Women Empowerment
This would be a collective goal towards which all teapot users would be contributing when buying one. Profit earned from selling the teapots would partly be used to fund women empowering projects around the world.
The idea for this came from a paper "The Sword Behind the Chrysanthemum: Modern Japanese Tea Ceremony Practitioners' Self-Empowermentthrough Explicit and Implicit Motifs" by Etsuko Kato
Notes on the paper and quotes are here:
Japanese Tea ceremony:
- Three forms of practice: regular, usually weekly, training (keiko), big formal gatherings (chakai) and small formal gatherings (chaji), with decreasing chances for lay practitioners to attend in this order.
- In whatever form one practices the tea ceremony, however, two things are consistent: that a practitioner must follow sets of specific body movement (temae), and that the activity has motifs, which legitimate her/his physical and discursive practices.
· Motifs:
- two kinds of motifs, explicit and implicit
- Implicit especially important – empowerment of women
Explicit motifs : seasonal and life changings
- Turner’s (1969) dichotomy between ‘calendrical rites’ and ‘life crisis rites’.
Calendarical = almost always collective rites performed ‘at well-delineated points in the annual productive cycle’
Life-crisis = ‘a number of critical moments of transition which all societies ritualize and publicly mark with suitable observances to impress the significance of the individual and the group on living members of the community’; Such moments include ‘birth, puberty, marriage, and death’ (Turner 1969: 168; citing Warner 1959: 303);
" These two types of rites have no clear dividing line. Van Gennep (1960) points out that ‘man’s life resembles nature, from which neither the individual nor the society stands independent’, and even suggests that ‘[w]e should therefore include among ceremonies of human passage those rites occasioned by celestial changes, such as the changeover from month to month, from season to season, and from year to year’ (Van Gennep 1960: 3–4)."
We forgot tea has served in ceremonies that were rites of passage. Tea was used in both human ceremonies and celestial ones because it captures the traits of both people and nature in itself, in its everchanging, passing self. Tea has a cycle as nature does, as humans do. I’m not just talking about the big cycle, where it gets picked and then dried and then packed and unpacked and brewed, because both coffee and some other drinks have it too. I’m talking about the small cycle that one can view in front of her eyes. This cycle, when we watch it, is our own personal, long forgotten, meditative and indulging, daily rite. Tea can give people that one moment in the day when something captures all of their senses and they do nothing for a moment but enjoy.
Centre line: Tea is what binds us with the nature.
Explicit motifs: ‘Seasonal feelings’ (calendrical) and ‘joy and sorrow in the life cycle’ (life-crisis)
Implicit motifs: prominent historical figures and profound metaphysics.
"I call these motifs ‘implicit’, for the legitimatization through them is so essential and pervasive that practitioners would rarely mention them as motifs."
Authority through tea ceremony is derived from tradition rather than from political or economic power.
"Centuries-old religious institutions, such as temples and shrines, still have ‘traditional authority’ in contemporary society in the same way that the descendants of prominent historical figures have."
"This traditional authority ultimately legitimates all the discourses and practices of tea ceremony practitioners today. At the same time, practitioners raise their status, mainly within the community of practitioners but sometimes in society in general, by assimilating themselves to the traditional authority."
"To summarize, women tea ceremony practitioners in this cohort share similar experiences as urban housewives who, in society preoccupied with economy and education, are expected to support their husbands’ and (male) children’s professional or business success, rather than pursuing their own, and to voluntarily care for the elderly until their end."
"One could argue that this status led a lot of women who had fulfilled their family duties back to their premarital activity, the tea ceremony, in a search for the meaning and consistency of their lives which had been fragmented by care for others."
"For these women practitioners, the double structure of explicit and implicit motifs of their practice is beneficial. With implicit motifs of traditional authority, women can match their husbands and (male) children who have power over them. And with explicit motifs of ‘seasonal feelings’ and ‘joy and sorrow in the life cycle’, they can practice the tea ceremony as if it had nothing to do with power struggle, and thus maintain the (seemingly) harmonious family relationship."
"Women practitioners’ matching men around them with implicit motifs was made possible especially by a postwar-born discourse: the notion that the tea ceremony is soˆgoˆ-bunka, (cultural synthesis), a cultural activity that comprehends ‘every’ traditional, Japanese cultural domain.13 The soˆgoˆ-bunka discourse encourages middle-aged female tea ceremony practitioners to study various tea ceremony-related domains, such as ceramics, calligraphy, or Zen Buddhism. This study empowers women in a twofold way. First, studying equilibrates women with their male family members who have educational power. Second, through studying about the metaphysics and mythical ancestors of the tea ceremony behind every item related to the tea ceremony, and by putting the knowledge into practice through bodily performance, women vicariously both represent the tradition and obtain the authority with which the tradition provides them. Thus, they can match their male family members, who have economic and educational power but do not have the same authority that the wives obtain from their performance of the tea ceremony."
"Such activities of women practitioners should be called ‘evasion’ rather than ‘resistance’ towards the structure of dominance, although the two ‘are interrelated, and neither is possible without the other’ (Fiske 1989: 2). Although attempting to empower themselves, the women circumvent direct conflict or competition with their male family members. As a high-ranking male teacher puts it, studies in the tea ceremony is what ‘you cannot learn even at universities’. Therefore, women’s learning about ceramics or Zen Buddhism and using the knowledge in their performance does not challenge the value of the university diplomas that their male family members have. Also, the traditional authority the women assume through their activities does not constitute a direct threat to husbands, for the authority belongs to the past, not to the same dimension as the educational and economic power husbands hold in contemporary society. Moreover, explicit motifs of ‘seasonal feelings’ and ‘joy and sorrow in the life circle’, which do not contain any radical protest to society — rather, housewives are expected to be sensitive to these motifs in daily life to fulfill social norms on holidays or in special occasions — cover up the women’s wish for authority. Thus, practice of the tea ceremony does not in any way conflict with nor negates the married lives the women have accomplished, while it safely enables them to match their male family members."
"Noteworthy in this empowering process is that it takes place first and foremost among women. As depicted throughout this article, women practitioners’ acquisition of more knowledge and its use in their performance is first exposed to other women. And women gradually empower themselves in the gaze and respect from other women, while rendering gaze and respect to other women. Thus, women practitioners create a unique space for each other’s empowerment, so that eventually they present themselves as representers of traditional authority in society at large."
Links:
http://www.tching.com/2009/10/the-green-tea-ritual-part-1-of-2/
Notes on the paper and quotes are here:
Japanese Tea ceremony:
- Three forms of practice: regular, usually weekly, training (keiko), big formal gatherings (chakai) and small formal gatherings (chaji), with decreasing chances for lay practitioners to attend in this order.
- In whatever form one practices the tea ceremony, however, two things are consistent: that a practitioner must follow sets of specific body movement (temae), and that the activity has motifs, which legitimate her/his physical and discursive practices.
· Motifs:
- two kinds of motifs, explicit and implicit
- Implicit especially important – empowerment of women
Explicit motifs : seasonal and life changings
- Turner’s (1969) dichotomy between ‘calendrical rites’ and ‘life crisis rites’.
Calendarical = almost always collective rites performed ‘at well-delineated points in the annual productive cycle’
Life-crisis = ‘a number of critical moments of transition which all societies ritualize and publicly mark with suitable observances to impress the significance of the individual and the group on living members of the community’; Such moments include ‘birth, puberty, marriage, and death’ (Turner 1969: 168; citing Warner 1959: 303);
" These two types of rites have no clear dividing line. Van Gennep (1960) points out that ‘man’s life resembles nature, from which neither the individual nor the society stands independent’, and even suggests that ‘[w]e should therefore include among ceremonies of human passage those rites occasioned by celestial changes, such as the changeover from month to month, from season to season, and from year to year’ (Van Gennep 1960: 3–4)."
We forgot tea has served in ceremonies that were rites of passage. Tea was used in both human ceremonies and celestial ones because it captures the traits of both people and nature in itself, in its everchanging, passing self. Tea has a cycle as nature does, as humans do. I’m not just talking about the big cycle, where it gets picked and then dried and then packed and unpacked and brewed, because both coffee and some other drinks have it too. I’m talking about the small cycle that one can view in front of her eyes. This cycle, when we watch it, is our own personal, long forgotten, meditative and indulging, daily rite. Tea can give people that one moment in the day when something captures all of their senses and they do nothing for a moment but enjoy.
Centre line: Tea is what binds us with the nature.
Explicit motifs: ‘Seasonal feelings’ (calendrical) and ‘joy and sorrow in the life cycle’ (life-crisis)
Implicit motifs: prominent historical figures and profound metaphysics.
"I call these motifs ‘implicit’, for the legitimatization through them is so essential and pervasive that practitioners would rarely mention them as motifs."
Authority through tea ceremony is derived from tradition rather than from political or economic power.
"Centuries-old religious institutions, such as temples and shrines, still have ‘traditional authority’ in contemporary society in the same way that the descendants of prominent historical figures have."
"This traditional authority ultimately legitimates all the discourses and practices of tea ceremony practitioners today. At the same time, practitioners raise their status, mainly within the community of practitioners but sometimes in society in general, by assimilating themselves to the traditional authority."
"To summarize, women tea ceremony practitioners in this cohort share similar experiences as urban housewives who, in society preoccupied with economy and education, are expected to support their husbands’ and (male) children’s professional or business success, rather than pursuing their own, and to voluntarily care for the elderly until their end."
"One could argue that this status led a lot of women who had fulfilled their family duties back to their premarital activity, the tea ceremony, in a search for the meaning and consistency of their lives which had been fragmented by care for others."
"For these women practitioners, the double structure of explicit and implicit motifs of their practice is beneficial. With implicit motifs of traditional authority, women can match their husbands and (male) children who have power over them. And with explicit motifs of ‘seasonal feelings’ and ‘joy and sorrow in the life cycle’, they can practice the tea ceremony as if it had nothing to do with power struggle, and thus maintain the (seemingly) harmonious family relationship."
"Women practitioners’ matching men around them with implicit motifs was made possible especially by a postwar-born discourse: the notion that the tea ceremony is soˆgoˆ-bunka, (cultural synthesis), a cultural activity that comprehends ‘every’ traditional, Japanese cultural domain.13 The soˆgoˆ-bunka discourse encourages middle-aged female tea ceremony practitioners to study various tea ceremony-related domains, such as ceramics, calligraphy, or Zen Buddhism. This study empowers women in a twofold way. First, studying equilibrates women with their male family members who have educational power. Second, through studying about the metaphysics and mythical ancestors of the tea ceremony behind every item related to the tea ceremony, and by putting the knowledge into practice through bodily performance, women vicariously both represent the tradition and obtain the authority with which the tradition provides them. Thus, they can match their male family members, who have economic and educational power but do not have the same authority that the wives obtain from their performance of the tea ceremony."
"Such activities of women practitioners should be called ‘evasion’ rather than ‘resistance’ towards the structure of dominance, although the two ‘are interrelated, and neither is possible without the other’ (Fiske 1989: 2). Although attempting to empower themselves, the women circumvent direct conflict or competition with their male family members. As a high-ranking male teacher puts it, studies in the tea ceremony is what ‘you cannot learn even at universities’. Therefore, women’s learning about ceramics or Zen Buddhism and using the knowledge in their performance does not challenge the value of the university diplomas that their male family members have. Also, the traditional authority the women assume through their activities does not constitute a direct threat to husbands, for the authority belongs to the past, not to the same dimension as the educational and economic power husbands hold in contemporary society. Moreover, explicit motifs of ‘seasonal feelings’ and ‘joy and sorrow in the life circle’, which do not contain any radical protest to society — rather, housewives are expected to be sensitive to these motifs in daily life to fulfill social norms on holidays or in special occasions — cover up the women’s wish for authority. Thus, practice of the tea ceremony does not in any way conflict with nor negates the married lives the women have accomplished, while it safely enables them to match their male family members."
"Noteworthy in this empowering process is that it takes place first and foremost among women. As depicted throughout this article, women practitioners’ acquisition of more knowledge and its use in their performance is first exposed to other women. And women gradually empower themselves in the gaze and respect from other women, while rendering gaze and respect to other women. Thus, women practitioners create a unique space for each other’s empowerment, so that eventually they present themselves as representers of traditional authority in society at large."
Links:
http://www.tching.com/2009/10/the-green-tea-ritual-part-1-of-2/
The Story of Xi Shi
The shape of these teapots is named after Xi Shi, the first of 4 famous Chinese beauties. She lived in the 5th century BC and was involved in the political plot to change the regime that was imposed onto her region at that time.
Zisha clay
20 cl. 141 grams
The lines of these classic Xishi teapots are therefore very round and feminine. The only part of the teapot that could symbolize masculinity (the spout) has been 'cut short'!
The lid prolongs the shape of the body and alludes to the most maternal part of a woman's body..."
Source: http://teamasters.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/3-yixing-xishi-teapots-are-back.html
Zisha clay
20 cl. 141 grams
The lines of these classic Xishi teapots are therefore very round and feminine. The only part of the teapot that could symbolize masculinity (the spout) has been 'cut short'!
The lid prolongs the shape of the body and alludes to the most maternal part of a woman's body..."
Source: http://teamasters.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/3-yixing-xishi-teapots-are-back.html
The full story of XiShi can be found here: http://journeyeast.tripod.com/xishi.html