This summer, the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon has had the exhibition ‘Edo: Arts of Japan’s Last Shogun Age (1603 –1868)‘ which is (thankfully) being circulated by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.  This exhibition is a collection of art, textiles, and ‘Samurai paraphernalia’ as the website says, from the Edo period in Japan.  I finally had the chance to wander through most of the exhibition today and even chat a bit with one of the Mendel’s tour guides.  All I can say is: get your butts down there because it is wonderful!  It may just be a small snap shot of that point in history but it’s absolutely fascinating and I can’t recommend it enough.  It will be up until September 16, 2012 but I will definitely be visiting again.  (Pictures of the exhibitions are not allowed in the museum so I guess you’ll just have to go see it for yourself!)

To go along with the exhibition, the Mendel as also had some Japanese cultural demonstrations for the public and I had the chance to see two of them this month.  The first is something that I’ve always wanted to learn more about: the Japanese tea ceremony.  Maybe it’s my love of tea or my obsession with manners but this ceremony has been a curiosity for me for sometime (and watching ‘Karate Kid Part II’ didn’t help!)

On August 12th, some ladies from the Japanese community demonstrated this elaborate ceremony.  Of course, in the West, tea is prepared by someone walking into the kitchen, boiling some water, splashing the too hot water (sorry but the water should not be boiling for any time of tea!) into some cracked mugs with cheap tea bags inside, and then the guest drinks is while gabbing away with everyone.  Not that that’s a bad thing by any means but the tea ceremony from Japan is very different.  It is highly ritualized, with each action being delivered with precision and meaning.  The ceremony is also highly meditative (which is one of the reasons why a Buddhist monk was the ‘head host’ for this demonstration as monks apparently practice the tea ceremony as a part of their daily meditations.)

We were lucky enough to have a ‘narrator’ explain each step of the ceremony including what everything is, the order in which events occur, and what the meaning is of some of these strange movements.  While I have only read a little about this and was aware of how elaborate it is, I was surprised to learn that it takes at least a year to become familiar enough with the steps and movements before you can even think of participating.  And that’s assuming that you can kneel for the duration of the ceremony!  But after witnessing the calm and beauty of it (and I really do love matcha!), it would be amazing to learn how to perform it.

The other event was today, August 26th and was a demonstration from the local Kendo club.  Kendo is the traditional sword fighting style of the Samurai warriors.  Four gentlemen decked out in traditional practice clothing and modern safety gear (but based on tradition training gear, of course) quickly demonstrated for a packed house, the ways in which points are scored in competition and did some sparring for us.

From what I saw, much of this martial art still resides in tradition.  But it’s intense to watch!  I’ve never seen anything like it.  In competition, points are scored by hitting certain spots on the body – the top of the head, the neck, the wrists, and the sides of the torso –  with a clean blow.  The interesting thing was that they would actually announce which area the were going to hit as they started their attack.  Imagine how much more interesting  an action movie would be if they yelled out ‘FACE!’ before punching someone in the jaw!

But I suppose that most Eastern cultures seem to be intense by our standards.  Everything is/was done with thoughtfulness, meaning, meditation, and honor.  In many things, these cultures were further advanced than Europe was and when looking at technology today, still are further ahead.  Perhaps there is something to all this ritual.

I would quickly like to apologize for the quality of the pictures.  They were all taken with my cell phone and no flash (so as not to disturb the people in the demonstrations.)  However, I hope you get an idea of some of the things I got to witness and again, thank you to the Mendel Art Gallery for bringing a little bit of Japan to Saskatoon!