Fuden-an: Leaves from a Tea-journal

　　During the month past (April), I found myself able to perform without mishap the most formal offering of Tea, on a stage set up outdoors before the image of the Buddha presiding over the central hall of one of Japan's most ancient temples - Yakushiji, in Nara Prefecture's Nishi-no-kyo - on the occasion of that temple's celebration of the extended feast greeting the Buddha's birthday (Hana-eshiki). While the sky of that particular day proved perfectly clear, the wind that was blowing was strong enough to insistently bear away with it both the plain wooden lid to the bowl in which I was preparing to offer the Buddha Tea, and even the little brocade bag from which I had withdrawn the Tea-receptacle from which I was about to draw powdered tea. Though I had already performed this rite of offering Tea to Buddha-avatars or indigenous deities in various different provinces, I feel that this occasion has proved a source of great enlightenment. For it is my ultimate persuasion that the Way of cha-no-yu is one in which, as soon as something unforeseen occurs, the manner in which you immediately think to cope with this initially disconcerting happenstance is a test of the basic stance of your heart, or spirit. In this respect Let nothing disturb you is an extremely important self-injunction.

　　What I should next like to do is to try to express what recently has in fact recently disturbed me. As happens every year, April saw the opening of Japan's professional baseball season. In addition to that event (and slightly previous to it), two major American baseball-teams - one of these the New York Yankees, and both including among their numbers players of Japanese origin - were invited to play out their opening contest for this season in Tokyo's Dome Stadium. This match with the Yankees - to which belongs player Matsui, and which is a team that has achieved both matchless ability and consequent popularity - proved to draw a capacity audience, here in Japan. And, through the good offices of an acquaintance, I found myself blessed with the gift of a ticket for this very match. It was to my private dismay that I found myself watching the Yankees losing; and yet I felt the match itself fully satisfying, from the point of view of its demonstration of true major-league vitality, and unsurpassable skills. And this was all to the good.

　　What I want to write about is, however, not this match itself. It is rather the series of matches played before this event, between the New York Yankees and Japan's Giants (one of the six teams that compose Japan's Pacific League). Of course, before each match began, both nations' anthems were played. And, while I was witnessing this ceremony, therein I met with something that gave me pause for thought - even for dismay. For, while the Major League players were listening to their own national anthem, they all stood with right palms placed over their breasts, in that gesture of fervent loyalty. To me this looked entirely natural; and I observed player Matsui, who is now a member of the Yankees team, himself doing the same. On similar occasions, both Ichiro and Nomo - also Japan-born members of major American baseball-teams - may be observed doing likewise. Yes, for you, this is right, is what one feels. But what happened, when the Japanese national anthem - Kimi ga yo - was subsequently played, was that the Giants players all simply imitated this pose, similarly placing their right palms over their breasts. To me, this looked out of place. And I wonder whether I was then alone in wishing to suggest … 'No, that really doesn't suit you lot.'

　　Since the end of the Second World War, the question of both Japan's flag and also its national anthem have for several decades been made subjects of vigorous and very varied debate. Recently, secondary school teachers who, because of their political convictions, have refused to rise to their feet upon the sound of the national anthem, as played at entrance ceremonies held in their schools, have had imposed upon them all sorts of punishments; and other such issues have recently afforded Japanese news-programs some degree of liveliness. Whenever I have attended the day of final matches of a season of sumo, I have always found it rather odd that the announcer addressing the entire stadium should prove to have been instructed specifically to urge us, the audience, to rise to our feet, to acknowledge the playing of our own national anthem. I have never heard of - let alone myself observed - such anxious injunctions being broadcast in any other country. And American culture is one that is, with regard to this respect, particularly conspicuous. Here, I do not have the page-space within which to express what, upon this point, I truly feel. But it remains my own impression that the placing of the right palm upon the breast is not a gesture that springs from the code of body-language that characterizes any area of Japanese culture.

　　What Japanese people really need to consider is, however, not the question of what pose should be adopted, but rather that of fundamental attitude: instead of merely doing something because others do it, should we not first think about what it most behooves ourselves to do? I should like finally to add that, of the Giants team, only Kiyohara Kazuhiro stood with both hands at his sides….