Tea Ceremony

Megumi's mother is a high-ranking teacher of the tea ceremony, in the ura-senke tradition. She was here in Portugal over the holidays, so our living room was transformed into a tea house on a few occasions.

We weren't quite sure how our friends here would take it. The tea ceremony isn't something you can get much out of by dabbling in it for a few minutes and, although anyone who has lived in Japan for a while is likely to get a feel for what it's all about, it can be difficult to get any insight at first glance. Still, we decided to try it on a few people who seemed interested, as well as with a few friends with some connection to Japan. Pleasingly, everyone seemed to get something out of it and the people who came have all thanked us for arranging it.

By next time, I hope we'll have somewhere more suitable than a rug on the living room floor. A nice little tea room out in the garden would be nice, but I doubt if we can stretch to that. But perhaps a Japanese-style verandah around the studio might come about and I'd love to plant some bamboo to add a bit of Japanese texture to the garden.