TEA CEREMONY

For the last couple of months I've been in training. Training to pour tea. Prior to the Culture Festival at my Junior High School, friday afternoons have been devoted to club activities. These range from traditional dances, playing Japanese drums, making pottery, etc. This left me with free time to study, prepare for classes, or, more likely, write on my blog. But I decided to be a student. So I went along with my students to learn how to perform Tea Ceremony. Having always been a big fan of anything tea-related; tea, tea-pots, tea-cozies, tea-bags, tea-spoons, tea-time, tea-bone steaks, etc. Basically anything but tea-totalling. So I guess it's only natural that I should also want to learn about Japanese tea. Some people might think it's kind of girly to serve people tea whilst kneeling down and being all polite and whatever. But if you look at my current hairstyle, or even my face, you'll see I have no problems with being girly. But as it happens, tea ceremony used to be widely practiced among the Samurai. Before going into battle it was traditional to perform the ceremony. The Samurai considered it both cleansing and calming, and it was taken pretty seriously. So if you see me pouring some tea, you better watch out, I might just be getting in the zone for some head chopping.

Learning Tea Ceremony has brought me more pain than both my kendo classes and last winters snowboarding put together. Learning to sit in the 'seiza' position (kneeling with your feet tucked under you) is almost unbearable if you haven't been brought up practicing it. Even the kids I was training with fell over on occassion and whimpered once in a while when their circulation was completely cut off (at least I think it was them whimpering).

I had agreed to perform in front of the parents and students during the Culture Festival. This had me genuinely scared. No one would really care if I messed up, but there's just so much to remember. I bought a book with English instruction and in it there are over 140 steps to one serving of tea. My actual instruction was all in Japanese, and thus I didn't understand anything but the body language. I'd also missed some of the classes because of meetings, etc. And it wasn't until the night before that I was finally studying the Japanese phrases I had to say whilst serving the tea and sweets. So, of course, I was a bit nervous before the event.

On the day over one hundred people came for tea during the festival lunch break. Students, parents, teachers, principal, BOE employees and what not. My head was spinning, '5 steps at the start, 3 at the end', 'rotate the chawan twice towards you, then twice away at the end. Or is it the other way around?' 'wipe the chashaku 3 times before pouring and twice after. 3 times? 3 times? what??' And everyone was so busy with everything else I couldn't hassle them with my last minute questions.

But, of course, it went fine. I'd been practicing seiza in my apartment in the evenings and could now bear the pair a lot longer. My first serving was aided by Sensei discreetly whispering directions, albeit in Japanese, as I tried my best to look like a natural Japanese. Second time round I was fine, and ready for the calls of 'Encore' that never came. It was a good experience, but I'm glad it's over.

To be brutally honest I don't find Tea Ceremony cleansing or calming. I find it painful and frustrating, but I'm glad I learned it. And I certainly understand why the Samurai wanted to kill people after spending half an hour just to make a cup of tea.