Practicing Japanese Arts

 

Since I’m staying in Kyoto for several weeks, I decided to take some lessons in some of the “applied” Japanese arts:  ikebana (flower arranging), cooking, and shodo (calligraphy).  I figured these are all things I could continue to do at home and it would be a good way to learn more about Japan from another perspective.

Ikebana exhibition

Ikebana at Arashiyama park

Ikebana.  In virtually every temple, hotel or restaurant, you’ll see a beautiful flower arrangement.  You even find them in unlikely places, like at a park celebration.  I wanted to learn how to arrange flowers so I could do something more than just plop them in a vase.  So with the help of Ann Lina, an Indonesian who works in the Kyoto ryokan where I've stayed, I joined her and the daughter-in-law of our wonderful sensei (teacher), to take ikebana lessons.

Ikebana sensei

Miwa's ikebana arrangement

Not surprisingly, ikebana – the art of Japanese flower arranging – has many different styles and schools, but all start with a few blossoms, a vase, and a “kenzan” or frog.  Our sensei focused us on the basic principle of “ten-jin-chi” or “heaven, person, earth”.  Basically we each started with three flowers or branches and placed them at different heights and angles to make a pleasing arrangement:  the tallest representing heaven, next highest the person, and the shortest symbolizing the earth.  Then we would add another set of three flowers and a pair or two of others or leaves to make a complete arrangement.  Sensei would help us see new possibilities and create a better balance.

My "Christmas Ikebana"

The sessions were much fun, particularly for me since I love working with my hands.  We each made very different arrangements, all lovely in their own ways.  Arranging flowers is a study in composition, and my sensei commented that she could see the influence of my years of designing quilts.  The last arrangement we did was with “Christmas colors”, which I still have in my apartment.  My last class will be next week, on Christmas Day, when we’ll learn to make the traditional arrangement for New Year’s, pine boughs and a special “tie” of thin gold and silver covered wire.

Our ikebana group at an Indonesian dinner

 

 

Fresh yuba

Our little group was most welcoming to me, and we went out twice for meals. Ann Lina took us to an Indonesian restaurant so we could experience the cuisine of her native country.  The restaurant was small, but produced a number of wonderful, tasty dishes that we all enjoyed.  Last week we went to Ume no Hana, a restaurant that featured an all tofu lunch where you could make your own yuba at the table.  Yuba is the equivalent of the skin on scalded milk, only it’s from hot soy milk, and is one of my favorite Japanese foods.  We each got to “skim” the soy milk many times, and then had grilled tofu, deep fried tofu, yudofu (fresh tofu simmered in soymilk), and tofu ice for dessert.  It was all scrumptious – even those of you who might look askance at tofu would have enjoyed it (though perhaps not an entire tofu meal).

Cooking.  I also wanted learn how to cook some basic Japanese dishes, not only to replicate them at home, but so I could cook them here in my little apartment.  So I enrolled in a half-day Haru Cooking Class (www.vegetarian-food-kyoto.com).  Despite the name, Haru also offers classes that include chicken or a tour to the Nishiki Market, Kyoto’s famous food market.

Makng a Japanese omelet

Light, medium & dark miso

There were four of us – a couple from Europe and a woman from Scotland who had just arrived for a huge climate change conference.  Haru offers the class in his home, with his wife helping with the preparations.  We learned the basic ingredients that every Japanese kitchen must have (in addition to rice, of course) – miso, soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and canola oil – and how to make dashi (the kelp-based broth used in miso soup and many other things), stir-fried vegetables, fried tofu, and “chicken burgers”, each with a delicious sauce.  We also learned how to make an egg omelet, a light dish made with a rectangular “tomago” (egg) pan.  The best part, of course, was eating what we’d made.  The great thing about it was that all the dishes were practical, tasted good, and could be used with other foods.  So now I have a basic repertoire for here and home, where there’s at least one Japanese grocery store near the UN.

I’ve learned that there’s very little processed food here.  Instead, food is prepared fresh, whether at home or in the local convenience stores.  While the diet is different from ours and other countries – rich in fish and seaweed, rice, soy and sweet potatoes, seeds and nuts, with some vegetables, a little fruit, and very little fat – it is “complete” and quite healthy.  Often the taste is more nuanced that what we’re used to, but once attuned to it, the subtlety is wonderful.  Japan is learning western ways, though, and indulges in McDonald’s, pizza, and bread, so its people, too are starting to gain weight.

 

Shodo, Japanese Calligraphy.  Taking shodo is about developing a practice in calligraphy.  It’s something that you can do for years, getting better and better, but still have more to learn.  I think that’s the way Japanese approach any effort they undertake, whether it’s archery, ceramics, baseball, or perhaps even their jobs.

Shodo equipment: ready to draw

Shodo is a deceptively simple art form.  It’s not just about the characters, but also how you hold the brush, place and move it, and how quickly you make a stroke.  How you sit, how you breathe, and even your mood matters.  It’s also about composition:  fat and thin lines, the balance among the black strokes and on the white page.  Most important, it is about being “in the moment”, totally focused on the conversation – what I think of as the dance – you’re having with the brush as you move across the paper.

Corrections

My shodo sensei

My sensei was a woman in her late 50’s who said she’s been doing calligraphy since she was a child.  She was kind, supportive, helpful and also fun.  We managed to communicate well as she drew a two-character word for me to copy, and then watched carefully as I drew.  She tried to find ways to show me how to turn the brush correctly to get the desired stroke.  I found myself laughing at some of my “American traits”: drawing forcefully from the heel rather than the tip of the brush and making fast strokes.  “Yukuri, yurkuri!” – slowly, slowly! – she would admonish me.  When I recall my kanji lessons in Tokyo where I would draw a page full of characters in a minute or two, I cringe.

My last lesson was today and I made a “final piece”:  the characters for “eternity” on hardboard.  I must say I was surprised at how well it turned out:  what had been hard initially, I could now do reasonably well.  It was great fun, and also quite moving:  a lesson not just in drawing, but in being as well.

Autumn in Kyoto

Spring is the time for cherry blossoms and fall is the time for maple leaves in Japan.  Just as I did in the spring, I spent the last week or two reveling in the change of season, joining throngs of Japanese as they visit Kyoto’s temples and gardens to see the leaves.  Like them, I took lots of pictures; everywhere you turned there was a new vista, a lovelier tree. 

Japanese leaf-viewing is a bit different from what I’ve seen in New England.  There, people drive, clogging the roads and byways as they look at vistas of variegated color.  Here, people walk, clogging the pathways in temples and gardens, viewing the leaves up close.  The colors seem deeper here because of the maples.  And the season is later: here the maples are still deeply red, while a NY Times photo of Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade showed brown-leafed trees in Central Park.

Japanese maples differ from  American ones.  The leaves are smaller and more pointed, with longer “fingers” than ours.   The larger leaves are roughly the size of my palm, while the smallest are about an inch across.  Like the cherry blossoms, there are many varieties, differing in leaf and tree size.  Most turn a deep burgundy red, though there are also maples that turn yellow.  What’s interesting is that a single leaf can be both green and red, red and orange-yellow.  Maybe that’s true in the US as well, but I’ve not (yet) looked close enough to tell.

Katsura Imperial Villa

Shugakuin Imperial Villa

I went to several places to see the leaves, and missed many others.  I went back to the Katsura and Shugakuin Imperial Villas to see these lovely gardens in the fall.

I went to several temples and shrines, including Tofukuji with a huge ravine of maples.  And I went to the Arashiyama area on the northeast side of Kyoto, which is one of the more popular (and crowded) places to see the leaves in its temples and gardens.

At one shrine, Shimogama, I was lucky enough to see a new bride and groom as they were leaving their wedding ceremony and pausing to have some formal pictures taken.  I’d seen couples in their traditional wedding garb before, but never had I seen the bride change to prepare for the reception.  As the wedding party and other bystanders looked on (me in awe), her white cap was removed to reveal a lovely, formal wig and decorations.  Her “dressers” carefully wrapped a white band around her hair, and then helped her into a heavily brocaded bright red overcoat before the groom carefully walked his bride down the path to the reception hall.  It was a wonderful ending to a glorious day.

Two Quick Trips – and Christmas!

So what do you do after you’ve been moving from one city to another every couple of days for 2½ weeks?  Do it some more!  I spent a few days in Taipei and a couple of days in Yokohama before settling in Kyoto for a couple of months.  On the way, I discovered Christmas in Japan. 

Chiwen (Owl-mouth) gargoyle, Confucius Temple

I joined my New York friend, Joyce, In Taipei for a few days before she went on to Kaohsiung to give a lecture.  I found the city to be a study in contrasts.  It is a modern, developed country – think of all the labels saying “made in Taiwan” – but is also something of a backwater, somewhat ignored and forgotten.  Joyce said the Chinese have systematically had Taiwan “de-listed” from various global indices, so there’s little readily available information on a number of topics. 

Taiwan is predominantly Chinese, with brightly colored and elaborately decorated temples.  But it is also Taiwanese, an island of an independent people with their own style of Chinese food.  Because it was under Japanese control for fifty years until 1945, there is some Japanese influence.  But it is distinctly not Japanese in its behavior, which is louder and more aggressive.  In Taipei, people don't stand patiently in line; rather they push and elbow you away.   

Taiwan National Concert Hall

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Museum

I remember Taiwan as being the place where Chiang Kai Shek went after the Communists took control of China.  That is true, but what I didn’t realize is that the Taiwanese consider him to have been a dictator and were quite happy when he died.  Still, there is a grand, weighty, almost reverential museum in his honor, with the equally substantial National Theatre and Concert Hall on either side.  It was interesting to note the people who visited Chiang:  there were photographs of him shaking hands with Nixon, Johnson, and Reagan, along with the presidents of Nicaragua and other smaller countries, but none from Europe that I recall.

Taipei 101 (Google photo)

Like every city, Taipei is a mix of old and new buildings.  It has Taipei 101, the tallest tower in the world until Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai in 2010.  The bamboo-shaped tower is surrounded by new skyscrapers filled with offices, shops, restaurants and apartments.  Elsewhere, there are lovely little areas of galleries, shops and restaurants in well-kept low buildings.  I also saw more run-down areas, where concrete buildings looked unkempt, seemingly uninhabited, and ready to fall down. I was told that the buildings are left to decay, and when they collapse developers move in to redo the area. 

Taipei has a modern and efficient subway system that whisks its 3 million people around.  It is like the newest Tokyo lines:  sparkling stations, Plexiglas walls to prevent you from falling onto the tracks, and quiet, smoothly running trains.  And it’s cheap:  a ride costs about 70 cents, which you can’t beat.  For more local travel, there are motor scooters, seemingly one for every citizen.  The scooters move up to the front at traffic lights, and then buzz off ahead of the cars when the light changes.  They look and sound like low-flying bees.

Yokohama also has its new area, this one near the port, with its Landmark Tower, not nearly as tall as Taipei 101, apartment and office buildings, shops and restaurants.  I was there because of Yokohama Quilt Week, an exhibit held in the Pacifico Exhibition Hall down by Yokohama’s waterfront.  I’m a quilter, so of course I would go, just as I had gone to see the lovely Quilt Nihon show in Tokyo in the spring.

Quilt Detail

6-inch miniature quilt

The exhibition was similar to the larger American quilt shows, with traditional and contemporary art quilts, theme-based exhibits, and lots of vendors.  In size, it was about a third that of Houston’s International Quilt Festival.  Patchwork quilting is an American traditional craft form, and the Japanese have adopted it, using the same patterns, though often piecing and quilting entirely by hand.  The quilts varied in quality, with the prize-winning quilts being quite good and other “volunteer quilts” as they were called, being less so.  They also ranged in size from three gigantic ones that hung like banners from the ceiling to those that were 6” square.  The show featured exhibits by an Italian artist, Marian Fruehauf, that was quite interesting, and also the stunning Studio Art Quilt Association’s (SAQA) trunk show of 44 miniature quilts (Google “SAQA trunk show” or go to http://www.SAQA.com).

My Japanese friend, Shigeko, came to visit the quilt show with me and then we went back to her home in Kamakura.  There we went to her husband’s Polaris gallery, a small space surrounded by trees up the hill from their house.  Polaris had a felted art installation by Hinako SATOH.  Like other works at Polaris, it was an installation that was both inside and outside the glass gallery, incorporating the nature outside. Satoh-san, her husband, and some friends were there, so we celebrated with a sushi dinner in the gathering room upstairs.

Yokohama presented its own fun food experience at Cupnoodle Museum, which celebrates the work of Momofuku ANDO, the creator of ramen noodles in a cup, those ubiquitous Styrofoam cups of dried squiggly noodle meals where you add hot water, wait a few minutes, and eat.  I learned how Ando invented ramen to provide an inexpensive, easy meal for the working class, then marketed and expanded it worldwide, including creating ramen used in space travel.  Along with others, I got to make my own ramen, selecting my desired ingredients as the assembly line added noodles to the cup, sealed, wrapped, and delivered it with a smile.

As I headed back to the subway through the shopping complex near Landmark Tower, the lights suddenly went dark.  Power outage?  No.  Soon I heard music, and not just any music, Christmas music.  Next the large, artificial Christmas tree in front of me lit up, first with little red and yellow lights, then with a swirly flower, strings of lights, and finally the whole tree, to a tinkly rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus”. When I asked Shigeko about this holiday in a Buddhist and Shinto culture, she said the Japanese love festivals and have adopted Christmas as another one to celebrate.  It’s also a time for giving presents, she said for children, though I suspect everyone participates.  So the season has begun in earnest, even here.

Bamboo, Buildings and More – A Fantastic Tour of Japan

 

I am not a tour person, preferring instead to travel with a friend(s) or by myself rather than having a guide lead me by the nose.  But the Tai Gallery in Santa Fe (www.taigallery.com) offered an irresistible opportunity to meet with contemporary Japanese bamboo artists, meet new people, and see Japan through others’ eyes. 

Tour Leader Andy Bender

In mid-October, I joined nine other Americans for two weeks of bamboo, architecture, food, and sights across Japan.  It was a fabulous trip – we were a diverse, interesting, and congenial bunch who made it a point to never be late and to try anything.  Our tour leader, Andy Bender, was fantastic.  He had spent years in Japan; explained much about the country’s history, culture and values; and showed us all sorts of interesting things.  He’s also a journalist who, in addition to his own blog (www.wheres-andy-now.com) frequently writes for Forbes.  The places we saw, the hotels and ryokans where we stayed, and the food we ate were all terrific.  I couldn’t possibly describe everything, but here is a taste of the range of what we saw.

Fujitsuka Shosei, bamboo artist

 Bamboo.  What amazes me about Japanese craft art is the artists’ ability to combine incredible technique with energy and innovation. To me it is what makes Japanese art distinctive, whether ceramics, lacquer ware, wood, or bamboo.  On the tour, it was such a thrill to meet several of Japan’s finest bamboo artists, look at their work up close, talk with them about what inspired them and how a piece is made, and then to watch them at work.

Shono Tokuzo

Basket by Shono Toku

 The people we met were generally in their fifties or sixties, lively, humorous, interesting men who lit up when they talked about their art.  One spoke of being inspired to use the shape of a Jomon pot, the earliest Japanese pottery made between 10,000 and 300 BC.  Another focused on structure, building off a hexagonal base.  A third liked to create unusual bamboo forms, sometimes starting with bulbous piece he had found in the woods, another time leaving a bit of bamboo in its round form as a “face”, then splitting the rest into fine strips and plaiting them to create the shape of a tall, sensuous woman.

Nagakura Kenichi basket

Beppu Occupatinal School Student

Becoming a skilled bamboo artist takes decades.  All the artists we talked to spoke of learning to split bamboo over a period of 3-5 years; they didn’t make their first simple basket until late in their first decade of apprenticeship.  The difference was stark when we watched young students in a yearlong program at the Beppu Occupational School, laboriously splitting and trimming bamboo, often with carefully taped fingers.  In contrast, Shouchiku Tanabe, the fourth generation in his family of bamboo artists (known as the Chikuunsai), chatted with us as he sat cross-legged, splitting bamboo into increasingly narrow strips without looking.  While the Beppu students used calipers and miters to carefully measure and trim their strips, Tanabe casually tapped two metal triangles into his sawed-off log table, then quickly pulled the bamboo through to trim it off, knowing by eye it was the correct width.

Kawano Shoku basket

Basket by Yuju Shohaku

Tanabe demonstrated the impact of being the latest of several generations of bamboo artists, something I’d also seen with ceramicists.  He used tools his great-grandfather had made, simple and effective.  (Another artist modified his father’s studio to prevent getting a bad back.)  More important, Tanabe started playing with bamboo, even splitting it, when he was three or four and watching his father and grandfather at work.  The young Beppu students do not have that advantage.  The Chikuunsai family is the only one of the leading bamboo families in his area where there is someone to succeed the current artist:  Tanabe has two daughters and a newborn son, and at least one will undoubtedly go into the business.

Mr. Mori

Indigo dye vats

Indigo.  I keep being reminded that in Japan, traditionally one’s occupation passed from father to son for generations.  For example, for the past 140 years the Mori family has dyed silk and cotton yarns as well as paper using natural indigo. In fact, the Moris made the paper blue and white screen Betsy and I saw at Katsura Imperial Villa.  Mr. Mori, a lively, active man in his early 60’s, showed us the process with the aid of his son, who will eventually succeed him.

The Moris showed us the indigo plants, whose leaves are the basis for the dye and flowers form the seeds for next year’s crop.  The leaves are dyed, piled high, and then fermented to turn into dark clumps of dye that will keep for years.   Dissolved in water in deep pottery vats, the dye is ready for yarn to be dyed.  A light blue will be dyed three times to set the color, while the traditional dark blue will be dyed as many as twelve times.  It was fascinating.

I also continue to be amazed by Japan’s contemporary design.  We visited Nuno Textile Studio, a company based in Tokyo headed by Sudo Reiko, a delightful, creative fabric designer.  She wants to provide beauty for all, using today’s industrial manufacturing techniques to produce fabric in quantity.  Her fabric is used in curtains, upholstery, and in scarves and other clothing that you can find at MOMA, among others.  She focuses on design, and then works with the technical people to get it mass-produced.  For example, she has sandwiched thin strands of paper between two gauzy pieces of fabric (the bottom piece in the picture) and made fabric using plastic-coated copper telephone wire (the top two samples). 

Omotesando Buildings

Architecture is another place where you see both the traditional and the modern. Our tour guide Andy loves architecture (so do I), and he pointed out a number of interesting buildings as we traveled.  We saw the shopping/hotel/office complexes of Tokyo Midtown and Roppongi Hills, both of which transformed a rather grungy area of Tokyo, and Omotesando, a high-end shopping avenue with little side streets catering to the younger, hip Japanese.  We ate lunch in Omotesando Hills, a Tadao Ando building with a series of ramps leading to various shops and restaurants. 

Later in the tour he walked us through the Ando museums at Naoshima, which look to me like an art installation, where building and art come together.  We also went to the Miho Museum outside of Kyoto, where IM Pei designed a stunning stone and glass museum set into a mountain, with its roof resembling a traditional Japanese farmhouse.

Fujiya Hotel

Shrine in Hakone

We also saw traditional architecture.  We saw the first western-style hotel in Japan, the Fujiya Hotel in Miyanoshita, Hakone.  Later that same day we visited a small shrine in the misty rain, surrounded by tall cedars.  There is nothing more lovely.

Food.  To say we ate well would be an understatement.  At a formal dinner at a traditional Japanese ryokan, the only sounds you could hear were the amazed “ooohs” and savoring “mmmms” as we ate.  We had a number of delicious meals of little dishes, the food always fresh, natural, and beautifully prepared.  Andy would explain what we were eating and how to do it, making even the wary willing to try.  He also pointed out foods as we wandered in Tokyo’s Tsukiji market and Kyoto’s Nishiji Food Market.  He made us all converts, to the point that on our last day, we asked him to have our bus stop so we could have some black sesame ice cream.  Ah, the foods I will miss when I get back home!