This week I have delved into materials on tea ceremony (chanoyu). I am continually interested in thinking about the ways in which Japanese people think about Japaneseness, so I was very excited to find the book Making Tea, Making Japan, by Kristin Surak, which traces the relationship between Japanese nationalism and tea ceremony from the arrival of tea ceremony in Japan until the present. Coming into this book, I was thinking about what I knew about political tea from reading about Hideyoshi and Sen No Rikyū and the historical use of chanoyu as a political tool in John Dougill’s Kyoto: A Cultural History, as well as my perception of the continuing Japanese fascination with chanoyu, which I experienced through my visit to the extremely crowded annual chanoyu exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum. Reading Surak’s book has deepened my understanding of the relationship between Japanese nationalism and tea ceremony, particularly by getting me to think about who exactly has practiced chanoyu at different points, from the shoguns and daimyo in the Sengoku Jidai and following era, to housewives today. I have been thinking a lot of about access to and standardization of chanoyu, as well as a whole smattering of other things.
As a fun addition to my research, since the VHS of Rikyu didn’t come in from the Library Shelving Facility, I watched a couple of episodes of the anime Hyōge Mono, which focuses on a fictional daimyo who loves fine tea objects to a fault and is vying for the favor of Oda Nobunaga and Sen no Rikyu (back when he was Sen No Sōeki). It is very entertaining and also provides an interesting view on how the beginning of tea is viewed from a modern perspective.
I am excited to head to Japan and to get to meet Amae Dairiku, who appears to have a unique and populist take on chanoyu!
