Japanese tea room

Japanese tea room

Japan is a small country, however most people know this country. One of the reason is that the manufacturing industry is world-famous. Especially, cars and appliances which are small, functional and also economical. And these products show exactly Japanese spirit which can say Japanese culture. When we discuss about Japan, we can't forget considering traditional Japanese culture. I will discus about the tea ceremony (cha-no-yu), which one of the most important Japanese culture.

The tea ceremony began to reach maturity in the early Muromachi period when the shogun and select menders of his aesthetic circle met to admire choice Chinese tea wares and game at guessing the provenance of various types of tea. But its transformation into a true art form with spiritual dimensions is due to the influence of three men. The fist was Murata Juko, a student of Zen and curator of Chinese art for shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He and Yoshimasa would meet at the latter 's silver Pavilion and drink tea in Chinese utensils in the Dojinsai room of the Togudo. Tea, and especially the collectiing of utensils, was also popular among the wealthy merchants of Sakai City (Osaka). One of these merchants, Takeno Joo, took his interest in tea far beyond acquisition into the influence of Juko 's thought, did much to develop the wabi ideal of refined rusticity that became one of the central elements of tea taste.

Wabi tea reached its mature expression under the third of these great tea masters, Sen no Rikyu. There is a story of Rikyu, which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the tea-masters. Rikyu was watching his son Sho-an as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikyu, when Sho-an had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikyu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground." "Young fool," chided the tea master, " that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikyu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn! What Rikyu demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also.