Ylva and Kajsa I

Ylva, me, and Kajsa (in that order) on the Togetsukyo bridge in Arashiyama.  (Photo courtesy of Ylva Henrikson)

In the beginning of August, I got an E-mail out of the blue from two young women from Sweden, who were coming to Japan and wanted some guidance into the world of noh.  I met them at the end of the month in Asakusa over a sushi meal.  They are contemporary dance artists and were researching for a performance inspired by Mishima Yukio’s modernized version of the noh play Hanjo.  The story centers around a young woman, who has been left by her lover, who promised to come back after he finished some pressing business.  She becomes distracted to the point of madness and wanders Japan looking for him.  In the noh play, she eventually meets him at a shrine in Kyoto.  In Mishima’s play, after spending every day in a train station in Tokyo, waiting for him to come, he comes to her home, but runs away when she doesn’t recognize him.  In Mishima’s case, he doesn’t seem to understand her madness.

We spent the sushi dinner talking about folktales.  After I told them the basic plot of “Hagoromo,” in which an angel comes to earth to bathe in the ocean, and while she is unaware, a man takes her clothes.  The story is known nearly all over the wold as the swan maiden tale.  Ylva then told me a contrasting tale from Sweden.  There, in the deep forests, a beautiful young man sails the rivers in a small boat, with no clothes on, playing the violin so exquisitely, anyone who sees him draws near, slips and falls into the river, drowning.

Hatsugama

My performance of “Yuki” as the host of the thin tea ceremony (usuchaseki)

I’m a little behind in my posting. On January 14, 2007, I had my first major performance as host in a tea ceremony for hatsugama. Hatsugama is the first tea ceremony of the year, with much pomp and circumstance, at least with my teacher, Matsumoto Soei. To effectively pomp myself up for the performance, much effort went into my outrageous hair and trailing sleeve “furisode” kimono.

Usually, hatsugama tea ceremonies take place at a teacher’s home or in a traditional Japanese setting. However, my teacher and her older sister have continued a tradition established by their mother by holding their hatsugama at hotels in a effort to adjust to the times and to accommodate the many students and their guests efficiently. In this version, guests usually sit at tables and the host will perform on a small stage. Afterwards, a full course meal of French cuisine is served and the students do skits, perform a sort of talent show, and have party games in a banquet hall to top off the occasion.

The Birthday Party

Remembering a dream the night before – mist over the rice paddies in Kameoka

When I heard Alex Kerr’s birthday party was to be held at his home in Kameoka with many guests and fine entertainment, I could not quite imagine what it would be like. I had only read of his house in his book, Lost Japan, and created a fairytale image of aesthetic perfection in my mind. Since beginning work at Iori, the company of which he is chairman here in Kyoto, I’ve learned that aesthetic perfection is second nature to Alex. I’m reminded of a time shortly before guests were supposed to arrive in our arts dojo, when Alex transformed our driveway into a garden lounge. In the arts dojo itself, Alex kept a set of two gorgeous crane folding screens from the Edo period (roughly 17th century) until recently. When we prepare for a full-scale arts program, Alex takes the arts dojo as his canvas and creates within it a balance of art and space that becomes a stage for Alex’s magic. With this in mind, my excitement of seeing his home at its finest only increased my excitement for the party.

On Monday…

On Monday, I took a trip to Heian Shrine with my friend Hana. We were in search of wisteria, those luxurious hanging vines covered in small blue flowers. We didn't find wisteria, though we did find…

A New Blog

It’s cherry blossom season in Kyoto

I have been living in Kyoto for almost 2 years, and I want to start this blog to write more seriously about thoughts from my experiences, from Japanese literature, and from my various traditional arts classes. I have been taking private lessons in tea ceremony for two years, took lessons in wearing kimono for one year, and I recently started lessons in Japanese calligraphy and Noh theatre. Although I do have a food blog, Cooking with Chopsticks, I wanted an outlet that forced me to organize more serious observations. And so, everything I write here is a work in progress. Please bear with my strange flights of reason (if they may even be called reason instead of fancy).

Whenever I meet a European or North American unfamiliar with life in Japan, the divide between East and West is brusquely revealed. I felt the same divide when I was graduating high school and realizing most of my education thus far had been quite Euro-centric. I write this blog to begin refining my own understanding of Japan. If in the process I might help someone understand my fascination with the beauty of Japanese arts or help someone understand a theory in Japanese thought, I will consider my writings a huge success.

Finally, in choosing the title of this blog, “While the Mountain Sleeps,” I drew on a poem by Yosano Akiko, and applied it to my own drive towards certain goals.

“Mountain moving day has come,”
is what I say. But no one believes it.
Mountains were just sleeping for a while.
Earlier, they had moved, burning with fire.
But you do not have to believe it.
O people! You’d better believe it!
All the sleeping women move
now that they awaken.

Yosano, Akiko. “Mountain Moving Day.” River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko. Trans. Sam Hamill and Keiko Matsui Gibson. Boston and London: Shambhala Press, 1996.