academic prowess. Perhaps the most strenuous physical part is sitting on the floor on one’s heels in seiza for long periods of time. Emotionally, one’s ego can be challenged. Mori reports burnout on more than one occasion.

In addition to study about tea, Midorikai students had lectures and field trips about other cultural areas that have an effect on or are affected by tea, such as Kabuki, Noh theatre, architecture, Japanese history and Zen Buddhism (including zazen meditation practice), to name a few. Midorikai students on occasion were privileged to be counted in the Grand Master’s official entourage when he was invited to make a offertory tea for dignitaries and in historic places, such as Kinkakuji and Tenryuji temples. At the same time, students are responsible for cleaning classrooms and tearooms, organizing and presenting tea demonstrations for public events, maintaining student utensils and class records.

All of this experience is considered essential for the development of character which will produce a person who engages in chado, the Way of Tea in all aspects of her life. According to the Midorikai rules, one is expected to cultivate and inculcate the principles of “Wa (harmony), Kei (respect), Sei (purity) and Jaku (tranquilly) a part of our everyday lives. ... We must try to find out for ourselves the true meaning of self-discipline which involves a steady, determined effort to learn the Way.” [2] It is these same four principles that are to be present in a tea ceremony.

Mori’s keen observational skills enabled her to detail the impact on students of the rigors of the school’s 24/7 tea boot-camp educational style over a full spectrum of experiences, in class and out, often crossing boundaries of private space / time. According to the Urasenke website[3], “Tea to one student may be the ideal means to learn about the Japanese mind and culture, while to another the Way of Tea is a means to attain inner peace and outer harmony. Once accepted into the Midorikai program, however, students must try to fit into the social and mental climate of the strict demands of the traditional training program at Urasenke.”

Under these circumstances, however, students are hardly ever extra-curricular. Kyoto is a very small place, and, while it looks like even the buildings are indifferent if not actually asleep, nothing is so completely covert as to fly beneath the well entrenched radar of the tea establishment. One cannot step out of line without news of an indiscretion getting back to the school and having an impact on one’s standing.

“Urasenke is a kind of Byzantine court, filled with intrigue, a kind of monopoly pyramid,” commented a non-Japanese male teacher to Mori. “Errors in this system are never forgotten, and tag after you,” she reports another non-Japanese male teacher  reflecting on the career ups and downs of some of the Japanese teachers.

Urasenke configures several types of instructional programs at its headquarters, Midorikai being only for foreigners. A parallel program, Gakuen, is conducted for Japanese nationals. Mori reports one informant, a non-Japanese male student, saying, “Here at Urasenke foreigners are treated in a sort of special way. They are invited to many functions held at Konnichian at the main center of Urasenke with Oiemoto, whereas the Gakuensei (Japanese students), as far as I can see, don’t have a lot of privileges.” Another, a Japanese-American third-year student, told her, “Foreigners are not considered part of the system. On the other hand, I don’t believe non-Japanese are given the benefit of the doubt as far as learning the more advanced forms of tea appreciation.” Midorikai students who do not speak Japanese will be oblivious to the nuances of this fact. What can be understood directly from English (or through the mediation of a bilingual colleague) is a wealth of knowledge.

Midorikai rules acknowledge and Mori concludes that its up to each student to find a way to adapt to the structure of daily routine, from living in the school dorms to cleaning the school tea rooms, from dressing in kimono to studying for the next day’s practicum. Whether taking responsibility for a public event or the breakage of a class utensil, the individual becomes responsible for and to the group, and the group to the school patrons. For some these lessons are more difficult to learn than yet another way to clean a tea scoop!

Each Midorikai student has his or her own stories to tell. They all reveal the boldness and generosity of the Urasenke experiment to expose foreigners to the most intimate of experiences of Japan. Mori’s work is part one of a story that has evolved to this day. A new class of students comes in each year and the efforts of those who have graduated and are promoting “Peace through a bowl of Tea” have been manifest “beyond” Japan with great success.

To see how Midorikai fits into the Urasenke system, you may view the Urasenke English language newsletter http://www.teeseminar.de/archive/newsletters/Urasenke-Newsletter_110.pdf

[1] The first class for foreign students was established at Urasenke in Kyoto in 1970

[2] “Midorikai Rules and General Information” (61^st Year of the rule of Emperor Hirohito)

[3] www.urasenke.or.jp

Practice

The study of chanoyu, literally in Japanese, hot water for tea, is a lifetime pursuit. This is why it is called the "Way" of tea, chado.

Do: The Way

It is most likened to studying a musical instrument: we learn how to touch, to tune, to hold, to repair, to listen to the sounds of our instrument. We do scales, etudes, explore the classic repertoire, play in ensemble, informally alone.

In short, we practice.

Likewise, in the study of chado, we learn how to hold utensils, how to build a fire to heat the water (and to select the water), how to handle the tea, how to walk in the tearoom, how to identify and combine utensils in pursuit of a seasonal poetic theme. We learn the history of the practice, about the crafting and provenance of utensils. We explore the tea room's architecture and our movement within it. We also enjoy preparing and eating appropriate meals and sweets that complement the experience. it is all done with full cognizance of the seasonal appropriateness.

It is a way of being with ... tea, each other, what is in the room and what is not. 

We learn to be host and guest equally, so that we can have full appreciation of the totality experience.

We practice over and over. From one to ten and then again, one to ten. 

There's nowhere to go.