Japanese Tea Ceremony
The Way of Tea, or more commonly, the Japanese tea ceremony is an art. I got lucky enough to get a live demonstration by a very unassuming Japanese ambassador's (to Oman) wife, Mrs Yoshiko Morimoto, last morning at the ambassador's residence.
She's a lovely woman with excellently styled salt-and-pepper hair. Her smile is lovely, her eyes delicate, warm and she wore a kimono that I would easily give up a month of chocolate for.
"The tea ceremony is something young girls learn before marriage along with ikebana. It is a traditional ceremony that involves many rules.Everything about it has to be elegant without being ostentatious and always has to reflect humility and grace," she told me.
In a lovely alfresco setting where everything was laid out for her, she demonstrated the highly ritualised routine. Here are pictures.
Labels: ambassador, culture, Japanese tea ceremony
posted by Sandhya Menon @ 11:24
9 Comments:
Totally agree about the Kimono! I remember drooling over descriptions of kimonos in Memoirs of a Geisha - this one reminded me of that!
And ah we too had our tryst with the Japs when we were in Oman. My husband defeated the secretary to the ambassador in a tennis match that went into 3 tightly contested sets! From then he invited us to all functions at the Jap embassy. From ikibana sessions to origamy demonstrations - we attended them all. Also attended parties at the Jap embassy - where I being a vegetarian ate only dumplings and tried not to look at the large fish in menu!!!
sigh...those were the wonderful days :)
Totally. Kimonos are gorgeous. Although, why haven't you written more on the tea ceremony itself?
Hi Deepa: always nice to be in the diplomatic circles.
Judy: Because of my woeful lack of knowledge on the subject. Anything I knew would come out of wiki. I didn't want to link wiki another time. But maybe I'll add what I know. Thanks!
Forgive me
The kimono matches curtains back in india.
Poor ligthing eh ??
Scarlet: Whose curtains?!:P
No, it was day light but overcast. And I never use flash. So, the dullness. Maybe I should photoshop it for brightness or maybe you just need to brighten your screen :)
My bedroom curtains back home.( bought from Qatar a decade ago )
As if it is a gr8 thing to do " i never use flash " (smirks);-)
may be you can shoot in raw next time and adjust for whitebalance later
i am talking abt the third pic . U used ISO 200 to compensate for the lack of flash and ended up with a dark and grainy pic
ayyeee
Scarlet: Great thing? What are you smoking this morning? The italics is to emphasise the strength of the word. Not to say wow, look at me i am so hot (which i am, but that's hardly the point.)
FYI, I didn't ISO 200. And thanks for the basic photography lesson. I'll be sure to look you up for more.
nice. I think she is beautiful.
She's graceful and smart at the same time. Feels like one could learn things from her.
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