May 12

May 12

Our first lecture of the morning was by Swanson-sensei on Japanese art history during the Asuka, Hakuho, and Nara periods. Swanson-sensei noted that although she largely tries to expose us to secular art, since that's more applicable to chado, the influence of religious art is inescapable, and today we would see some images of religious art produced in the time after Buddhism was introduced to Japan in 552 (or 538). Since Buddhism was introduced from outside of Japan, naturally internationalization was a theme during these periods, with influences from Korea and China. Swanson-sensei pointed out that in the Buddhist art of these periods, similar standards of beauty applied to both aristocrats and deities, so that images of Buddha and bodhisattvas have clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and poses that reflect contemporary aristocratic style (luxurious rather than modest). One image in particular that stuck with me portrayed the Buddha flanked by a pair of bodhisattvas in contrapposto postures. Swanson-sensei also told us about Shōsōin, a sort of "time capsule" of Emperor Shomu's belongings established in Nara by his widow after he died. Wikipedia reports that although "collections are not open to the public, selections are shown at Nara National Museum once a year in autumn." So, note to self: go visit Nara in the autumn. Also, Hamana-sensei seems to have forgotten that we've already been introduced to outside teachers like Swanson-sensei, Tanihata-sensei, and Matsunami-sensei, so each time we have another lecture from them he insists we 1As introduce ourselves. No one has spoken up and told him we've already done this.

Next Hamana-sensei lectured on more tana: Rikyu-konomi maru joku (unfinished paulownia wood), Rikyu-konomi Kakudana, Rikyu-konomi Tabidansu, Sotan-konomi Koraijoku, Sotan-konomi maru joku (ikkanbari lacquer), and Senso-konomi kuwa kojoku. I took notes at a furious pace, as is typical during a Hamana-sensei lecture, but I couldn't keep up with his descriptions of the kazari for shozumi, after koicha, after usucha, and sokazari, the first of which I'd never done and the last of which I didn't know the meaning. So I felt pretty lost toward the end of each tana description. I suspect we'll be expected to know this stuff when we get to it in jitsugi. :/ Guess I'll be scrambling for some reference materials.

That afternoon was our chance to do kokodana usucha, with Imagawa-sensei IIRC. I went first, and I didn't do too badly. The day's omogashi was karagoromo 唐衣 (meaning "ancient Chinese clothes") by Surugaya 駿河屋, pictured here. And other than that my memories of that day's practice have faded. That'll teach me to procrastinate so long in posting an update.

May 13: chatsumi kengaku

Friday, May 13 was our day to visit tea manufacturers in and around Uji.

First we went to Marukyu Koyama-en in Ogura. We sat in a tatami room with some other visitors who weren't native Japanese speakers (so they could take advantage of Hamana-sensei's English-language interpretation of Koyama-san's remarks), drank a little shincha, and watched an English-language video on the production of matcha and other types of tea at Koyama-en. I think we 1As had seen some of this video during our orientation with Hamana-sensei during the first few days of this school term. Afterwards we walked outside to some of the fields where they grow tea plants in the most traditional way (shading with rice straw rather than black plastic), apparently for competition entries rather than for sale in this case. We got to walk among the shaded tea plants, watch tea pickers at work, take photos, and even pluck a leaf or two to taste the flavor of the raw leaf (which actually tastes nothing like matcha). I was surprised that we had so much access to these tea fields. We were lucky that the weather had cleared up after a series of rainy days when I gather we wouldn't have been able to go out into the tea fields.

Next we got a tour of the initial processing facility, a building right next to the fields where the leaves are steamed and dried very soon after they're picked. We had a chance to taste the leaves right after steaming (they tasted sorta like cooked spinach or asparagus, not appealing to me) and after drying (crunchy and less intense). In the next building, where the subsequent processing takes place, we weren't allowed to take photographs. Here were sifting and wind-tunnel machines that separate the stems and veins from the fleshy part of the leaf, which is of course the desired part for matcha. We saw displays of the various separated parts; the nice fleshy part is called tencha at this point. And finally comes the mesmerizing grinding part, where hundreds of motors slowly turn hundreds of millstones to grind the tencha into the fine powder we call matcha, all in a room whose cleanliness—except for the matcha particles—probably rivals some of the spacecraft assembly facilities I've been in.

After the tour we gathered in an upstairs room to drink as much usucha as we wanted and eat little skewers of yummy chadango. We chatted with some of the other foreign visitors; I met a matcha enthusiast from China, and I overheard a few words of Spanish pass between Stefen and some visitors from Spain. Of course there was a gift shop on the premises; I bought some matcha-flavored baked crepes, matcha financiers, and a little cannister of tencha for cooking (e.g., sprinkling over cooked rice like furikake).

In a building next door we ate the bento lunches we'd picked up earlier at a convenience store. We were pleasantly surprised when Koyama-san appeared and gifted us each with a small cannister of their shin-matcha along with packets of sencha, genmaicha, and houjicha. Here are my pictures from our visit to Marukyu Koyama-en.

Next we rode in a conveniently-sized nine-passenger van to Uji-Kanbayashi Memorial House. I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures here; perhaps they weren't permitted. On the first floor of this museum we saw some big old chatsubo and scrolls depicting tea production of yore. The processes were basically the same as today's, just less mechanized. On the second floor we saw an area with a skylight (facing northward, IIRC) where the tea manufacturer uses this very specific, consistently-illuminated environment to evaluate his teas and create blends of teas that combine good color and good flavor. Farther along the second floor are displays of official documents granting names to Kanbayashi teas from O-iemoto in various eras. We learned more about the process of packing and transporting chatsubo from Uji to Edo. What interested me about this were the various layers of security. Beyond the armed guards protecting the chatsubo, the mouth of the jar was sealed with layers of something like papier-mâché (tamper-evident seal!). And if I understand correctly, a document listing the contents of the chatsubo was overlapped with another sheet of paper and either stamped or written on (with brush and ink) across the edge so that if the manufacturer or any other party kept the second sheet of paper, it could be used to authenticate the list by seeing whether the stamp or letters match up. This is an authentication technique also mentioned by Hlawatsch-sensei during our Japanese history lecture last month in the context of ship manifests, which is the first time I'd ever heard of it, and I'm curious to know more. Have any of you heard of something like this? I wonder whether it has a name. Afterward we perused the Kanbayashi retail store, where I bought a canister of 松風の昔, chosen largely because I could read the name, which is something I can't say for most names of matcha (yet!).

Next we crossed the main bridge in Uji and walked over to Fukujuen Uji Kobo, a center where the famous Fukujuen tea company offers a number of different workshops. We were there for the matcha-grinding one, so we headed to a laboratory-like room where we were each set up with our own millstone topped off with a little pile of tencha. We turned the stones counterclockwise, ideally at a rate of one revolution every three seconds, and slowly matcha accumulated in the shallow moat surrounding the bottom millstone. Honestly, I enjoyed turning the millstone, and the fifteen or twenty minutes it took to grind a few grams flew by; of course it helped that I was surrounded by chatting, laughing, photo-snapping classmates, so it was hardly drudgery. Once all of us had ground our tencha into matcha, we added hot water and whisked it and drank it. Not bad at all! We were served houjicha yokan as well, but we un-customarily saved that for after the tea so that we could taste the matcha with a relatively uninfluenced palate. I don't think I'd want to hand-grind tea for, say, a chaji (as a previous student once did, leaving him precious little time to practice his actual temae), but it was a satisfying experience. I enjoyed the feel and sound of the heavy stones slowly turning and gnashing away at the tencha caught between their grooves. And of course I enjoyed the result, but then, I get to enjoy that every day, a privilege I ought not take for granted. Here are my pictures from our visit to Fukujuen Uji Kobo. I'm definitely interested in returning there to explore there other workshops, including ones on sencha-do, rolling sencha, and roasting houjicha.

Before catching a train home we stopped at the Asahi pottery gallery to catch a glimpse of the unique asahiyaki pottery with its pastel hues and light splotches. Alas, the pieces we saw were much too dear for my budget. The potter enjoyed chatting with my Finnish classmates about their country, which he had visited some forty years ago, and we enjoyed looking at his work and that of his son, who's carrying on the family pottery tradition.