The Panda Travels: Calligraphy and Cooking! (1/21/12)

Hi everybody,

Today we continue with David’s lack of ability to do anything at all…

First, today we did shodou (caligraphy)! We vistited Myoshinji, a Zen Buddhist temple and we learned about the various arts and practices associated with Zen Buddhism. One is the practice of calligraphy. David is not very good. But it was fun to paint with the brush.

Sweep. Stop. Hook. Dot. The Four Stroke Types.

--now wait Sumi, you would be too if you had to use your off hand to paint. See the way the brush strokes work, you have to pull using your right hand instead of pushing with your left. So it’s not all my fault.—

Nihon - Japan!

Maybe, but if it weren’t for me, you’d have a black ink mess instead of a nice kanji. Now, nicely go back to your homework.

Anyways, It was a lot of fun to paint with the big brush. I learned how to write “ai” (love).

I chose ai - love! I love you al!

Then we saw another zen garden. This one was much prettier than the Ryoanji.

Everybody and their masterpieces!

A pretty pond!

We also learned interesting points of Zen Buddhism. There were two key points that the head monk taught us. One was the emphasis on simplicity. Simple is more beautiful and more pure. But pureness by people is impossible (but didn’t say anything about perfection in pandas ;) ). The other was the puzzle: how do you catch a big catfish using a small gourd?

I said, it’s easy. Just be a bear and use your claws. I think it makes sense since it’s natural and nature is more simple than people.

How to catch a catfish? I like catfish. Fried catfish.

After we had a vegetarian meal. There were lots of unique vegetables. The meal symbolizes a pure heart, as the maker must take care when preparing the beautiful shapes and colors and the eater must be grateful (and she is not eating meat). And of course you must eat all of your vegetables (which is fine for a panda, but maybe not for all people).

Yasai - veggies. Pandas like veggies (though David doesn't :) )

We even had a tea ceremony! Ryoku-cha (green tea) is kind of bitter but the cookie was really tasty!

Ryoku-cha - turn the bowl a half turn, then take small sips. And the cookie is good too!

And speaking of sweets, here’s another one of David’s mistakes: we (and by we I mean everybody but David) learned how to cook yesterday. You should have seen him try to cut the daikon (large radish). He’s very lucky that he didn’t cut himself. He was shaking so much.

But we cooked buri with daikon (yellowfish with radish) and tofu crème brulee. MMMM….I like cooking! The staff at the Kyoto Cooking Circle was so friendly and spoke great English! I hope we can return for another lesson (though David might want to leave the cutting to someone else next time).