RAKU CHA RYU

Some notes before I go to Awaji island. Since at least Napoleon III in France and the Jesuit missions, Japan has attracted the westerners’ eyes. It is also a country that likes to be looked at. One rarely meets a German that always say « Now that is very German ! ». Meanwhile, there is always some Japanese person (or a « Japafan ») that keeps on saying stuffs like « That is very Japanese, this is the real / true Japan ! ». To all these adepts of the land of the rising sun, one should not only learn Japanese, but also learn Japan . The myth of a knowledgable Japan In What is called thinking ? , Martin Heidegger wrote :  «  What does it mean to learn ? It means that what we are doing and not doing is the echo of the revelation each time of the essential. We learn thinking by noticing what needs to be kept in the thought.  »  (fair warning : it’s my super rough translation form French here.) Long story shor...

Camellia sinensis traumans — Scaring tea Tea ceremony today is often seen as a stiff traditionnal art, stressing, proud and stuffed with so many rules that an Emperor would barely follow…long story short : it’s a snobish art. Because of that and some other things, it also became a gramps arts. Recently, as I was talking to a australo-japanese girl, I mentioned that I practiced tea ceremony. She then replied with a mocking tone : « my [ Japanese ] grandma would love it. » Here is another story : as I was talking to two experienced students of my tea school in Japan about what we felt when doing tea, they both replied : « I feel fear. » There is no abuse of tea, but there are abusive practices of it. I said before that the multiplication of rules in tea ceremony certainly made it more beautiful. But it also produce more anxiety. And it was not always like that. Recently, I went through some interesting pictures of tea ceremonies taken at th...