Life. Japanese Tradition

Kimono, Japanese literature, Tea Ceremony...

[scones-jp]

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6EJ-wh1gD8から)

[thekimonolady]

A random sample of kimono coats, capes, and shawls from kimono seller Soubien.

[keichan0722]

This is traditional Japanese fashion. #kimono #Japan #Tokyo #streetstyle

[geisha-kai]

October 2015: maiko Ichiharu of Gion Kobu by ettore vivo on Flickr

[fymodernflapper]

Lady with kimono, (Masao Horino1933).

[scones-jp]

I love this pic

[scones-jp]

Tartan-checked red Nagoya-Obi belt. This is what I made You could wear it for Christmas with golden accessories and a green banding

[scones-jp]

Shibuya - this isn’t true Japan, travelers.

This picture is what I took on the way home from my workplace. I change train at Shibuya St. to commute.

There’s a big crossroad in front of the station, and many people walk across. And many travelers take photos.

As long as I know, people walking around here is too much mixture like this; - travelers from foreign countries and the countryside in Japan - young people who just moved to Tokyo from other areas in Japan

- business persons working around here - people living in the suburbs but shopping here today There're specific types of people on each town in Japan, like Ebisu has adult and cool people, and Ginza has rich and traditional people (Maybe I'm exaggerating, though.) But Shibuya doesn't have such specifics. So sometimes it's fun but sometimes it's tiring. :(

[scones-jp]

Waka - Japanese poem - for autumn. Hi, The more deeper autumn goes, the more I recall this waka, Japanese poem. Okuyama ni Momiji Fumiwake Nakushika no Koekiku toki zo Aki wa kanashiki Japanese looks like this. 奥山に紅葉踏み分け鳴く鹿の声聞く時ぞ秋は悲しき This means, I'm going deeply inside of the mountain as making my way through autumn leaves. Hearing a deer crying, I feel autumn is sad. The 1st picture is what I took beside the building where I work. Even though I live and work in a city, but I still can feel autumn everywhere like trees on strees. And the 2nd picture is acorns I picked up under the aok trees in the 1st picture. I like to collect them and decorate my desk with them. They're cute and I can feel nature even at work. The 3rd picture isn't about leaves but Tsubaki, a camellia which my team ceremony teacher gave me in the last lesson. I heard there's a certain rule to arrange flowers in a Japanese tea room, instead of just cutting and put flowers in a vase. So, what do we Japanese feel about season change generally? According to our historical literature and my own feelings, we feel sadness that everything can't stay at the same place and is changing, even if it's your precious thing - we find such a common point with nature, and we feel beauty there. I'm not sure if people in the other countries feel the same way, though.

[scones-jp]

Hi, a friend of mine went to Showa Kinen Park (Map), and took pictures there. It's autumn in Japan, and we like to go out watching autumn leaves, which have many colours like yellow and red with gradation.

[scones-jp]

Last year my friends and I wore Kimono (Japanese traditional cloth), went out and hung out. This picture is what was taken when we went to Edo-Tokyo Open-air Architectural Museum where many old buildings were gathered in an area. This building looks very Japanese and kimono suits this atmosphere, but I myself go with kimono everywhere like McDonals and Starbucks. People there are surprised and show their face like wow, every time. Kimono is that rare in Japan in this contemporary era. We're losing our culture and trying to look western, that means cool in main stream. I'm writing this blog about Japanese culture because many people don't listen to me and don't care our own culture. I'm hoping people in the other worlds may be interested, that may cause recovery of our own tradition... Nowadays our business is getting worse little by little, and workers are exhausted with old school working style. That's fair enough because it was good when we followed and tried to catch up with western countries. But after catching up, we lost our goal. Now Japanese are trying to be Apple or Google by devoting ourselves like working for 20 hours a day. Will that lead to future success? I don't think so. I think we have to first establish what we are by looking back at our history, so that we can have our own goal.

[scones-jp]

I used to have a book club like a film "The Jane Austen Book Club" with friends of mine last year. We read Japanese old literature, gathered at cafe, and talked about what each of us felt about it. One of the works I can't forget because of the mysteriously beautiful world, is Shunkinshō (春琴抄) by Junichirō_Tanizaki (谷崎潤一郎). We Japanese seem to love this story, and it was filmized several times. But this is not a simple happy story. The main character woman is beautiful and has talent of music but is blind and has cruel personality. She always has mean attitude to her servant man. But at the same time, they seem to be in a relationship though the story directly describes so. The stage is in Osaka that has different culture from Tokyo, and used to be a central business area in Japan. The era is about 100 years ago, and this timing is similar to impressionism in France. I imagine the world during the era - everybody wears kimono (Japanese traditional cloth), there must have been big distance of social positions, and the society was full of traditional culture like music, fashion and buildings. Reasonably this is a crazy story but should attract you. I recommend you to give a try :)

[scones-jp]

Wagashi - Japanese sweets. Last time I practiced tea ceremony with friends of mine, I prepared two kinds of sweets. One is a pound cake, I baked it by my oven. I cut it into some slices so that the friends take and eat one easily. Another one is wagashi. There’re so many kinds of wagashi, but what I used there was raw one. It’s cold and watery. For now I don’t have a skill to cook wagashi, so I bought it. As long as I know, there’re 3 shops in my town Ebisu, which resides in center of Tokyo. Two of them are in the shopping malls; Ebisu Agre and Ebisu Garden Place. The price is about 200 yen to 400 yen a piece (2USD to 4USD). When you take a short walk and buy coffee in a shopping mall to be refreshed at a weekend, you buy wagashi for tea ceremony at home - this is a pretty good life style, isn’t? ;)

[scones-jp]

Calligraphy is one of what we Japanese have to improve in our life. Even though computer is used on every situation, we face some occasions where we have to write and show characters such as business letter and wedding.

Historically we’ve been using brush instead of a pen, and brush is harder to control because of the sensitiveness.

So I had some lessons of calligraphy from a teacher. The top picture shows the difference between before and after the lessons. The left one is after, and the right is before. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

The bottom left picture shows my notebook and brushes for my personal practice at home or some cafe. They’re small and mobile so I can take them to a cafe, and practice as drinking coffee. Recently the McDonals near my place has Mac Cafe, special drinks and good atmosphere, and I go there to practice sometimes.

The bottom right photo is my room. I sit here in this silent room, and it’s like meditation.

[scones-jp]

Every year when fall comes, I recall one waka (Japanese poem). Aki kinu to Me niwa sayaka ni Miene domo Kaze no Otoni zo Odorokarenuru In Japanese, it looks like this. 秋来ぬと目にはさやかに見えねども　風の音にぞおどろかれぬる In Japan now it’s already cold and winter is getting closer, but this waka is about the beginning of fall. It means, it’s hard to see from your eyes clearly, but we notice fall is coming by the atmosphere of wind It’s humid and hot here in summer, and we pass such hard days during the season. It’s not full of flowers but only Sarusuberi (pink flowering tree) is seen. It starts to get hot after rainy season in July, it’s really hot and you can’t stay out of a building in August. Hotness still remains in September, and finally it gets cooler little by little. The waka is suitable for that timing. You could whisper this waka as walking on the street. You may be able to feel cooler and imagine beautiful scenery in the next season full of red and yellow.

[scones-jp]

About two weeks ago, I and my friends went to Okutama, far from center of Tokyo, and it’s west side of Tokyo.

We rode a bicycle for some hours like 4, as taking lunch in the middle, and taking short breaks little by little. Each view from the small roads for walking and biking, was really nice. First I tried to take pictures to remember each beautiful scenery and tiny piece of cute things on the ground, but I gave up. There're too many beautiful things there. So I started to try to stare each of them to feel from my body, instead of capturing via digital equipment.

Okutama - this is where it takes about 2 and half hours from center of Tokyo by train. Sometimes I feel tired of dirty air in this megalopolis especially when I drink Starbucks coffee as walking on a street, because of too many cars and their gas... So it's really good to go out like this to feel nature and breeze clean air, so that I can get back creativity.

You know, people may be able to create beautiful works from nothing, only from your brain. In a city, there're only human, and no creature nor forest. But I think we need stupulation from nature to create new things for the future. This is how we should do often.

[scones-jp]

Hi, this is the sound I like when I practice tea ceremony in my apartment.

I have a Japanese style room here, so that I can practice even at home while I don't attend the tea ceremony lesson by my teacher.

Sometimes I turn on iTunes to listen to calm jazz, sometimes I don't use BGM, when I practice. I hear this sound in calm atmosphere at home as practicing, which is kind of meditation. I basically just repeat the same rule of behaviour in the practice every time, even though I try to improve my behaviour, that I think makes me feel relaxed. And each behaviour seems to me deeply holy. It makes sense that I feel holy when I practice tea ceremony, because its root comes from Buddhism.

[scones-jp]

On the last weekend I went to Ginza, traditional & sophisticated area in Tokyo, where there're many brand shops like HERMES and Dolce&Gabbana.

Despite of such western brands, there're still Japanese traditional shops for tea, flowers, Kimono and etc.

First my girl friend rent kimono at Suzunoya ( http://ginza.suzunoya.com/ ). I have my own kimono and wore it home. 

I picked her up there and we went to Uogashi-Meicha ( http://www.uogashi-meicha.co.jp/shop/ginza/ ) to drink and buy green tea. We bought a ticket on the first floor, and we stepped to the second floor to have a seat. Staff there served a cup of sweet Sake first, and then served Gyokuro, very strong tea, condensed like espresso. And she brought 3 cups of Sencha, daily type of green tea. Every tea tasted good :) The price of the ticket was about 800 yen (about $8).