Calligraphy and Kindess

With many old friends leaving Japan in the next few weeks, I am forced to become aware again of all the things in Japan that I will miss. This week I had an especially touching moment where I fell in love with the generosity and traditions of this ancient country.

I took a Japanese calligraphy class on Sunday with a few friends. Himeji's famous Japanese teacher, Yumi, invited for a free class with her talented, experienced friend Chiaki. Despite this being the first time I had met either woman, both were so kind to me. We each received black ink sticks. Chiaki took our hands and showed us how to grind the stick on the stone slate with water to turn it into liquid. We did this for about twenty minutes while she spoke in Japanese about ink painting traditions. This technique, she told us, is used by monks as a form of meditation. Concentrating on the ink allows your mind to go blank.

She then explained the importance of the bamboo leaves we would draw by telling us the story behind the Tanabata festival. Two lovers, Orihime and Hikoboshi, were so in love that they stopped working hard, so Orihime's father, the God of the Sky or Universe, separated the lovers, only allowing them to meet once a year on the 7th day of the 7th month. They are two stars separated by the Milky Way and on July 7th (sometimes August 7th, depending on the calendar used) they can see each other. On this day, the Japanese celebrate by writing their wishes on paper and hanging them on bamboo.

We listened to the story while we practiced drawing bamboo leaves on paper. Despite Chiaki's kind attempts to show me the way (and the ease with which she drew so simple a shape) I st rugged to create anything other than blobs on paper. She then drew bamboo shoots with sample leaves for us to complete. We inexpertly finished the paintings and signed our names in Katakana. To finish the lesson, Chiaki also gave us a small folding screen made of recycled paper and bamboo leaves, which we also painted on, and a matching pink handkerchief. All of this for free.

In the end, the five of us went to dinner for okonomiyaki, one of my favorite Japanese foods. Yumi and Chiaki ordered for all of us, a common practice when one goes out to dinner with Japanese women for dinner, and one I highly recommend. You will always get a delicious meal with something new to try. We ate four kinds of okonomiyaki and the kind staff also delivered free miso soup and scoops of vanilla ice cream. At the end of the meal, after talking for hours in Japanglish, Japanese and English (with the gifted Yumi simultaneously translating and teaching) the Japanese women ran off to the register. We chased them down as well only to discover that Chiaki, as the eldest at the dinner, had paid for the meal. Our attempts to pay her were only met with thank you's as she scampered away. Yumi explained that this was typical in Japan, and we all fell a little more in love with this country.