In commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the establishment of Diplomatic relations between Singapore and Japan, there was a chakai (tea ceremony demonstration) at the Asian Civilisation museum today and tomorrow. It brought back fond memories of my days of learning the tea ceremony many years back.
The demonstration yesterday was known as the Showashiki and it emcompasses a whole procedure from flower arrangement, preparing the incense, making and drinking tea and writting down poems. The whole procedure lasted for 45 minutes but it was a very wonderful experience for myself. It was rare to see such performance in Singapore as usual the performance is only limited to the tea making procedure. I had witnessed a similar procedure in Japan many years back at my tea school - EnshuRyu.
Narrator at the ceremony spoke about enjoying this unique moment. The intricate movements of each steps in making the tea is with the host thinking for the guests and the guests thinking for the hosts. It's a mutual harmony among the people in the little tea room, and appreciation for each other's thoughts. Even if the same ceremony is perform again in another time by the same person with the same guest, the moment will be different. The tea will taste slightly different, the temperate of the room will be different, the mood of the person will be different, their feeling and thinking will be different, the environment will be different,etc. I felt she is so right... every moment in our life is unique and we can never repeat it. So we should learn to treasure every moment, cos it will be different and unique.
Here are some photos I took during the ceremony.
The host is preparing incense.
The host then proceeds to pass the incense to each guest to sniff.
This is an interesting ceremony because there is the use of Tana (Shelf) and there are 2 types of natsume (tea container) - one containing tea powder for making the koicha (Thick tea) which comes with a bukuro (bag) and another for containing tea powder for making ushucha (light tea). Actually till now I cant really tell the difference between the two tea powder. I believe strongly they are the same tea powder of smaller microns (extremely fine) is preferred for koicha.
The interesting part about this demonstration is that the guest got a chance to make tea too. A box with little tokens were passed around and a guest was picked to drink and another to drink the tea. Noticed it's another lady who is making the tea this time.
The host returns afterwards to clean the utensils after the performance and on request by the guest, she will be showing the utensils that she had used in this ceremony. During a tea ceremony, it's interesting to note that all the utensils are meticiously clean before and after the ceremony. It symbols the purification of the soul and the attentiveness of the host towards his guest rather than the physical cleaning.
In traditional Japanese table etiquette, after eating, it's a custom to return all the utensils back to its place including closing the lid for the soup bowl and placing the chopstick back in the tray, etc. And the cleaning of the utensils for the tea ceremony and returning back to their place itself is also a very part of the tradition of completeness.
Upon finish of the tea ceremony, the guests together with the host came together to make poems related to each flower arrangement that each individual made earlier. Traditional ink stacks was used. The guest was grinding ink from an ink stick and using a brush to write down her verse.
Each guest would also proceed to use washii (rice paper) to clean each brush and absorb the excess ink from the ink stack before returning to the host. Washii is something that guest must bring for eating okashii (sweets) that is served before drinking of the tea.
After writing down, the guests read it out loud and shared with the other guests.
The demonstration is done by School of Urasenke. The steps and procedures from the small details like folding of the fukusa (handkerchief use in tea ceremony) and chakin (tea cloth for cleaning of the bowl), walking, whisking of the tea, style and steps are all intricately very different yet very much similar in form and meaning from my school and of course with other schools.
Oh!! And i ran into a friend while watching the showashiki demonstration. She is going to perform on the 10th Sept 2:00pm at the same place. Ganbare!! Yoko!! p(^_^)q
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