Uji Sakura

Well, hanami (cherry blossom viewing) has officially begun.  The warm weather of the last few days has finally brought these shy, delicate flowers out for all of Japan to admire.  This ritual has literally been going on for centuries.  Once the province only of the Imperial Court hanami now has an almost religious fervor with large festivals, casual picnics and even news forecasts on when and where the sakura are blooming.  And just as with the turning of the maple trees in the autumn the arboreal paparazzi turn out with their large, earnest cameras to shoot any floret dressed in a pale pink.

As an amateur photographer I have noticed that they are much more difficult to capture than the autumnal maples.  The pale pink or white, almost translucent blossom disappears against the day sky.  The trees are still skeletal with no leaves to give volume or depth to the picture.

The sakura bloom for about a week.  Strong winds or a heavy rain can significantly shorten the viewing time.  It is this transience that makes the sakura so symbolic.  They are more than just the beginning of spring for the Japanese.  They represent the Buddhist concept of mono no aware, or the impermanence of things, and the serene melancholia that comes with this realization.  Like life, one must catch the sakura while one can, before they disappear.

Musing

聞  Listen

思  Think

提  Accept

修  Practice

信  Believe

Inscription on a stone tablet at Honenin Temple (法然院)

Kekkonshiki

The third day of spring was a bit chilly for a wedding.  But the sun was shining and the skies were blue and the couple tying the knot were gorgeous.  My friends Taka and Natsumi honored me with an invitation to their traditional Japanese kekkonshiki at the Oharano Shrine in Nishikyo-ku in the southwest corner of Kyoto.  People come to this 1,100-year-old shrine in particular to pray for a good love match and good marriage, so this was an appropriate venue for their wedding.

I arrived with my friend and date for the day, Keiko just before 10:00AM.  Nishikyo-ku is really the countryside on the edge of a lush forest.  I noticed how quiet it was immediately.  The only sound was my shoes/her zōri on the gravel and the swish of fabric from her kimono.  After a cup of ocha the 30 or so guests went out to the stone gate to greet Taka and Natsumi as they arrived.

They were ravishing in their traditional wedding clothes.  Natsumi in her uchikake kimono and wataboshi veil seemed to be floating rather than walking.  Taka looked like a nobleman from another era in his pleated, striped kimono.  There are so many subtle details and accessories to a kimono; it's difficult for someone like myself, from outside of the culture to understand the symbolic meaning behind these features.

Going against the trend in Japan for Western/Christian-style weddings Taka and Natsumi opted for a traditional Shinto ceremony which was spectacular in the most quiet, unassuming way.  While I didn't understand a word, I could appreciate the ritual, the solemnity of the rite.  The garments of the priest and his assistants were a brilliant complement and contrast to the bright vermilion-colored wood of the shrine.

The reception and an amazing kaiseki meal followed.  No disrespect to the couples whose weddings I've attended over the years, but this really puts the typical American "chicken or beef" options to shame.  This was one exquisite course followed by another followed by another over about four hours.

Like an American wedding there was the ritual circulation of the wedding party around the room where they welcomed guests and poured sake and beer.  But this was all done at floor level, shuffling around on one's knees.  In fact the whole event was done at the height of an Ozu "tatami shot".  The beautiful bride did not/could not participate in this movement.  The kimono, however graceful and flowing it may appear, is a fairly restrictive garment.  I think the uchikake worn by brides is even more difficult to move about in.  Natsumi literally had a sort of handmaid attending to her the whole day.

Once the main courses were finished there was time for diversions.  Taka and Natsumi had assembled a very clever animated video of their courtship.  That was followed by some sensational karaoke by the bride, groom and their parents.  Then Natsumi brought the house to tears with a speech thanking her parents for everything.  This is where language comprehension is unnecessary because it is raw emotion that does the communicating.  I was teary-eyed myself without understanding anything other than arigato.

This is a day I will not soon forget.  I can't begin to express my gratitude to Taka and Natsumi for including me in such a special occasion.  A wedding is an extremely personal event.  Even the biggest celebrities try to keep it intimate.  I feel like today I somehow went to the deepest part of Japan.  I could live here 20 or 30 years and always be a gaijin, but today I felt a part of something.  Arigato gozaimas.

Kokyu

Japan has a certain sound.  It comes from an instrument called the kokyu.  The music made with this instrument will instantly locate you in Japan, from the very first note.  It is something like the way the banjo locates you in the U.S. or the bagpipes send you to Scotland or the tamborim takes you to Brazil.

This three-stringed instrument played with a bow is unmistakably Japanese.  If you were a Madison Ave. advertising agency and your client wanted to market some product for Japan, you could simply add some music from a kokyu to the commercial.  Likewise, if you were a filmmaker from the West and wanted to be sure the audience knew the movie was set in Japan you could open the first scene with a few notes from a kokyu.

I went to see a performance at be-kyoto gallery featuring a musician that played this unique instrument.  I was mesmerized by the sad, far-away sound.  There was a loneliness to the music.  I was transported to a quiet meadow blanketed in snow, an empty street before sunrise, a forest of bamboo dancing in the breeze.  I was a solitary monk on a narrow mountain path.  It was extraordinarily cinematic, this music. 

It seems appropriate that a culture that is so deeply rooted in Buddhism would have an instrument capable of creating such beautifully lugubrious sounds.  The Buddhist concept of transience, after all, is closely associated with melancholia and sorrow.  It is an essential part of detaching or withdrawing from the material world.

Indeed, with the kokyu guiding me, I felt as if I had left the material world, if only for an hour. 

Ephemera

Walking to...

Walking from...

Inoda

I am living in the Land of Tea.  Tea in Japan is more than just a hot beverage; it has deep cultural significance that goes well beyond infusing leaves in boiling water.  One could go so far as to say all Japanese culture grows outward from tea.

But I'm not here to talk about tea.  That is a subject much too weighty for a Gaijin of 5 months to discuss intelligently.  I'm here to talk about coffee, Japanese coffee.

Inoda Coffee predates Starbucks by more than 30 years.  Founded in Kyoto in 1940, there are 11 locations across Japan, compared with Starbucks 20,000+ across the globe.  But I'm not here to compare Inoda and Starbucks (because there is no comparison).

Inoda harks back to an era before paper to-go cups, when attention to detail was paramount.  I have not been to the original Inoda, but the cafe on Sanjo-dori has a lovely mid-century charm to it with rosewood paneled walls, over-sized swivel stools in chocolate brown vinyl, and a sleek stainless steel kitchen.  The staff behind the large circular "kaunta" all wear white jackets with black bow ties and paper forage hats.  They do not chit-chat with the customers or among themselves.

It reminds me a bit of Cafe de Flore in Paris with its monogrammed cups, saucers, glasses and ashtrays.  In fact, like the Flore, you can purchase any of these items.  But you will not hear the waiters shouting, "Un express!" at Inoda because there is not an espresso machine to be found here.  This is classic drip coffee poured one order at a time with great care.  What?! Robert Wallace, the Cappuccino Kid, drinking drip coffee?!  This, I assure you, is no ordinary drip coffee.  It is not your home Mr. Coffee maker or your industrial Bunn machines.  This is pure, freshly roasted, perfectly brewed, gracefully poured goodness.  I might even say the Inoda "German-style" coffee is the best cup I've had anywhere.

I am guessing of course, but besides an obviously superior bean and excellent roast, it is the exactness of temperature that makes this cup of coffee so good.  The staff go to great lengths to make sure your cup of coffee is served at the optimum temperature.  There are half a dozen burners in the central island.  There are old-fashioned enamel coffee pots on some with a low, even flame and coffee ready to pour for the customer.  There are large pots of water just under boiling on others.  This water has two purposes.  It is ladled carefully through fabric filters containing precise measurements of ground coffee into giant enamel jugs.  This in turn is poured as needed into the smaller, more manageable coffee pots.  The hot water is also used to heat the cups before the coffee is poured.  Cups are gently dunked in the water.  The specialty blends, like my German-style, are made by pouring hot, but not boiling, water through paper filters into small glass pots, which are also pre-heated with hot water.

Everything is done with rhythmic precision to maintain that perfect temperature.  It may sound complicated, but it is really incredibly simple, and totally Japanese.

Katsura Rikyu (桂離宮)

After two on-line rejections of my application to see Katsura Rikyu, the Imperial Villa, I decided to visit the Imperial Household Agency in person.  
"When would you like to go?"
"Um...tomorrow, ashita."
"Okay.  No problem."
Sometimes the internet is good for nothing.

Completed in 1615, Katsura Rikyu is considered one of the great gardens of Kyoto.  So I didn't mind that it took two trains, a subway and almost an hour to get to this south-west corner of the city.  It was a rather chilly morning but the weather forecast called for sunshine and comfortably cool temperatures.  I was hoping to see some pre-spring splendor, sakura buds ready to burst.  What I got instead was a freakish late winter snow storm.

Unlike my last encounter with the Imperial Household Agency in the autumn when I visited Sento Gosho, the pace of this tour was a bit more hurried.  The shutterbugs that trailed behind were encouraged by a rather large security guard to keep it moving.  Maybe he was cold and just wanted to get indoors.

The snow began falling shortly after we entered the garden, but was light and pleasant beneath a still mostly blue sky.  It melted immediately.  About halfway through the tour it became a little more zealous, clinging to the trees and grass and bare heads of the visitors.  I was smiling, but others in the group were less amused by Mother Nature's trick.  No sooner had it begun to turn the garden a soft white than the sun came out and transformed it into sparkling silver water droplets.

This is spring.  As long as I have lived outside of the dull and predictable springs of southern California I have marveled at the battle between the seasons, winter trying desperately to hold on to what was his for the last 3 months, and spring pushing hard for an introduction.  It is literally a fight.  We, as spectators, should find a good seat and enjoy the match, maybe laugh a little.

Myoshinji (妙心寺): notes and impressions

Monks in indigo-dyed samue, wooden geta stone-clacking.  Smell of burning wood.  Temple as black as fire.  Gardeners busy, winter repairs ahead of the sakura.  First signs of spring.  Children innocently ignorant, their playground has 600 years of history.  Silver-gray skies.  Coats unbuttoned.  My paintings are here.

Musing

Life delineates itself on the canvas called time, and time never repeats; once gone, forever gone; and so is an act once done, it is never undone. Life is a sumiye-painting which must be executed once and for all time and without hesitation, without intellection, and no corrections are permissible or possible. Life is not like an oil painting, which can be rubbed out and done over time and again until the artist is satisfied. With a sumiye-painting any brush stroke painted over a second time results in a smudge; the life has left it. All corrections show when the ink dries. So is life. We can never retract what we have committed to deeds; Zen therefore ought to be caught while the thing is going, neither before nor after. It is an act of one instant. This fleeting, unrepeatable and ungraspable character of life is delineated graphically by Zen masters who have compared it to lightning or sparks produced by percussion of stones.

The idea of direct method appealed to by masters is to get hold of this fleeting life as it flees and not after it has flown.

- D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, vol. 1 

Easygoing

Sometimes you just know.  You open the door, next to the usual umbrellas there's a skateboard.  There's bossa nova on the stereo.  You see the proprietor - scruffy gray beard, a wool beanie, cigarette.  You sit down at the long bar.  There are fresh vegetables in various bowls and baskets, not for display, but to be used in the kitchen, which happens to be just the other side of the bar.  Well-used pots and pans hang from the ceiling.  The heavy, cast-iron stove is from another century.  It is caked with decades of blackened food splatter.  The walls and cupboards are stained with time and distillates of meals past.  There is a vague organization to this perfectly disorganized workspace.

This is the kind of cafe/bar that would probably not pass a California Health Department inspection, and would make most Americans (even some Japanese) U-turn out the door.  I smile.  Somehow, remarkably, there is nothing dirty about it.  It is age and love that marks everything, not filth.

Akira, the proprietor, speaks some English and we talk about the nearby temple Myoshin-ji from which I've just come.  He shows me photos of some of the temples he has been to in the Kansai region and his nokyocho (a sort of passport book for collecting temple stamps).  We talk about cooking too.  Photography is his hobby, but cooking is his passion.  There is a warmth and calmness to him, something unassuming, reverent.

Without looking at the menu I ask him to make me something.  As I expected he approaches cooking like an artist.  It is a joy to watch, not because he is a showman, but because you can see he has a real feeling for food and its preparation, and he cooks with flair, moving around his kitchen in a fluid rhythm.  The meal is simple and tasty.

Some other people arrive including his teenage daughter and her friends.  He introduces me to each person, as if we were old friends: my name, where I grew up, where I'm living, what I do, etc.  He and the others conspire to find a way to extend my visa and keep me in Kyoto.  He offers a room in his house above the cafe, or at the temple - he has friends there.

"Raku Raku" is the name of the cafe which means something like "easygoing".  Yeah, Raku Raku.