Tuesday, October 27, 2009-

Today the Bato High School’s 茶道 Sadou – Tea Ceremony club threw an official welcoming ceremony in honor of the ALT Grace Lee and myself. The whole event took all of 10 minutes but it was impressively handled and both Grace and I marveled at two facts. 1) As we sat there I turned to her and said, “Isn’t it weird that this kind of ceremony has been going on for literally several hundred years?” The realization that the USA has nothing such as this helped only to increase our fascination and respect for the art; 2) We were told that each of the cups we were served cost several hundred thousand yen, or a couple thousand dollars! At first we thought the translator had his numbers wrong and asked him to tell us again. It turns out each cup is individually crafted, fired, painted, and sold with a special style and name attached to it. Some cups are less expensive but the truly official ones are incredibly costly! In a ceremony where delicate movements and precision are valued it’s easy to see why when handling such pottery.

Afterwards the club showed us how to whisk the tea and turn the cup in the proper fashion. It is all very precise and the motto theme of Peace, Quiet, and Tranquility is displayed in the special calligraphy that adorns the wall. The flowers are also hand picked up in the mountains and change for each season. The dessert that is served is a sweet, soft, and tasty little piece of artwork all by itself. It is made from Anko and it is so important to the Japanese that there are entire shops dedicated to making it. Apparently the powdered green tea that is used (incredibly rich and thick with a slightly bitter aftertaste- thus the sweet dessert) is also pretty expensive. All in all we felt very honored and as though we’d been offered a glimpse into merely one of the traditions that is Japan. Luckily I still have 9 more months to discover some of the rest…

The wildflowers and calligraphy

The Anko dessert! Isn't it cool?

PS sorry my English is getting worse and worse, it’s taking me longer to write these blogs because my typing is so horrible = \