Chado

During staying in Japan, I had a lesson of the Japanese tea tradition.  When I tell foreigners that I have learnt it for more than 13 years, most people have a question why I learn it such a long time.  For them, it is a subject such an art and economy which study in universities, so they would wonder that we keep practise it so long.  I understand some, but I suppose that the tea tradition is one of performances such a classical music and ballet.  When I start learning it, I thought that it is to learn how to make a tea and drink.  However, after I had learnt for about 7 years, I thought that we would learn the spirits which host treat precious guests warmly.  Then now, I think tea ceremony is mid-space arts using atmosphere, behaviour, consideration and five senses, sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches.   For example,  we can enjoy not only tasting green tea but also sounds of boiling water, watching flower and calligraphy, and other factors.  Each rules have meanings, and only guests who knows the tea culture can have a really good time, because they can understand the host's thought.  It seems that those communication is difficult to obtain completely in a short time.  At first glance, you may feels too stiff and formal about the manner, but if I can convey how to comfort to someone, it would be my pleasure.  Furthermore, if you are interested in URASENKE which is one of the Japanese tradition in London, please visit the follows site ( http://www.urasenkeuk.btinternet.co.uk/ ).

When I go abroad, in particular, more than one month, I notice that I do not know about Japan such as culture and geography.  Although we can imagine representative cultures easily, some people has a difficulty to explain it to foreigners.  I suppose that there are three reasons.  One is  most people don't have experiences about almost of Japanese cultures practically.  Second is difficult to convey them correctly in terms of vocabularies and  specific nuances, i.e. in most cases, there is no expression and sense in foreign countries.  Third is we hardly discuss about our culture among the Japanese in daily life.  Therefore, I would like to recommend a book "A Bilingual Handbook on Japanese Culture" which introduce not only Japanese cultures but also numeric statement, geography, government policy and modern cultures such as PACHINKO and cartoon.  Certainly, it is explained simply not in details, but we should read it once for ourselves.  It is the same meaning either we explain the Japanese culture to foreigners after reading this book or the foreigners read it by themselves, but I believe that imagining the situation for the Japanese is easier than foreigners do.

Thank you for your reading to the end.