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Event Description
Tea Demo at Woodland Pond in New Paltz
If you ever decided to move in to a nursing home, you’d be very happy to
live at Woodland Pond in New Paltz. There, about 50 of the residents get
together once a month, called “Women’s Tea Talk”, and we were invited to
demonstrate our Tea Ceremony. There was a few men participated as well for
this special occasion.
We did Ryurei (table set-up) style this time. Our server, Yuriko-san, had
studied Urasenke (type of school/style) for over 12 years. Tea Ceremony was
not adopted in the Japanese daily life while it was remained among highly
sophisticated class of people and family, similar to school, and the rest
enjoyed learning as hobby. Unfortunately, it is easy to forget most of the
forms as they are intricately well choreographed besides there are so many
levels of steps to go through. However it is amazing to find out, after
years of break, your body would still remember most “movements”. It is
probably because it simply became natural after many years of training. You
could tell by watching Yuriko-san’s serving, called “Otemae”, that she
had polished her skill to a higher level. After a full demonstration, we
offered all participants time for questions, and we found many had such
extent of knowledge and interest in not only the Tea Ceremony but Japanese
culture over all. Some questions, as a matter of fact, had caught me off
guard as I didn’t even know the name of the item a lady asked about. Some
told us their own experience from having lived in Japan while others worked
with Japanese people. All seemed very nice memories, and we were glad to
share the stories.
Our sincere thanks to Ms. Gretchen Daum, Activities Coordinator - Resident
Services, and the Woodland Pond for giving us the opportunity to meet with
such enthusiastic and intelligent residents of the Woodland Pond. We would
love to bring other culture program there in the future to share and enjoy
their wonderful memories again. Our member, Atsuko-san, also enjoyed her
reunion with an old friend there. Good memories would remain forever. Many
many thanks to our dedicated volunteer members, as always.
Midori Shinye
Project Leader
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