The book of tea - snow capped Ginkaku-ji

There is a television program that picks one classical literature and takes 100 minutes to read it in four weeks(one month). It is called "100 pun de meicho", aired by NHK, translated roughly to "classical literature in 100 minutes". January 2015's pick is "The book of tea" by Okakura Kakuzo(Tenshin).

Okakura wrote this masterpiece originally in English, which was later translated into Japanese. Okakura was born in Yokohama neighborhood, where the earliest trade between Japan and America took place in the late 19th century. It was written about 100 years ago, just after Russo-Japanese war. After Meiji restoration, Japan was obsessed with all things Western, particularly technology and life style, thus it was close to the point of abandoning what had been accumulated over 2000 years of Japanese artistic history. In that period, Okakura found the immeasurable value in Japanese aesthetics. He had never been understood by contemporary Japanese, but had unlikely comrades from America. This lead to the valuable collections of Eastern arts in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The origin of art of tea could be traced to Ginkaku-ji temple in Kyoto, which I visited on 4-Jan. Kyoto experienced the heaviest snow fall in 56 years in the new year holidays of 2015. Ginkaku-ji was covered in snow. This snow fall may be once in a life experience. Now I go earnestly to take "The book of tea" in this background.

This wood sign post in Ginkaku-ji tells this is THE well that served the tea for shogun, 04-Jan-2015.

Ginkaku-ji covered with snow, 04-Jan-2015.