Kyoto and Kimonos
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Day 10 (Friday): (More photos added to the Kyoto album here.) The emperor of Japan no longer lives in the Kyoto Imperial Palace, but visitors still need to make reservations and turn in a copy of their passport to see it. We went on the 10 a.m. tour. In 784, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Kyoto, where it stayed until 1869, when it moved to Tokyo. The palace, however, has burned down several times, including 1788 and 1854, so what you see is relatively new, built around 1856-8, especially with the idea of integrating architecture and gardens in mind. It’s difficult to photograph because it’s so sprawling and simple, so many of my photos concentrate on details rather than the whole.
Our guide pointed out an interesting difference between the emperor’s castle and the shogun’s Nijyo Castle, which we saw on Thursday: the emperor’s castle is simpler in decor because the emperor didn’t need to impress anybody, whereas the shogun’s is more ornate because he always had to impress the other nobles. I’m going to have to use that detail in my Carnifex novel, which, even though it isn’t about Japan, will be benefiting greatly from my visit here.
After we toured the palace, we took a leisurely walk along the river front, ate lunch, and then went to WAK, a Japanese organization with an office in Kyoto that offers foreign visitors a chance to learn cultural customs. In our case, it was a kimono-wearing and an introduction to the tea ceremony. Akiko said it wasn’t cheap, but in my opinion, it was well worth whatever it cost to enjoy the experience; when are most non-Japanese ever going to get a chance to do something like that, after all? If you’re planning a trip to Japan, look over the WAK website and consider doing something a little different!
Wearing a kimono and obi is similar to wearing a corset (as those of us who’ve dressed as Faire wenches will understand) — it’s impossible to dress yourself, you’re forced by the outfit to sit up straight, and breathing is a challenge. Add “walking is a challenge,” as well, because Faire skirts are relatively easy to walk around in, whereas kimonos require short, elegant little steps.
Many of the students had a difficult time kneeling during the tea ceremony. A childhood of judo and aikido and my current kempo classes have accustomed me to kneeling, but virtually everyone else ended up asking for chairs during the tea ceremony — only the Japanese student, the other student who’d taken martial arts, and I were able to sit during the entire thing. Today we’re going to a zen meditation class, so it ought to be interesting to see how that goes!
I learned at the tea ceremony lesson that it was originally a man’s ritual, starting with the monks and then spreading to the upper classes and then the merchant classes. Women only began to practice it relatively recently as the polish to a proper lady’s skills. As you probably know, it’s an extremely formal, stylized ritual, and we were given only a brief taste of what clearly would take a great deal of time to master: the three ways to bow, the proper placement and turning of the bowls, and so forth.
Last night I went out with three of the students for dinner; we found a small, inexpensive hole-in-the-wall place down an alley in which food was cooked on a giant flat frying surface in front of us. Brad was with us, which was a good thing, as the menus were in Japanese and the cooks didn’t speak anything else! I asked him to order for the two of us, since my philosophy is “I’ll eat anything once.” We had some kind of fried dish of egg, pork, fish, and dried salmon flakes, and then another of fried broccoli, ham, mochi, and cheese, which was nothing but gooey caloric goodness….
drupagliassotti @ May 28, 2010