Author: kamys

The Joy of Cooking, like The Joy of Painting

I’m not a good cook.  I can’t taste the difference between good wine and bad.  I don’t have a keen pallet that can discern hidden spices and ingredients in the sauce.  I don’t have the patience of marinating for days and cooking for hours. 

But I still enjoy cooking.  Cooking for me is almost painting… What do I mean by that?  Let me show you an example: This is how I prepared for our dinner tonight!

I start with what I find in the fridge.  Kabocha squash, asparagus, and hakusai (nappa cabbage).  I like the color combination of the three vegetables.  Especially the bright yellow of kabocha and fresh green of asparagus.  How can I let these colors stand out?

Selection of the plates is the key! I pick out bowls and plates that go with the vegetables.  The white plate in the center has an interesting shape. how should I display the veges?  That’s a challenge.

Notice none of the plates and bowls have the same design or color.  Different colors, shapes, and textures.  Yet you want to achieve some kind of harmony. The dark brown bowl is made of wood and coated with Urushi lacquer.  Ideal to keep miso soup warm.

Sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin (sweet sake), salted seaweed, and garlic.  That’s all I use as spices today.

The one on the right is dried seaweed, and the one on the left is dried fish.  I always make broth for miso soup using only these two ingredients.  I simply put them in a pot of water and simmer it (don’t let it boil!) for 10 minutes. 

I normally put dried wakame and also dried tofu (called Koya Tofu) for miso soup. 

Here it is!  The one on the left is rice, 50% white and 50% brown.  Rice and miso soup are must items for a Japanese meal!

As you see, my cooking is 30 % taste and 70% presentation.   Which plate to use? How to place the veggies on the plate?  Thinking about it and executing accordingly is the fun part. Oh, hopefully, everything tastes good enough.

Sunrise – Dreadful Time for Lovers

So I was taught at school

Photo: Genjimonogatari Emaki by Wikipedia

I first learned about Hyakunin Isshu 百人一首, a classical Japanese anthology of one hundred waka poems by one hundred poets compiled in the 13th century, in junior high school.  Learning Hyakunin Isshu meant learning about the sex life of ancient Japanese aristocrats and court ladies.    

In ancient Japan,

  • virginity was not highly valued by men or women.
  • monogamy was not highly valued, either.
  • a man visits a woman at her house at night and goes home at dawn. 

The sunrise, therefore, was a departing time for lovers. And if a woman makes a poem about sleeping alone at dawn, she must be full of jealousy.   

The following 5 poems are examples of such love poems in Hyakunin Isshu.    

21/100 素性法師 by Sosei Hoshi

今こむと Ima kom to
言ひしばかりにIishi bakari ni
長月の Naga-tsuki no
有明の月をAriake no tsuki
待ちいでつるかなWo machi izuru kana.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

THE moon that shone the whole night through
This autumn morn I see,
As here I wait thy well-known step,
For thou didst promise me—
‘I’ll surely come to thee.’

30/100 壬生忠岑 by Mibu no Tadamine

有明の Ariake no
つれなく見えしTsurenaku mieshi
別れより Wakare yori
暁ばかりAkatsuki bakari
うきものはなしUki-mono wa nashi.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

I HATE the cold unfriendly moon,
That shines at early morn;
And nothing seems so sad and grey,
When I am left forlorn,
As day’s returning dawn.

52/100 藤原道信朝臣 By Fujiwara no Michinobu Ason

明けぬれば Akenureba
暮るるものとはKururu mono to wa
知りながら Shiri nagara
なほ恨めしきNao urameshiki
朝ぼらけかなAsaborake kana.

The following English translation is by Clay MacCauley (1917)

Like the morning moon,
Cold, unpitying was my love.
Since that parting hour,
Nothing I dislike so much
As the breaking light of day.

53/100 右大将道綱母 by Udaisho Michitsuna no Haha

歎きつつ Nageki-tsutsu
ひとりぬる夜のHitori nuru yo no
明くるまは Akuru ma wa
いかに久しきIkani hisashiki
ものとかは知るMono to kawa shiru.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

ALL through the long and dreary night
I lie awake and moan;
How desolate my chamber feels,
How weary I have grown
Of being left alone!

59/100 赤染衞門 by Akazome Emon

やすらはでYasurawade
寝なましものをNenamashi mono wo
小夜ふけて Sayofukete
かたぶくまでのKatabuku made no
月をみしかなTsuki wo mishi kana.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

WAITING and hoping for thy step,
 Sleepless in bed I lie,
All through the night, until the moon,
  Leaving her post on high,
  Slips sideways down the sky.

Want Your Happiness? Then Forget Yourself 

Life is full of paradox

When do you find yourself most happy?

When I’m watching beautiful flowers.

When I’m creating Ikebana arrangements.

When I’m writing.

When I’m gardening.

When I’m serving tea.

When I’m cooking…

When I’m so immersed in whatever I’m doing, I forget time passing by.  I forget about myself.  And that’s when I feel most happy. 

When I’m thinking about myself, worrying about myself, happiness never visits me.

Life is full of paradox. 

Sen no Rikyu, an Avant-garde

(Image: Sen no Rikyu by Hasegawa Tohaku, Wikimedia)

Sen no Rikyu 千利休 (1522–1291), a person who can never be separated from Japan’s tea ceremony. What’s his contribution?  Let’s see how his 15th-generation descendant describes him.

To recount his (Rikyu’s) personal history and the contributions he made to the practice of Tea would take volumes.  Suffice it to say here that it is Rikyu’s organization and blending of the many styles of Tea practiced up to his time, along with their philosophy, procedures, and histories, that we today know as the Way of Tea. 

Rikyu identified the spirit of the Way of Tea with four basic principles of harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility.  These four principles underlie all the practical rules of Tea and represent at the same time its highest ideals.

“Tea Life, Tea Mind” – by Soshitsu Sen XV

Rikyu was one of the wealthy merchants in Sakai.  There is no way of knowing if he was for or against surrendering to Oda Nobunaga, but Rikyu became one of the three main people responsible for conducting tea ceremonies for Nobunaga.

After Nobunaga was killed, Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉(1536-1598), one of Nobunaga’s subordinate samurai, gained power.  One story goes that Hideyoshi was overjoyed when Nobunaga granted him the right to conduct his own tea ceremony.  Under Hideyoshi, Rikyu established himself as the tea master.  

How much did Hideyoshi rely upon Rikyu for many critical decisions, not only regarding the tea ceremony but also politics? Why did Rikyu fall out of Hideyoshi’s favor? What was the real reason for Hideyoshi to order Rikyu to commit seppuku (death by hara-kiri)? There are so many books,  movies and comics about Rikyu.  But the mystery of his death has never been solved.

Why is Rikyu considered the pinnacle of the tea ceremony when there were many others practicing tea during his life?

Rikyu introduced and implemented numerous new concepts into tea ceremony, including:

  • Smaller tearooms小間…. with two or three tatami mats
  • Nijiriguchi躙口…. A tiny entrance that requires one to crawl into the tearoom
  • Murodoko室床….A simpler, abbreviated alcove

I imagine Rikyu might have been an otaku (a Japanese word, similar to nerd or geek).  His pursuit of simplicity and humbleness seems extreme.  Maybe there was no such word as “compromise” in his dictionary.

Rikyu also intrigues me that he commissioned a roof tile maker Chojiro長次郎 to create a tea bowl.  Tea bowls in Rikyu’s days were mainly imported from China or Korea.  They were mostly cone shape.  But the bowl that Rikyu commissioned looked square, and it was much thicker.  Every tea ceremony practitioner agrees that it is much easier to whisk tea in a bowl designed by Rikyu.  Also, if you hold Rikyu’s bowl, your hands don’t get too hot and the tea stays warm. 

The new type of tea bowls commissioned by Rikyu became Raku ware楽焼.  Chojiro was the first generation, and currently Raku ware still thrives under the sixteenth-generation master craftsman.

Rikyu was an inventor, nonconformist, and innovator who challenged the status quo.  He was an avant-garde. 

How Practical Is Kimono?

For no reason, I woke up in the morning and told myself, “I will spend the whole day wearing kimono!” And I actually did!

Before Japan opened its doors to the Western world about 150 years ago, everybody in Japan was wearing it.  My grandmother used to wear it every day.  It was not something she wore only for special occasions.

By the time I grew up, people’s perceptions changed.  For me, for the longest time, it became something archaic, not cool, not hip, a thing of the past. 

If you visit Japan now, what percentage of Japanese people are wearing kimono? Maybe most people walking in kimono in Kyoto are foreign tourists? Is it OK?  If it’s not OK, how come I don’t wear it more often?  Can I walk the talk? 

It took me more or less thirty minutes to put on this kimono.  Once I wore it, I sat on the desk most of the day, I cooked, I cleaned the house, and I even took for a walk in the neighborhood. 

I didn’t have much inconvenience doing all that.  When I did the house chores, I wrapped around the sleeves with a rope in the shape of the number eight (or infinity?).  It is called “tasuki gake.”  With tasuki gake, my sleeves were never in the way. 

The obi (the sash around the waist) was not too tight.  I didn’t have any problem breathing or eating.  With the obi, I could keep my back not hunching.  A great support for a good posture!

I’m beginning to realize more benefits of wearing kimono.  Let me do it more often…

Sunset is a Picture of Melancholy

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

Whenever I see the sunset, I feel as if a tiny part of my heart is taken away.  Something is going away, never coming back.  Me, left alone here…

In Hyakunin Isshu 百人一首, a classical Japanese anthology of one hundred waka poems by one hundred poets compiled in the 13th century, there are four poems that read about sunset.   And they are all poems of autumn.

70/100 良暹法師 by Ryo-zen Hoshi

さびしさに Sabishisa ni
宿を立ちいでてYado wo, tachi-idete
ながむれば Nagamureba
いづくも同じ Izuku mo onaji
秋の夕暮れ Aki no yūgure.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

THE prospect from my cottage shows
  No other hut in sight;
The solitude depresses me,
  Like deepening twilight
  On a chill autumn night.

71/100 大納言 経信 by Dainagon Tsunenobu

夕されば  Yūsareba
門田の稲葉 Kado-ta no inaba
おとづれて  Otozurete
あしのまろ屋に Ashi no maroya ni
秋かぜぞ吹く Aki kaze zo fuku.

The following English translation is by Clay MacCauley (1917)

When the evening comes,
  From the rice leaves at my gate
Gentle knocks are heard;
  And, into my round rush-hut,
  Autumn’s roaming breeze makes way.

87/100 寂蓮法師 by Jakuren Hoshi

むらさめの  Murasame no
露もまだひぬ Tsuyu mo mada hinu
まきの葉に  Maki no ha ni
霧たちのぼるKiri tachi-noboru
秋の夕暮 Aki no yūgure.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

THE rain, which fell from passing showers,
  Like drops of dew, still lies
Upon the fir-tree needles, and
  The mists of evening rise
  Up to the autumn skies.

98/100 従二位 家隆 by Junii Ietaka

風そよぐ  Kaze soyogu
ならの小川のNara no ogawa no
夕暮は  Yūgure wa
みそぎぞ夏のMisogi zo natsu no
しるしなりけるShirushi nari keru.

The following English translation is by Clay MacCauley (1917)

Lo! at Nara’s brook
Evening comes, and rustling winds
Stir the oak-trees’ leave;–
Not a sign of summer left
But the sacred bathing there.

What’s so special about the sunset in autumn, you may ask.

Because, that famous Sei Shonagon 清少納言 had said so in her famous essay Makura no Soshi (The Pillow Book). 

In autumn, it is the evenings (that is most beautiful),  when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos; more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky. When the sun has set, one’s heart is moved by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects.

Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, translated by Ivan Morris

All four poems above were written after the days of Sei Shonagon.  Once the influential court lady had declared, no poet in Japan’s autocracy would dare refute.     

Blue – The Color of My Fond Memory

Photo by Author Akemi Sagawa

It was the summer of 1991.  I flew from Tokyo to make a presentation to the group at the headquarters.  My very first business trip to Seattle.  Alone. 

The presentation was over. Relieved, I took advantage of the half a day left for me in Seattle to do some sightseeing.  Destination?  Where else?  Pike Place Market!

There were quite a few people on the street, but nobody I knew.  Every building, every store was new to me!  I walked along, thoroughly enjoying my solitude.

The sun was warm and bright.  I walked up the little park next to the market, then was taken by the big, vast blue!  The blue sky, and the blue sea, separated by the white snowcap of the mountains. 

“How wonderful would it be if I could see this view every weekend!”  Looking at the woman walking a dog in the park, I felt so envious of her. How lucky she is!  She must live here.

I was young then.  And ambitious.  But moving to Seattle to live was only a faraway dream.

Last week I visited Pike Place Market alone.  The market had been renovated here and there, but the main structure is kept mostly the same.  I walked up to the newly-added open sitting area with benches facing Puget Sound.

The same huge blue.  The horizontal stripe of blue, white, and blue. The view that I now feel almost at home.  I’m not as young, not as optimistic, but looking at this huge blue still brings back my memory of seeing it for the first time thirty-some years ago.

I just wonder why there are negative connotations with the word “blue”.  Blue color should be treated more fondly, in my humble opinion.

Mother’s Kimono, Passed Down to Me

What a sustainable life!

Kimono 着物 literally means “a thing to wear” in Japanese.  Until Japan opened its country to the Western world in 1868, everybody in Japan wore kimono.

…

I grew up dispising kimono as outdated when I was in Japan.  Only after I moved to the US, I became more interested in and more attached to this unique form of dressing. 

In the tea ceremony, the rules for each movement of the body are based on the assumption that the practitioner is dressed in kimono.  For example… With the long sleeves of kimono, how would you move your arms so that you would look most graceful when pouring hot water into the tea bowl? 

When I started practicing tea ceremony 13 or 14 years ago, I thought wearing kimono for every practice would be the fastest to improve my practice.    Or maybe the other way around.  I might have decided to practice tea ceremony so that I can wear kimono more often.

Since then, whenever I went back to Japan, I would bring back my mother’s old kimono.  She is shorter than I am, but kimono is made longer so that the length can be adjusted depending on the height of the person.  One crucial point is the length of the arms.  Luckily my mother has long arms for her height, about the same length as mine.

The photo above is my mother’s most casual kimono.  The fabric is silk pongee, called tsumugi 紬 in Japanese. 

I remember her doing laundry wearing this kimono.  I must have been 3 years old.  It’s now hard to believe that she did such house chores in kimono.  But over half a century ago, kimono was more prevalent in Japan.  Kimono was the default wardrobe in my grandmother’s days!

This kimono is a more formal one.  Also made of silk, but the texture of the fabric is smoother and softer than the first one.  The small crescent pattern is spread all over. This type of design is called komon 小紋.   

I remember she wore this kimono when she came to kindergarten to pick me up after my first overnight trip. 

This black kimono with arabesque pattern has a distinct texture.  The fabric is thin and light, unique characteristics of Oshima Tsumugi 大島紬. 

This was my mother’s spring kimono.  The pattern is cherry blossoms, and I always wear this for tea gatherings in the spring. 

Can you believe the kimono my mother was wearing (the photo on the right) and the one I’m wearing (the photo on the left) are the same kimono?

My mother’s kimono used to have quite a light greenish color.  Over time stains appeared and she got tired of the color.  No, she didn’t throw it away. Rather, my mother took it to a professional whose speciality is to redye kimono. He redyed it to golden yellow.  With this color, the old stain disappeared!

Now I wear this kimono in the autumn.

Silk fabrics are amazingly durable.  With the way kimono is structured, people in different sizes can wear the same kimono, like my mother and I.  By redying, an old kimono is reborn with a totally new look!

The era of mass production and mass consumption is over.  By enjoying my mother’s kimono in daily life, I’m ever more appreciating what kimono teaches me: The value of a sustainable life.    

How Merchants in Sakai Made Use of Tea Ceremony

Or did tea ceremony make use of Merchants in Sakai?

(Photo: Nanshuji Temple in Sakai – Wikimedia Commons)

Many history books about Japanese tea ceremony introduce the so-called tea masters that followed Murata Juko. Among them are listed as below:

  • Takeno Jo-o武野紹鴎 (1502–1555)  a merchant in Sakai
  • Kitamuki Dochin 北向道陳(1504–1562) a doctor in Sakai
  • Tsuda Sotatsu 津田宗達(1504–1566) a merchant in Sakai
  • Tsuda Sokyu 津田宗久(?–1591) a son of Tsuda Sotatsu, a merchant in Sakai
  • Imai Sokyu 今井宗久(1520–1593) a son-in-law of Takeno Jo-o, a merchant in Sakai
  • Sen no Rikyu 千利休(1522–1591) the first  grandmaster of the tea ceremony, a merchant in Sakai

Where is Sakai?  Why are there so many merchants in Sakai on the list?

Sakai is a port city just south of Osaka (where I was born and raised!).  In the 16th century, merchants in Sakai benefitted greatly from lucrative trades between China as well as Portugal and Spain.   Japan was in the middle of the civil war, and merchants in Sakai accumulated enormous wealth by trading things such as guns and leather (used for making armor). 

The city of Sakai enjoyed a period of autonomous governance by such wealthy merchants.  In his correspondence dated August 17, 1561, Gaspar Vilela (1526 – 1572), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary to Japan, wrote that Sakai was “an enormous city with abundant merchants.  This city is governed by consuls like Venice in Italy.”

“Once you enter the tearoom, everybody is treated equally.” Such a rule in the tea ceremony was formed during this period.  This egalitarian aspect, which was so unique in feudal Japan, is likely thanks to the economic power of those merchants in Sakai.

The autonomy of Sakai, however, didn’t last long. Soon the city had to give in to the superstar samurai Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 (1534–1582).   Sakai escaped being burnt down by Nobunaga, mainly thanks to its rich trove of tea utensils.

Among the many samurai warlords, called daimyo大名, Oda Nobunaga gained power rapidly.  He is regarded as one of the first great unifiers of Japan.  In the course of gaining power, Nobunaga told Sakai to pay 20,000 Kan貫,  a significant amount of money, if the city wanted to avoid being attacked by Nobunaga’s soldiers.  Sakai accepted Nobunaga’s demand.  Sakai’s merchants became Nobunaga’s powerful and reliable financiers. 

Nobunaga took advantage of the valuable tea utensils, as explained previously.  In order to survive, merchants in Sakai chose to go along with Nobunaga.  The tea ceremony escaped his wrath.

Here you find contradictory aspects that co-exist within the practice of the tea ceremony.  On one hand, the practice of tea allows you to contemplate the mystery of life, a spiritual aspect.  On the other hand, the objects used for the tea ceremony represent monetary and material wealth, something quite secular. 

I doubt if the tea ceremony could have survived for more than five hundred years if it only represented the spiritual side of life.  The tea ceremony fueled human greed. And I believe this aspect shouldn’t be ignored when explaining the tea ceremony’s long-lasting history.  Was it Nobunaga or merchants in Sakai that took advantage of the tea ceremony, or was it the tea ceremony that took advantage of the desire of human beings?

Thunderstorms come in Autumn in Japan

Two Poems about storms in Hhyakunin Isshu 百人一首

Photo by Shlomo Shalev on Unsplash


The word “thunderstorm” is a synonym for “typhoon” for me, who grew up in Japan.

When the typhoon approaches, first the air feels a little moist and lukewarm. Then large drops of rain start to hit.  The wind picks up.  You hurry to go inside the house.

You shut all the windows and doors.   Most Japanese houses have “amado 雨戸,” storm shutters outside the windows, to protect the glass pane from being broken by objects flown by the gust.  You make sure to close all the amado. 

It’s dark in the house, losing natural light coming in from the windows. In case the furious wind knocks down power lines, you make sure you have flashlights and candles around.   

While the violent gust and the rain continue, you stay inside the house, sometimes feeling the entire house shaking.  You hope the roof tiles won’t be blown away.

Several hours later, normally the next morning, both the wind and the rain are gone.  The beautiful blue sky spreads above, as if nothing terrible ever happened.  The typhoon is gone. 

“Two hundred and ten days 二百十日,” is a word people in Japan used to refer to typhoons.  210 days after the first day of the spring, normally September 1st or 2nd, is said to be the day we must be most careful about typhoons.  With climate change, this term may be already extinct, but for centuries, autumn has been the season of typhoons in Japan.

In Hyakunin Isshu, there are two poems that read about storms.  And they are both poems of autumn.

22/100 文屋康秀 by Bunya no Yasuhide

吹くからにFuku kara ni

秋の草木もAki no kusa kimo
しをるれば  Shiworureba
むべ山風をMube yama kaze wo
嵐といふらむArashi to iuramu.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

THE mountain wind in autumn time
  Is well called ‘hurricane’;
It hurries canes and twigs along,
  And whirls them o’er the plain
  To scatter them again.

69/100 能因法師 by No-in Hoshi

嵐吹く  Arashi fuku
みむろの山のMimuro no yama no
もみぢ葉はMomiji-ba wa
竜田の川のTatsuta no kawa no
にしきなりけりNishiki nari keri.

The following is the English translation by William N. Porter (1909).

THE storms, which round Mount Mimuro
  Are wont to howl and scream,
Have thickly scattered maple leaves
  Upon Tatsuta’s stream;
  Like red brocade they seem.