The Tea Ceremony and Women's Empowerment in Modern Japan: Bodies Re-Presenting the Past (Anthropology of Asia Series)

241 Pages·2004·2.56 MB·English

by  Etsuko Kato

The Tea Ceremony and Women’s
Empowerment in Modern Japan
The subject of the tea ceremony is well researched both in and outside of
Japan, but the women who practice it are hardly ever discussed. The Tea
Ceremony and Women’s Empowerment in Modern Japan rectifies this by dis-
cussing the meaning of the Japanese tea ceremony for women practition-
ers in Japan from World War II to the present day. It examines how lay tea
ceremony practitioners have been transforming this cultural activity while
being, in turn, transformed by it.
Drawing on Foucault’s concept of discipline and focusing primarily on
the body, this book illuminates how women tea ceremony practitioners
have empowered themselves through a unique way of using their bodies.
In particular the book examines:
• the relationship between the tea ceremony and the body
• myths surrounding the tea ceremony
• bodily discipline
• postwar effects on the tea ceremony
• tea ceremony networks
• the meaning of the ceremony in the lives of women.
By combining anthropological observation with historical examination
of the tea ceremony, this book radically revises mainstream discourses
surrounding women and the tea ceremony in Japan. It will prove of equal
interest to scholars of Japanese Studies, Gender Studies and Anthro-
pology.
Etsuko Kato is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Inter-
national Christian University, Tokyo.
Anthropology of Asia Series
Series editors:
Grant Evans
University of Hong Kong
Shaun Malarney
International Christian University, Japan
Asia today is one of the most dynamic regions of the world. The previously
predominant image of ‘timeless peasants’ has given way to the image of
fast-paced business people, mass consumerism and high-rise urban con-
glomerations. Yet much discourse remains entrenched in the polarities of
‘East vs. West’, ‘Tradition vs. Change’. This series hopes to provide a
forum for anthropological studies which break with such polarities. It will
publish titles dealing with cosmopolitanism, cultural identity, representa-
tions, arts and performance. The complexities of urban Asia, its elites, its
political rituals, and its families will also be explored.
Hong Kong
The anthropology of a Chinese metropolis
Edited by Grant Evans and Maria Tam
Folk Art Potters of Japan
Brian Moeran
Anthropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania
Jan van Bremen and Akitoshi Shimizu
Japanese Bosses, Chinese Workers
Power and control in a Hong Kong megastore
Wong Heung Wah
The Legend of the Golden Boat
Regulation, trade and traders in the borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China
and Burma
Andrew Walker
Cultural Crisis and Social Memory
Modernity and identity in Thailand and Laos
Edited by Shigeharu Tanabe and Charles F. Keyes
The Globalization of Chinese Food
Edited by David Y.H. Wu and Sidney C.H. Cheung
Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam
Shaun Kingsley Malarney
The Ethnography of Vietnams’ Central Highlanders
A historical contextualization, 1850–1990
Oscar Salemink
Night-time and Sleep in Asia and the West
Exploring the dark side of life
Edited by Brigitte Steger and Lodewijk Brunt
Chinese Death Rituals in Singapore
Tong Chee Kiong
Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society
Yuehping Yen
Buddhism Observed
Western travellers, Tibetan exiles and the culture of dharma in
Kathmanudu
Peter Moran
The Tea Ceremony and Women’s Empowerment in Modern Japan
Bodies re-presenting the past
Etsuko Kato

The Tea Ceremony and
Women’s Empowerment in
Modern Japan
Bodies re-presenting the past
Etsuko Kato
First published 2004
by RoutledgeCurzon
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeCurzon
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Etsuko Kato
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kato, Etsuko, 1965–
The tea ceremony and women’s empowerment in modern Japan /
by Etsuko Kato.
p. cm. — (Anthropology of Asia series)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Japanese tea ceremony. 2. Women–Japan–Social conditions.
3. Japan–Social conditions–1945– I. Title. II. Series.
GT2910.K325 2004
394.1(cid:1)5(cid:1)0952–dc22 2003018053
ISBN 0-203-74887-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-34539-8 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-31703-7(Print Edition)
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgments ix
A note on local terms and transcriptions xi
Introduction 1
PART I
The tea ceremony as bodily discipline 23
1 The tea ceremony as bodily discipline 25
2 Bodily discipline and myths 45
PART II
Two postwar phenomena in the tea ceremony 69
ô ô
3 The birth of s g -bunkadiscourse and feminization
of the tea ceremony 71
PART III
Women’s tea ceremony today 101
û
4 Shach and women’s tea ceremony networks 103
5 The past re-presented 122
6 The meaning of the tea ceremony in women’s lives 150
Conclusion 194
Glossary 200
Notes 203
Bibliography 215
Index 225
Illustrations
Plates
1.1 A scene from keiko 33
1.2 A scene from chakai 36
1.3 A scene from chaji 37
3.1 The tearoom in Keio department store, Shinjuku, Tokyo 87
5.1 The iemotoperforming in kencha-shikiat Hikawa Shrine 135
5.2 The audience in kencha-shiki 136
5.3 The alcove decorated for a chajicommemorating Fuhaku’s
death 142
Figures
I.1 Tea ceremony practitioners in Japan in 1996, by gender
and age groups 15
3.1 Floor plan of the sixth floor, Keio department store,
Shinjuku, Tokyo 87
Tables
1.1 ‘Permission’ system in Urasenke school as of 1998 42
3.1 Three typical life patterns of women under the ‘postwar
family system’ 94
4.1 The groups of participants by location 108
Acknowledgments
The original form of this book was my Ph.D. dissertation, which was sub-
mitted to the Linguistic and Semiotic Section of the Department of
Anthropology, the University of Toronto in 2001. On rewriting the thesis
into a book, I cannot help reflecting upon the path I have walked.
Conducting dissertation research was a long journey and an adventure,
during which I met various irreplaceable people. First of all, I was fortu-
nate enough to meet my supervisor Ivan Kalmar, a linguistic-cultural
anthropologist and semiotician. Not as a driver, but as a guide, he led me
and my work always to an unexpected, more exciting terrain, while strictly
and humorously correcting my occasional academically off-road attempts.
From the outlook he suggested, I was able to view my own culture as
almost totally new scenery.
I am also thankful to my committee members, the late Thomas A.
Sebeok of Indiana University, Bonnie S. McElhinny, David H. Turner,
Marcel Danesi and Gary W. Crawford of the University of Toronto, for
their interest in this work and their useful comments. Professor Sebeok,
who generously served as external examiner in December 2000 and
advised me to rewrite a chapter for his acclaimed Semiotica, the journal of
International Association for Semiotic Studies, passed away a year later. I
hope this book pleases him, who should be now reading the work ‘exter-
nally’ from heaven.
Tanaka Hidetaka, virtually my ‘supervisor in the field’, helped me with
his generous encouragement, advice, and many bibliographic suggestions
including his own works, all of which made inevitable maps to consult
amidst the field. My work would not have been possible without this soci-
ologist, historian and tea master. I also thank many acclaimed historians
of the tea ceremony in Japan, including Tsutsui Hiroichi, Toda Katsuhisa,
Murai Yasuhiko, Kumakura Isao, Nishiyama Matsunosuke and Tanaka
Hiromi, who spared their precious time for discussions with me. Although
my thesis often presents views antagonistic to some of theirs, these views
were born not of antagonistic relationships with those scholars but of
stimulating encounters with them.
I could not have devoted myself to this research if my participants in