Cultural Ambassador

With the Club set to host another two-day “boot camp” for living in Japan, iNTOUCH talks to one of the program’s expert speakers

Every Sunday, Yuriko Hirayama would help prepare for the tea ceremony in the house her young family shared with her in-laws.

Dressed immaculately in a kimono, her mother-in-law would snip a sprig of camellia from the garden for the ikebana flower arrangement. Sitting in the traditional seiza position in the tatami room, her father-in-law would call for a scroll to be hung on the wall. In early spring, it might be a scroll depicting a plum blossom. If it didn’t fit the mood, he might request a kakejiku with the Chinese character for plum in calligraphy.

Once everything was arranged just so, the family would sit down for tea and listen to the patriarch explain his choice or expound on specific ceremony utensils. If he decided to hang a scroll of Mount Fuji, Hirayama says it might have been because they were entertaining a visitor from the United States.

“In the tea ceremony room, politics is not supposed to be talked about. Cultural or history topics related to the tea ceremony only,” says Hirayama. “I feel very fortunate I was given this experience. The tea ceremony was part of the daily life for the Hirayamas. None of my friends, even though they were from Kyoto, had this same education.”

A Wealth of Information
Hirayama, 73, has taught the popular Japanese Culture and Traditions seminar during the Club’s biannual orientation program, Tokyo: Here & Now, since 1990. She also hosts the Women’s Group’s tea ceremony class and guides to local sightseeing spots. She estimates she has introduced Japanese traditions and events to more than 10,000 newcomers to the country.

Her Tokyo: Here & Now presentation includes an intriguing reference to needle-blessing day on February 8. Seamstresses and tailors have their old and broken needles blessed at a shrine or temple, before “laying them to rest” on a bed of soft tofu.

Hirayama’s cultural overview is packed with explanations and tips, including a warning against buying inexpensive bouquets, adorned with white and yellow chrysanthemums. These, she says, are intended for the cemetery or a Buddhist altar.

As part of her presentation on local customs, she explains that women often present chocolates to male coworkers and bosses on Valentine’s Day, although she adds that the current trend is for women to buy expensive chocolates for their girlfriends or even themselves.

“I say to people at the presentation, ‘Don’t be upset if your husband brings home chocolates on Valentine’s Day,’” says Hirayama, who confesses that she didn’t pay much attention to the rituals she was regularly exposed to growing up in Kyoto.

Early Exposure
She spent her final year of high school studying in Boston, which opened her eyes to the differences between cultures.

“I loved living in America, everything: the freedom [and], of course, pizza. There wasn’t such a thing in Japan in 1959,” she says. “At the bottom of the heart, our feelings are the same, but the outlook is so different. So when I came back, I started to pay more attention to Japanese culture, which I could do fairly easily living in Kyoto.”

After marriage, she moved in with her in-laws in a large home in Kichijoji in western Tokyo. Her mother-in-law, who wore a kimono every day, except for the hottest days of August, was an expert in tea ceremony and other Japanese arts.

“My mother-in-law must have taken lessons for 60 years. In her 80s, after she had an operation for cancer, her goal to get well was to be able to return to tea ceremony lessons,” says Hirayama. “She had all sorts of licenses for teaching, though she didn’t teach others. She just kept learning. It’s like a philosophy for life. She didn’t push anyone. She said tea ceremony is just about enjoying tea.”

Dressed in her mother’s sky blue kimono, Hirayama kneels in the tea room she had custom-built for her Tokyo apartment and pours green tea into a bowl, decorated with a 48-star American flag. She picks up another bowl with the design of a sheep she received from a former student at the Club 12 years ago.

“I am the oldest now, both age wise and longevity, for Tokyo Here & Now speakers,” she says. “I have made life-long friends through my classes that are like sisters or brothers. I feel tears coming now, because so many people have enjoyed this and said ‘Yuriko, thank you for sharing this aspect of your life.’”

Words by Nick Narigon
Photo by Enrique Balducci

Tokyo: Here & Now
March 2–3