Chaji results – a Midorikai interlude

The day of the chaji arrived. The four sempai and Makela-sensei headed to Nashinoki temple, one of Rikyu’s most convenient famous water locations (and the same place where I got water for my chaji). Then we headed to Toin-seki and unpacked our groceries and remaining implements and started our preparations. We each had our tasks that we were assigned. I was assigned to rice (all of the servings) and the grilled course. The menu was as follows, with a brief description of what each course entails:

chaji first tray

Mukozuke, literally “far side of the tray” course that is served with the first ichimonji rice (slightly wet) and the first miso soup, bamboo shoots, udo (mountain asparagus) mixed with paste of miso, kinome (Japanese pepper) leaves and spinach. Miso Shiro, the “miso soup” course, was brocollini boiled in vegetarian dashi on the day with a dash of yellow mustard to taste. Nimonowan, the “simmered dish” course, was green pea tofu, Kyoto carrot flower, a daikon slice to mimic ice and yuzu pine needles. Yakimono, the “grilled thing” course, was grilled momen tofu with white miso paste with ground yuzu on top and red miso paste. Kosuimono, the “chopsticks wash” course, was a kombu water infusion with aromatic ginger slices and peach petals. The hassun items were pan-fried arrowroot cut like pine cones and sea grapes wrapped in seaweed. Konomono, the “pickled thing” course, was takuan (daikon), radish, and a green thing. During the meal, guests are served rice four times (ichimonji, hanki with rice piles, hanki with the entirety of rice, and okoge “burnt rice in water”). They also receive the miso soup twice. The koicha tea sweet was steamed manju. Phew, I’m exhausted just reading that!  All of the items were served on either lacquer or ceramic utensils. No glass is used this time of year, as it provides too cool of a feeling. We had to warm all the utensils prior to serving them to our guests.

Everyone worked hard and did well at their individual tasks and we had no major screw-ups. We did accidently forget to bring the cooking charcoal, so we grilled the tofu on a pan instead. Luckily, tofu is fragile anyway so it most likely benefited from this treatment, though the guests didn’t get that delicious smokey flavor that comes from real charcoal. We had no fish because it was an entirely vegetarian menu, and that is usually the item that used the charcoal. After we cooked, we cleaned for a bit and then took a break and ate the delicious (and generous) mizuya meimai that our kohai had packed for us. Lots of goodies and snacks that we enjoyed.  It was a long day for us, the chaji went long and we didn’t get home until 4:30 or so. But, we unpacked the dogu and let everything sit out to dry a bit better before repacking everything another day.

All and all, I would say that it was a success. Our kohai took the time to tell us how delicious they found the food and how much they enjoyed Marian’s atmosphere and dogu. The comments and suggestions we received from all three sensei were both expected and appreciated. We made mistakes and it would be nice to do a second chaji to be able to work out all the hiccups. Like Gary-sensei was saying in lecture, the more often you do something the easier it gets. Timing is especially important as you don’t want to make your guests wait for food from the kitchen or serve the food too early and have it get cold. I imagine that these are common restaurant concerns but for the three of us it was all brand new experiences.

Shodo

I’m also including a few extra “non-chaji” related pictures. The first and last shodo assignments we had. We would do a “final” calligraphy and then put our name and date it. I would hope I don’t need to explain which one was from April 2016 and which one was from March 2017.

nabe

We also had a fun nabe party at the dorm that I thought people may be interested in seeing the ingredients that were included in the pot by the Japanese participants. The group picture is of my mizuya toban group for the second half of the year at our celebratory “we made it!” party. Also, a picture during our final jitsugi lesson with the four graduating sempai. From Left: Marian (Romania), me, Tetiana (Ukraine), Grzregorz (Poland).

As always, thanks for reading!
Love Karla

last jitsugi

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Chaji – a Midorikai interlude

The weather has become warmer (thank goodness!) and the plum blossoms are waning as we look forward to coming full circle and some of the early blooming cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom. I’ll be doing a lot of bike riding around the city when school is finished on my brown “Waffle” bike to go sight-seeing and check out some last minutes places and events. The official graduation is on March 17.

Chaji Preparations

All the students have been working hard, as usual, on various tasks, rehearsals and event preparations. Marian’s chaji will be this week and some of us have practiced cooking and making sweets. We need to serve many courses and to me it feels like the complexity of trying to draft a 12-course restaurant menu. I’ve been getting better at cutting with knives. I used to be very timid about it, but Tetiana has shown me new skills and I’ve been trying to practice. It helps when the knives are sharp. I will continue to work on this skill when I get back home. She is a very good cook and I enjoy watching how she figures stuff out. There is a lot of trial and repetition and refinement of the same recipe to get something that tastes (and looks) just so. Making food that also looks and smells attractive is something that is easily forgotten and it’s nice to be encouraged to make good looking and fine tasting delicacies.

Our first guest is vegetarian, so we are making vegetarian dashi along with veggie-everything-else. I can’t say anything more than that just yet. We all went to Toin-seki today for the cleaning and preparations. The three of us (Grzegorz, Tetiana and I) are in the kitchen, cooking the meal. Marian is the teishu so he will be serving our four kohai. There is nothing at this location, so we have to cart in all of the kitchen equipment, tea utensils, cleaning supplies, and more.

That’s all for now!
Karla

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A party for my kanreki, 60 years

Drinking tea at class before the party

Last Wednesday, I had a few of my regular students show up for class. This is not unusual as students can come as many times a month with their tuition. Sometimes they come  to make up for missed class or they want to come twice or three times a week.  About halfway through the class, a couple of other students showed up, then a few more, and then a couple of students showed up who are not actively studying, and then my good friend Barbara Walker showed up in kimono! Something was definitely going on.  I was most worried because I had not made enough sweets for all the students who showed up.

But it was a party to celebrate my kanreki, or 60th birthday. Which, by Japanese custom, is the beginning of one’s second childhood. If one measures life in a 60-year cycle — and if you use the Chinese zodiac calendar, you do — then age 60 marks a new beginning or birth: You can be a child once again.

Certificate

I even got presents.  As you can see from the certificate above, a donation was made by the students and friends of Issoan Tea School to the Portland Japanese Garden.  Which will be having a grand opening of the new construction on April 1. As well as a card signed by all the students.

Signed card by all the students

I was served a delicious home made sweet and tea, and then everyone was served sweets and tea.

Homemade sweets candied kumquat stuffed with miso an

Tea and sweets served by Barbara sensei who has studied with me for more than 30 years

Mizuya help

Everyone gets tea and sweets.

And at the end, everyone pitched in and cleaned up the mizuya, took down the tea room and put everything away.  A special thank you to Stephanie Wilson for planning and organizing.  Thank you everyone who came to the party, who contributed to the gift and who were thinking of me for my kanreki.

 

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Late February update – a Midorikai interlude

Hello everyone,
Things have returned to normal here. People are getting along again and we four sempai are finally realizing that graduation is coming up quickly in mid-March. Then just until the end of the month to move out of the dorms and fly to our homes around the world. What a wonderful year we have spent together!

We had Tetiana’s keiko chakai. My role for it was “hanto,” which is the person who supports the host in their activities from the kitchen, mizuya and behind the scenes. Ideally, the hanto should be noiselessly going about the numerous things that require attention. The person needs to spread water along the path and in the garden to make it look welcoming and clean. This was especially amusing because it was snowing lightly the whole time while I was spraying water around everywhere. But it was absolutely beautiful. The guests were enjoying the feeling of warmth in the tea rooms protected only by paper shoji doors…so, that means that they were most likely cold but they were trying to feel the warmth of the fire and in the tea utensils the host selected especially for this event. There was a hand warmer in the waiting area, so I had to make sure we had warm fire for that. Hot water of course to make tea from the back.

Tetiana did a wonderful job and our sensei helped us immensely. Though, Makela-sensei did ask me a few times “Now what should I be doing now?” and he got a few blank stares back… I sometimes had no idea or I didn’t know what I order I was supposed to do things in. Also, I learned a valuable lesson that you always want to bring extras of everything – I accidentally stood with the charcoal basket and out fell two of the expensive white edazumi made from wisteria tree. Naturally they shattered on the ground and we hadn’t brought any extra. In Japan and in a tea building, one can hopefully have someone just run to fetch some more but if this was a demonstration or in a location that we had rented far from any shops, we may have had some difficulties…or some interesting explaining to do during the tea gathering that would have turned in to a funny story.

Sometimes the things a hanto needs to do changes due to the season, so you need to do things for longer, or earlier/later depending on that. It was actually a lot of fun for me to fill this role! I helped unpack all the utensils, cleaned and packaged them all up again after it was finished. I think all the guests had a wonderful time. I heard a lot of laughter from the tea room and I was sad I couldn’t have been in there with them. But I had an important role to play and it was great experience.

I think I enjoy seeing the surprises and participating in the conversation the most out of tea gatherings. It’s sort of like when you know a lot about something and there is a subtle hint or clue and people who know about that really get it and then are excited about it. Sort of like the thrill of doing a crossword or when there is a play on words or even in Shakespeare when the words reference something else. It’s just fun. I suppose it’s an intellectual sort of fun created in a time when people didn’t watch TV. And you have to be knowledgeable. There are connections that our teachers comment on during O’iemoto’s gatherings and I am amazed by the seeming subtlety and complexity involved in the story-telling and emotions created by something as simple as the utensils. Still, these are things I can continue to enjoy in many different ways and in many different topics, not just in Chado.

There was the lovely Baikasai event at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine. I had gone previously to this shrine to see the plum blossoms in the snow. This time people could purchase a ticket to have tea served by the maiko and geiko (Kyoto term for geisha). It was a beautiful sunny day, though it was quite cold. The young, talented women looked so lovely and it was great to be able to examine their clothing up close. Usually you only get to see them on their way to engagements or at the annual shows their houses put on occasionally. As it was, the queue to get in took forever…about two hours if you wanted to sit closer on the tatami space. It was well worth the wait, though people were going crazy with their cameras. Tetiana wore her beautiful embroidered kimono. I thought my friends who enjoy crafting as well as sewing would appreciate seeing it.

Hugs,
Karla

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Early February update – a Midorikai interlude

I finally understand now what they mean by a “Kyoto Winter.” It is COLD! And it’s a new type of cold that is like a damp cold that just seeps in to your bones and chills you much more quickly. I’ve been lucky to have had Kevin treat me to some very fizzy, relaxing bath bombs, so I’ve been taking advantage of enjoying them when I’m feeling a cold coming on. Some of the other students who are from cold climates don’t seem to mind the cold but even they have said on occasion that it might be a bit chilly on some days.

Setsubun February 3rd

To celebrate the last day of winter (called Risshun), Japanese people go to shrines to celebrate setsubun. Though not a major holiday, it is still popular for people to become involved in the festivities. We got a half-day free from school to go around town to participate. It was perfect weather: sunny and dry all day in the mid-40’s. I joined Elise and an Urasenke architect at Yoshida Shrine. It’s the famous one for the day. We brought a bag of “old” temple and shrine amulets as they must be refreshed and repurchased each year. The shinto shrines “purify” the old ones in either fire or water. We didn’t witness the mame maki (bean throwing) but we ate the ehoumaki (the lucky direction role). It’s a giant sushi role and you face a direction (this year it was NNW) and eat the whole thing silently while making a wish and if you can do that then the wish will come true. We also enjoyed some sake. The great thing about this shrine was that it had a special building that was only opened for this one day each year, so we went up to look at it and Tooyama-san told us about all the different architectural features to notice. When you return home, you get beans and you throw them around calling “Oni wa soto! Fuka wa uchi!” or “Demons get out! Fortune come in!” Clearing out the demons from the end of the year and inviting spring and new fortune in to your home.

Other things

We had a nice time learning how to play the game go at a sensei’s house. I enjoyed it immensely and definitely want to keep refining my skills. It’s similar to chess or checkers, where it has a board and you have only one other opponent. The difference being that you are trying to get the most points, firstly by capturing the most area of the board and secondly by collecting your opponent’s pieces. I think I enjoy playing card games (pinochle, rummy, bridge, etc.) more than board games. I just get so impatient and tend to not be able to enjoy board games. Especially if the game in question requires patience, thinking and mental processing. It’s something I can work on: improving my concentration. I also think that I could embrace the fact that I set up a game and then don’t feel compelled to finish it in one sitting. I brought a puzzle from home to do this winter and I completed it in January in about six hours and sadly, when it was completed I had nothing else to be excited about with it. It’s like a good book. If you devour it in one seating it just doesn’t have an opportunity to resonate in your brain or really settle in to my long-term memory.

Since coming here to Kyoto, I’ve been much more aware of my feelings of impatience or frustration and also the fact that I tend to get overly worked up over things that really don’t matter. I even know deep down that 99% of the time these things working me up don’t matter, but I can’t help but get worked up about them anyway. Sometimes I feel much more calm and zen and meditative and other times I am just overwhelmed with anxiety, frustration or impatience. One side of me says “You’re Human!” and the other side just says “that’s great you’re human, but yadda, yadda, yadda…” I’m trying to notice when I don’t feel proud of an action or a thought or something I say and then question either why I did / thought / said that thing and why it created that particular reaction. No one else could ask me “why” with out offending me, I suppose. I’m trying to not be like that. I’m not trying to spring one over on myself with a “gotcha!” or punish myself for something. I don’t think I’m necessarily changing my behavior, per say, but I’m noticing my actions and how I relate to others much more. Usually these internal observations have been fine fodder for some good mental discussion and exercise on my own later. The roots of this wanting to look inward have of course all started by delving deeper in to chado and from meditating, mindfulness and just trying to be more aware.

This week people have been grating on each other’s nerves and just generally when you live with people and work with people for almost a year you are bound to have disagreements and minor differences that work people up. There has been a recent spike in minor group squabbling. Some people taking sides (or purposefully ignoring the situation) and all of it has an impact on the group dynamic. We represent many cultures under one group and with that comes many different personalities, backgrounds and morals. I hope that it’s mostly weather-related and that since we are cold and damp that we are all just crabby and we only need to sleep more. It’s not a bad thing to admit that this is happening, rather a perfectly normal part of the Midorikai process. Hopefully we can all look back on this challenging time and laugh.

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