Date& Time: Monday, May 15 at 9:00am-1:00pm
Place: Tsuzuki-Minkaen( Folk House Garden located in Tsuzuki Ward, Yokohama)
Visitors: 10 visitors (3 Americans, 2 British, 1 each of French, Spanish, Thai, Romanian, and Indian)
Organized by 7 KSGG members
Languages: English and Japanese
Following the last year’s yukata （cotton kimono）and tea ceremony event at Tsuzuki-Minkaen, the second event was held by well-experienced KSGG members. They demonstrated the tea ceremony clearly, so that the visitors enjoyed it very much. In the dressing room the visitors were delighted at a variety of colorful yukata and sashes. When I tied sashes for visitors very tightly saying, “One, Two, Gyu(tight)!”, as usual, they smiled broadly saying “ Ah! “ Yukata looked so nice on them. In the tea house, the visitors observed the demonstration by one of the KSGG attendants, listening to her explanation and taking photos eagerly. It was like a press conference. After that, each of them practiced the tea ceremony seriously, bowing with both hands on tatami, and passing around a bowl of sweets and a tea bowl. Most of them sat on tatami in the formal way. I hope that they had a quiet and peaceful time and felt the spirit of the tea ceremony, with the murmuring of the little stream by the tea house. I also hope that this experience will be of some help for the participants from abroad to become more interested in Japanese culture.