kimono culture

With the influx of western culture and fashion, traditional Japanese clothing seemed doomed to become a thing of the past. However, kimono are still being manufactured and worn to this very day. Before the Meiji period, kimono functioned as everyday wear, but nowadays people wear kimono on occasions that require formal dress, such as weddings, graduations, and funerals.

 

Kimono are also worn on certain holidays. Children are dressed in kimono for shichi-go-san festival. Young women who will become 20 years old in the coming year wear ornate furisode (振袖, a special long-sleeved kimono) for coming-of-age festival in January.

I wore this vintage kimono at a tea ceremony lesson. Kimono are still worn for traditional events like tea ceremony, hanami (花見, flower viewing), or a gagaku (雅楽, court music) performance. If you attend a traditional cultural event, you will definitely see women (and sometimes men) wearing kimono.

There is a thriving kimono culture that exists in Japan. Vintage kimono can often be found at local flea markets for extremely reasonable prices. Sometimes they have small flaws or stains, but more often than not they are entirely wearable.

A fairly recent trend has re-styled vintage kimono with modern accessories to to give the wearer a retro kind of look. These kimono are often brightly colored (like the one I’m wearing in the photos) or are woven with strong geometric patterns.

If you’d like to get your own kimono, you can always go and find mountains of cheap used kimono at local flea markets like Kobo-san in Kyoto or the tenmangu market in Kiryu. Sometimes you can even find shops that buy and sell recycled kimono like Usagi-ya in Ashikaga.

What do you think about non-Japanese wearing kimono? Do you think it looks ridiculous? Would you like to try wearing kimono? Tell me what you think!

茶の湯

I’ve been reading up on Chanoyu, or Sado, or Tea Ceremony, or The Way of Tea, or whatever you like to call it. One of my coworkers took me to her ochakai lesson with her mother and for the first time EVER I got to wear kimono! It was so exciting, and probably also very good for my posture. The obi is very tight and stiff, but not completely restricting, but the most difficult thing, I found, was standing up and sitting down without letting the undergarment show. I felt a little awkward, but I’m sure if I could practice all the time, I could easily get used to it. However, putting on a kimono by oneself is no easy task. I have a kimono, but I unfortunately do not have all of the appropriate underthings…yet. Don’t you love the tabi (socks)? They remind me of Ninja Turtle feet. Hee.

 

Also, I’ve been to ochakai before, but this was a lesson, and not an actual tea-meet. It was way more relaxed than the real thing, which made me feel a lot more comfortable and about 75% less awkward and foreign! You can learn so much about Zen philosophy from tea ceremony, and Japanese culture as well. If you want to learn more about the way of tea, I’d recommend reading “The Book of Tea” by Kakuzo Okakura. It’s all about the aesthetics and philosophy that are the tea ceremony itself. The book also includes the history of tea ceremony and talks about its earliest forms. The book also has a few anecdotes about the most influential tea master, Sen-no Rikyu, who broke apart his tea bowl and committed ritual suicide after performing his final tea ceremony.

“[tea ceremony] is an attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”

– Tenshin Okakura, The Book of Tea

Saturday

Yesterday I went to a flea market in Kiryu at the Tenmangu with some friends. We meandered around for a while, and it was really cool just looking at all the old stuff that people accumulate. I didn’t really buy anything, though. I saw a used yukata that I liked, but it had a stain on the sleeve that probably wasn’t going to come out anytime soon, and besides, when do I ever get a chance to wear yukata?! Well, I did yesterday! I FINALLY had a chance to wear my yukata. Yay!

  

I’m the blonde one to the right, with the purple obi. I think my hands look huge in this picture, probably because my sleeves are a little short. I don’t have geta because they’re too short for my feet, so I wore a pair of flats instead. I think that was the big thing most people remarked on.

Old-fashioned kaki-gori machine. Looks like it was going for about $250.

  

This part of Japan was historically the textile center of the country. The textile factories are still in Kiryu, but they don’t really use them anymore. Now they have them around for their cool, old architecture. Also, there are all kinds of references (names of festivals, shrines, etc.) to Orihime, the weaving goddess, as well as the JR Ryomo (両毛) line, with the character 毛, which means hair or fur, but in this case specifically they used it to refer to the thread produced here. 
   We also went to a cool old-style restaurant called “Basho” (芭蕉) for lunch. The building itself was easily over a hundred years old, complete with thatched roof, clay walls. and uneven stone floor.  There are all kinds of horse-motif decorations in the place. It’s a little dark but it’s cool even on a hot day. The tables each have their own unique noisemakers to call for the wait staff. We had a little brass gong. The booth next to ours had a mini brass temple bell, and another had a wooden windchime. Had the house curry and a salad, which were fantastic.

Its funny how you can go to a place every day and know so little about it. Kiryu has plenty of information and things to promote tourism, as well as tons of stuff to do and see. I’m glad I have nice friends to show me around!