A KOREAN BRIDAL CHEST--MESSAGES IN ITS MAKING...

No tourist item here, this bridal chest is classic domestic Korean furniture with the natural black lacquer, inlaid mother-of-pearl and heavy brass-work. A beautiful perfect storm of historic Korean folk artisan workmanship.  It was made just after World War II, ca 1950, for a bride-to-be for her wedding trousseau and would have been carried---with her treasured articles and silk outfits protected inside---in perhaps a wedding-procession. It shows on either side of the unique butterfly brass lock, the bride-to-be with her chaperone on the left and the groom-to-be on the right, properly, appropriately separated before the wedding by the chaperone standing between them. 

With all the always-present sense of humour of the Koreans that I have enjoyed both in Korea and among the many permanent-Korean-resident-friends and colleagues in Japan, on the top of the lid is the betrothed couple on the right, having struck a secret deal with the chaperone to allow them a few moments in each others' arms.

But the chaperone is still on the job, over in the left corner of the garden behind the rocks keeping an eye on her charges. She is the famous Korean 'match-maker', some of whom---especially blind go-betweens who are thought to have special gifts and powers in matchmaking---become famous and rather wealthy arranging matches that are both pleasing to the couple and appropriate for the 'wedding' of the two families. 

The original owners, a Korean couple, brought two of these bridal chests with them as they immigrated to Canada sometime in the chaos after the Korean War to become part of the huge Korean population of Canadians who have contributed so much to the growth of post-war Canada. These Korean-Canadians gathered in urban areas around powerful Korean Christian churches and cultural centres.

So here are lessons from my mentor and friend for 20 years in Japan, Mr. LEE Yu-kwan of the famous Lee Family Collection, regarding Oriental Lacquer Art as applied to the construction of this beautiful piece. 

The chest is 1. at its core a hand-crafted cedar box, 2. which was covered with raw lacquer (from the lacquer tree),  a toxic brown paste-like substance, 3. into which is pressed rough-linen-cloth,  completely encasing the chest to strengthen the wood core,  4. after which many layers of refined black lacquer are applied, 5. during which the hand-carved mother-of-pearl figures--prepared beforehand by specialist craftsmen---are pressed into the wet lacquer, 6, the layers drying but only with the presence of very high humidity---natural lacquer resin from the "urushi-no-ki" (lacquer tree) will never dry if in a dry atmosphere, 7. then finally with all layers dry. the lacquer craftsmen are able to polish down with pumas-stone the lacquer surface to a flat shiny very hard surface, whereupon a lacquer-artist can paint with gold-filled lacquer the design on the surface tying the figures and the story together. 8. To add pazazz to the restrained, dark richness of the bridal chest, the proud Korean brass fittings are applied. 

The interior is covered with strip-designed cloth--a popular Korean pattern rather unlike either Chinese or Japanese fabric--to protect valuable Korean silk outfits from touching the interior wood surfaces. Rather primitive coarse pig-skin straps---indicative of the economic hardships of those war-ravaged times in Korea in the 50s and early 60s --- secure the lid, and very heavy brass hinges made from excessively thick brass---poor  Koreans have always loved and treasured their brass while rich Koreans have always loved and treasure their brass and their gold---to make a strong and functional bridal chest that with the heavy brass handles and lock and hinges shows the 'wealth' and stability of the bride's family as they give away their daughter in marriage.

THREE TEA CUPS 'DAKE' (only)

THREE TEA CUPS 'DAKE' (only)

  Three tea cups sit beside a kettle full of cold ‘mugi-cha’ (roasted barley tea), the delicious defacto drink of Japan’s poor.  Also on the blanket a ‘bento’ box neatly tied in a ‘furoshiki’, holding several ‘kibi-dango’, rice balls flavoured with a few drops of soy-sauce and covered with salty nori-seaweed. The baby is nearby watching what appears to be a idyllic scene of harvest time. 

     However all existing family members are in the field working full-out harvesting the rice in a race against time. A typhoon is approaching Japan from out of the China Sea. It has already hit Taiwan but that is a world away from this tiny field. Their wind-break bamboo thicket is blowing over almost double as the winds begin to pick up. The rice sheaths can be seen bowing in a direction parallel to the bamboo’s sway. If this small family doesn’t cut the rice stalks and lay them in bundles against the ground before this day is done, then in the darkness of night the fierce winds will snap the rice kernels off the flapping stalks and the crop will be lost.

     All families in the area are facing the same emergency. The usual practice of neighbours coming together and harvesting each family’s field in turn in a leisurely celebration full of laughter and dancing and good food is out of the question now.  Every family is on its own.

     And the three tea cups tell a story. It is 1950 and there are only 3 adults in this field.  The baby’s grandfather was likely lost in the government’s war in some far-off jungle or, caught in China in ’45, is among the 600 thousand Japanese prisoners of war still being held captive in 1950 by the Russians.  Grandmother, who usually watches the baby at the house, has come to the field to help. The ‘akanbo’ is tucked in the classic rice-straw basket, so tightly bound inside that it cannot escape and crawl away toward the nearby stream. Yet the baby can see everything that is happening and therefore is part of the family drama on this hard day.

     But this small family knows of hard work. And they will surely save much of this field, for there is something new in the air.  These three are actually working for themselves. The papers called it ‘land reform’. For the first time they own--actually own!-- these fields on which their family has been slaves and serfs for countless hundreds of years.  Times are hard. But the baby is healthy.  Life goes on.  And the typhoon will bring needed rains for the winter crop. What will be will be and life is good.

This motif of the baby safely tucked into the rice-basket is dear to the hearts of the Japanese. 

A antique doll, sculpted face with inset glass eyes, at present safely tucked into my gallery, obviously enjoying it. 

Lessons of a Zen Sand Garden

At the entrance to the gallery is a small Zen-style sand garden, which I rake faithfully-----well, OK, at least after each rainfall or after Cherub, the marmalade cat, has rolled and scratched his back in the warm sand. 


No, it's not what you think---he never messes, for he has great respect for things Zen. No, he rolls in my beautiful sand design when he is pissed off at me.  For example, when I won't let him into the gallery despite his plaintive cries at the glass door.

So he goes right to the Zen garden and rearranges things. 


The Buddha of Zen laughs and laughs. He likes all manner of feisty 'cats' of this world who challenge belief systems and do it with humour and without desecration. 

This garden is a faint reflection of my memory of the famous "dry" garden at Ryoan-ji (Peaceful Dragon Temple)  in Kyoto which is, yes, definitely raked daily by the monks.

Recently a lady stopped in to visit the gallery for the first time.  She has never traveled outside of the Province of Nova Scotia. This would be her first experience to visit an truly oriental environment and she was quite thrilled.  


As she entered, she pointed behind her to the Zen sand garden and said, "Your garden is coming along..."   


Being puzzled at her meaning, I answered in a typically polite and evasive Japanese fashion and agreed with her and thanked her for what obviously was a compliment. 


Inside the gallery, she was like a young  girl back in school on a field trip, marvelling at the beauty of objects and architecture alike.  And the kimonos!  She was overcome with excitement  to experience a taste of such an exotic culture, one that only in her dreams would she ever actually visit.


Finishing her green tea and wishing to express her joy and appreciation as she left, she commented once again on my sand garden.

Pointing to the carefully created, narrow rows in the sandy gravel, she left me a final compliment---- " Your garden will be  awfully lovely when your plants  begin coming up."

I thanked her kindly and sincerely for her visit----naive, uninformed, but a very pleasant person.


But then my mind began to churn. And in the background I could hear the Buddha of Zen laughing louder than ever---at me---his belly shaking.  


The question arose--- is there any room in the gardens of my preconceptions for more than just a rigid formula of sand and 5 stones? 


Like vegetables? 


Or humour?


How about a geisha napping? 

Of course, that must be done only with an authentic Zen meditation pillow...

(laughter...)

PS:  Seconds before I took this second image, a gentle wind blew the right sleeve of her kimono across her in a more feminine gesture.

This bunraku geisha definitely did not like the first poise...

TEA--a peace potion?

      Here is a quote and  a few thoughts that came to mind after friends and long-time customers  mentioned during a visit to the gallery this week that their son hopes to go into the tea business in their  country of Dubai United Arab Emirates.   

      "The most important pottery of the Cha-no-yu (tea-ceremony)  is first the Cha-ire (other name for tea-caddy) and then the Cha-wan (tea-bowl). It is said that among the military class the most precious possessions were first Tea-caddies, second writings and third swords. For this was the order in which they were presented by the Shogun to one he desired to honour."

-- A.L. Sadler.^[4]

16th cen. Japanese Momoyama-Era 'Cha-ire' (tea-caddy)

Chinese tea pot 1700s; 'Cha-ire' for coarse tea; modern 'Natsume' tea-caddy; 21st cen. tea pot. 

    Knowing that Japan, like my previous country the US, has had a history full of warfare, this statement is rather surprising, that a nation that lived by bushido  ('the way of the warrior') would have prized tea implements more highly than the symbol of their identity, the Japanese sword.  

    A grand old Japanese martial arts master, complete with wispy beard,  came to my gallery a few years ago. We sat in tea and conversation looking out over the ocean. He too surprised me when he said that within 50 years, martial arts would be no more, gone, no longer needed.  

  Times are a-changing.  I believe we are moving inextricably into an age of peace, beyond war-economics and the globe's control by shadowy power-brokering secret societies, into an Age where tea will be one of the compelling symbols of the dominance of civil society with its respect for diversity,  its celebration of commonality and its essential commitment to the principles of Gaia.  

   Perhaps tea is a Divine channel for a growing consciousness of Gaia in the minds of humanity? 

Tea, a peace potion?    

In the meantime, I know that it is delicious, and that Genmaicha, green tea with roasted rice, aka 'Popcorn Tea' is my favourite. So I serve it at the gallery every day....

ENJOYING JAPAN IN NOVA SCOTIA

Ohayo-gozaimasu!  

The easiest Japanese word to learn is "Ohayo",  'Good morning!'-- just like 'Ohio'.  (You can forget the 'gozaimasu' if you wish--it is technically required only if you are speaking to someone older than you.) 














And what a beautiful June morning it is here in Canada!--- bright warm sun, a slight crispness in the air and flowers in my Japanese gardens going crazy. 

I hope you don't mind if I slip  a few Japanese words into this blog. Most of the Canadian kids who live here along Nova Scotia's St. Mary's Bay---aka 'the French Shore'---are fluent both in French and English or are studying both, so they absorb languages like sponges.  I envy them.... 

  That 12th cen. Japanese garden we walked through earlier had a 'bakemono'----a

 popular term for 'monster' that you kids into anime and manga know well.

  My gardens here have visiting bees, their buzzing the single sweet sound on this quiet breeze except for the 'shakuhachi' (bamboo flute) music coming from the gallery.  

...ah, life is good....

A Samurai’s thousand-year-old act of compassion ---Retold in a woodblock print

Tadamori of the Taira Clan was at the top of his game. He just nailed one of the most plush and prestigious jobs in all of 11th-century Japan----a day-job as bodyguard for Emperor Go-Shirakawa. Go-Shirakawa was a nervous fellow, distrustful even of his own bodyguards. He required that all samurai guards leave his royal compound before sunset each day. 

One evening Go-Shirakawa required the services of a samurai guard. Tadamori happened to be on duty. The Emperor was going for an evening stroll with his entourage through unfamiliar forest-gardens. It was now almost dark and the Emperor was becoming rather frightened.

Suddenly out of the rain and fog appeared several pairs of threatening eyes. The Emperor jumped out of his royal skin and ordered Takamori to kill the terrifying demons immediately. 

Tadamori rushed at the apparition, his sword drawn, well trained to obey his Emperor’s every command.

About to strike, he saw that the ‘demon’ was actually a poor monk in a wild straw hat rushing about on his rounds, lighting the oil lamps in the stone lanterns of his temple’s forrest. 


The old man let out shrieks, and dropped his oil vessel, which broke with a great crash, adding to a really weird scene.

In the midst of his descending ‘katana’, Tadamori's well trained, obedient mind 'evolved'---ok, it revolted and began thinking on its own.  "Holy crap! I'm about to make a really messy decision...and over a 'me-shita-mono' "

Killing was not the problem. To kill the old man, or any human being that offended or threatened, was a samurai’s right.  Meeting 'lesser' ('me-shita-mono' 'below one's eyes') folk on the road, a samurai was judge, jury, and executioner. During a later age--the Tokugawa-era--there were better records kept of dead dogs than dead humans, especially if the dead were peasant farmers or the ‘subhuman’ ‘eta’ untouchables. Life was very tenuous for the people of the earth.

No, not killing but living was the problem. To spare the old monk’s 'worthless' life was to defy the Emperor’s command. Tadamori knew that such disobedience was a certain death sentence for himself--‘seppuku’.

Tadamori sheathed his sword. 


For him, it was probably one of those "what was I thinking?" moments. 


He now had two frightened men to contend with. 


He reassured the old monk that he had years left to live with many lanterns yet to light. 


 And so he turned to the other, his liege lord, explaining his disobedience and offered up his life in atonement.

We are aware of this act of compassion a thousand years later not just because one good man with immense courage and heart did what was right and true but because of a second act of compassion that day by another. Emperor Go-Shirakawa was himself a man who valued truth over power, forgiveness over ruinous revenge by an offended ego. 

The Emperor was moved by this samurai’s integrity. Not only did he forgive Tadamori his disobedience, but he made Tadamori his chief and full-time protector due to his intelligence and acts of kindness. Tadamori-no-Taira became the first samurai to be allowed to reside full time within the walls of the Emperor's quarters. 


Oh, a small footnote: Tadamori was also given the Emperor's consort as a wife and Tadamori eventually became the father of famed Kiyomori who then went on to make history.  Look him up, all you Japan-fans....


(Illustrated by an original woodblock print by Nobukazu Yosai, pupil of Chikanobu, struck off the original hand-carved cherrywood blocks; triptych, dated the 25th year of the Reign of Emperor Meiji, (l892).)

Marmalade Breakfast by a Buddhist Temple

4:30 AM--- I was riding my rather rusty mountain-bike through the deserted streets of Tokyo, headed for Arai-Yakushi Temple and its first-Sunday-of-the-month “Nomi-on-Ichi” ---flea market,  temple sale. 

A good sized furoshiki cloth was in my satchel in order to carry back anything I might buy.  Second only to an early look at all the interesting  junk and treasures that dealers and pickers might bring in from the countryside, I looked forward to my monthly “mooningu” breakfast with friends at a local coffee shop near the temple.  Awaiting me there was my private jar of Japanese-made Scotch-marmalade.

    Marmalade? In Japan? A private jar? Let me explain, using a very old Japanese custom. At tiny private bars, with only a few chairs or stools, member-customers each have their own bottle of Johnny Walker with their name on it up on a shelf behind the bar, a symbol of membership, purchased at an inflated price from the bar. Each drinks from his own bottle,  or serves a guest he brought along, or  a 'round to all “on the house”  if the owner was celebrating a promotion or his child just got into a prestigious kindergarten, thus on an auspicious path to Tokyo University and a good company job in the far future.

     But back to marmalade. Now I truly love a traditional Japanese breakfast, with raw egg and soy sauce over hot rice, eaten with salty nori. But my favorite Japanese breakfast is “mooningu”, Japan’s pronunciation of the English word ‘morning’, their term for “a perfect western breakfast”---strong coffee in a small cup, a hard-boiled egg still warm in the shell, and 2-inch thick hot buttered toast.  Mrs. Tanaka laughed when I asked permission to bring some marmalade for my toast next month.  The next month the jar went up on a shelf with my name on it.  She called it my Johnny Walker bottle, promising to guard it with her life.       

    

     440 AM---- I had a long ways to go, wanting to get there early.   I rode quickly by the corner where our neighborhood put out garbage and recyclables for collection but which now stood immaculately empty except for the plastic bottles of water to keep the feral cats from peeing on the cement wall;  Locked up my bike at Takadanobaba Station and jumped on the first Yamanote Line train of the morning; transferred  to the Seibu-Shinjuku Private Line; Now an hour later, walked the 5 minutes from the Araiyakushi-mae Station to the Buddhist temple grounds through narrow back streets lined with shops, the shop owners still sleeping in the small rooms above, their shuttered entrances just inches from the side of passing delivery trucks. In Tokyo space is money. The pickers were just unloading their wares onto their tarps on the swept dirt grounds under the cherry trees.

     

After greeting and chatting and laughing and dickering with the pickers,  I rushed---in Tokyo everyone rushes--to the coffee shop for my marmalade ‘mooningu’.  Tanaka-san-no-okusan had a long look on her face when she saw me enter. Bowing much deeper than usual, and in that most polite and apologetic manner for which the Japanese language is so  eminently suited,  she explained that some of her daily customers had developed an inexplicable and uncontrollable urge to eat ‘maamareedo’ on their toast.  “Moshiageraremasen,” she said,  showing me the empty marmalade jar.  

    4:30 AM--- a month later. With extra jars of ‘maamareedo’ in my pack for all, I once again headed for my favorite temple and temple sale and the Tanakas’ coffee shop.

Tom

Araiyakushi Temple is as serene and beautiful for meditation on a weekday as it is exciting on market day.
3 old film-photos mechanically spliced together, now framed here at home in Nova Scotia.