Sado is one of the most famous traditional Japanese customs and I was extremely excited about attending it. There are only a few things that I've heard about it before: that it takes years to learn how to properly serve tea and that it's extremely hard to sit in the right position for the whole duration of the ceremony. And, surprise surprise, that there are rules about how to behave when attending a ceremony. Of course I didn't know any and was probably behaving like a barbarian.
The women serving tea are dressed in kimono. There are 5 tatami mats arranged in the room, and a place for a tea pot in the middle. The room is decorated with a flower and a sumi-e painting, both are chosen according to the season.
Before drinking tea, you are served a small sweet on a special Japanese paper. Every time you eat or drink you have to bow. We drank matcha. It is prepared by whisking green matcha powder by a bamboo whisk into hot water. It is served in a nice bowl, carefully heated before puring the tea water inside. You should drink one bowl in 3 to 4 sips. If you make noise sipping, it means that you like it. After drinking, you should observe and admire the bowl.
The ceremony is as much about enjoying and watching the preparation and the ambient as it is about drinking tea. It was a wonderful experience.
If I wanted to describe it step by step, it would take pages, and I only observed - I don't even know all the rules! In the end they lent me a book so that I can read more about it.
10 comments:
Oj, zanimive stvari se ti dogajajo! Imaš srečo, da ti je dano vse to. Jaz sem se čudila japonskim navadam v knjigi "Jaz, gejša". Poznaš? Lp Mateja
Tina, čudovito pišeš. Ne znam opisati, kako uživam. Ta post je še posebno lep.
Hvala Mateja, da si me spomnila na to knjigo. Tudi mene mika. Tina, uživaj, ko to lahko doživljaš prav tam.
Knjiga je super, mene pa je še bolj navdušil roman Gejša, ki ga je napisal Arthur Golden - po njem je bil posnet film ... To knjigo sem kar požirala. Od takrat si želim v Kyoto :)
Jaz sem gledala film "Memoirs of a Geisha" po knjigi z istim imenom. Mateja, ti govoris o kaksni drugi knjigi?
V Kyoto grem gledat Geishe cez 2 tedna!
I know. I envy. ;)
Ja, dve knjigi sta.
Poljubčki na Japonsko.
Kako lep prostor (soba). Nobenega pohištva, na steni slika, na tleh skodelice za čaj in ikebana. Jaz bi tudi imela tako. Tina, uživaj in lep pozdrav!
Breda, tako imajo oni tradicionalno doma. spalnicah nimajo postelje, ampak iz omare potegnejo blazine (rece se futon) in na tem spijo. Vedno so bosi in sedijo kar na tleh, tudi televizijo gledajo zlekneni kar po tleh (spet na futonu). Ko pa ne rabijo vec, pa pospravijo stran in je prazno in lepo.
This has generated a lot of discussion in Slovenian... :)
I couldn't bear doing this kind of thing. I'm terrible in situations where it would be bad to laugh, because I end up wanting to laugh, and so get the giggles and generally behave badly. I'm assuming laughing in a tea ceremony is taboo. I once got the giggles at a war memorial service in a church. Very, very, very bad.
They tolerated a lot of my bad behaviour, just because I was a foreigner!
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