Anthropialogy

Tea in Japanese Culture – a summer course

In the beginning of June I took a course about tea in Japanese culture. I didn’t really know what to expect from the course, but the word “Japanese” attracted me. At the moment I’m interested in everything “Japanese” and about Japan. This course taught me a lot about not only tea in Japan, but also about Japanese history and society.

During the first four lectures we went through how tea came to Japan through China, and how the tea ritual, chanoyu, came to be. Chanoyu is said to have been created by Rikyû, a man who showed the way for the wabi-styled tea culture. Wabi stands for simplicity, poverty, and everydayliness. Rikyû is a mythical man in the history of tea. No women mentioned so far.

The following lectures dealt with
chaji - a religious tea event
ikebana – the arranging of flowers in a tea house
chashitsu – the architecture and interior of tea houses
dôgu – the ceramics used in the tea ritual and in tea houses

Furthermore, the teacher, Jouni Elomaa, also lectured on what chanoyu looks like today, women’s history in the tea culture and how they today constitute the majority of practitioners in tea culture, the iemoto system (hierarchical system depending on your knowledge), and tea culture represented in literature. All in all, varied themes connected to the tea culture in Japan.

During the next last day of the course we went on an excursion to the tea house Zui-Ki-Tei beside the ethnographic museum, Etnografiska in Stockholm. Elomaa is a tea master, so he should us how a tea ceremony is carried out. The tea was whipped in a tea bowl before drinking it. We also got a Finnish candy, Pihlaja, to eat before drinking the tea. Elomaa had used this white and red marmalade candy in Japan when he served a tea master, who thought it was really good – both visually and when it comes to taste.

I’m mostly interested in ikebana and Japanese gardens. In tea culture, ikebana is used inside the tea house. And before entering a tea house you walk through a garden. It’s all interconnected. In Tokyo and in Kyoto it’s possible to take one-day-courses in for example ikebana. I think I will do that.

“Flowers in the tearoom, “like the flowers in the field”, are not to be arranged according to some plan which one has thought out beforehand. Rather, they should reflect your emotions at the moment you picked them. Fuhaku is saying that with this attitude, there will be no room for the conscious self to intrude upon the flowers which have come into being as a creation of Nature.”

(Tsutsui Hiroichi, Chanoyu Quarterly, 1985)

Boktips: Siri Hustvedt

Ett boktips: ”Vad jag älskade” (2004) av Siri Hustvedt.

Denna bok är bland de bästa jag har läst. En väldigt intelligent skriven bok. Siri Hustvedt skriver från en mans perspektiv och om hans relation till sin hustru, sin son, sin vän och hans hustru och ex-hustru och son och det är mycket spännande och intressant. Tre katastrofer inträffar i denna bok (jag avslöjar inte vilka ifall du kommer att läsa boken), och de gör också att relationerna blir mer komplicerade. Boken handlar mycket om kärlek (fast realistisk sådan, inte ljuvt romantisk, utan trovärdig), om hoppet, om att våga släppa taget, om skapandeprocessen, och om det värsta som kanske kan hända en människa.

Just nu ligger ”Sorgesång”(2008), på mitt nattduksbord och väntar på att bli läst.

Sofi Oksanen i Stadsbiblioteket

I fredags kväll var jag och Ale på en mycket trevlig tillställning i Stadsbiblioteket. Sofi Oksanen (årets mottagare av Nordiska Rådets Litteraturpris) var på författarbesök och intervjuades om sina böcker, främst om ”Utrensningen”. Hon talade finska och översättaren till boken, Janina Orlov, tolkade till svenska.

Sofi Oksanen är en bestämd person. Hon talade om litteraturens möjligheter till att förändra människor och världen. Till exempel så kan skönlitteratur upplysa och lära människor om historien ur ett individperspektiv, istället för genom tjocka historieböcker (där det ofta står hur många som exempelvis har stupat i ett krig, vilket kan vara ett stort tal, men där det inte står hur händelseförloppet upplevdes av de drabbade människorna). I hennes bok ”Stalins kossor” skriver hon om ätstörningar, men också om historia (delar av Finlands, Estlands och Sovjets/Rysslands historia, tror jag). På så sätt kunde hon dra till sig både unga och äldre läsare till sin bok. Plus, att skriva om relationen mellan Finland och Estland, samt om att som person identifiera sig med både Finland och Estland, känns nytt och unikt.

Jag håller som bäst på och läser mitt signerade exemplar av ”Utrensningen”.

Boktips: Utrensningen (2008), Baby Jane (2005), Stalins kossor (2003)

Athens and northern Italy ahead

It seems as though our flight to Athens will take off on Sunday. Our (mine and Ale’s) flight last Sunday was cancelled so we rebooked our trip one week later instead, since we have quite flexible schedules at the moment. I feel so happy to be going to a sunny and warm place!

I haven’t travelled anywhere (except for in Sweden and to Ekenäs in Finland, but these are regions I already know to some extent) since I moved back to Stockholm last February. I simply did not feel for travelling until January this year, when the winter became a little too much. I also set a goal for this year that I would travel more within Europe – to make short and not so long-term trips. So Ale suggested Athens and we reserved the tickets. Inspired by the Italians, who lived in my corridor last spring, I decided that I wanted to experience (high expectations on Italian food) Italy and visit some friends there.

After a week in Athens, I will go to Milano for a few nights and visit Giulia, Andrea (who lived in my corridor last spring) and possibly Michele (who lived in the same student house as me in Tullinge sometime between 2004-06 …). Then I will visit Florence, just because I decided to, and thereafter head north to a mountain village close to Bolzano, where Moni lives at the moment with her parents. Moni and I did the same master program and I got to know her in Ireland. In Lyon we lived (almost) on the same street, so we have a lot of memories to share. I haven’t met her in more than a year so I feel very excited to meet her and to see where she was grown up. We also share a specific identity marker, in that we are both part of a language minority. Moni is grown up in the German speaking part of Italy, South Tyrol. However, the right for German speakers in Italy to speak their mother tongue has been oppressed, something which has not been the situation for Swedish-speaking Finns in Finland.

I cannot tell you how excited I feel about travelling again! Sun, warm weather, coffees and nice chats are ahead

Barbara Ehrenreich

In the course Social Exclusion, which I took during my semester of exchange in Maynooth, Ireland, we read a book called “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” (2002). The author to this book, Barbara Ehrenreich, had made an experiment: to try to survive on a low-wage service job in 1998 in the U.S. She, a white, middle class woman, lived it and realised that it was not possible to survive on only a low-wage job. Because of the low wages, women working in the low-wage service sector became economically dependent on another person. Not only does Ehrenreich show that the women might be dependent on a relationship with a man or that they run the risk of sexual harassment from male co-workers, but also that the poor working conditions causes health problems. On top of that, the women have to find accommodation, work, food, and child care.

I liked how Ehrenreich had carried out her research and also how she had written the book. After reading the book, I felt even less willing to support fast food chains.

Now Ehrenreich has published a new book: “Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World” (the book has different titles depending on where it’s published, or the publisher?). As I’ve grasped it, the book is criticising the idea that if you think positively you can change your life, or you can do, get or become what you want. If you don’t do this, blame yourself if you are not happy or successful. Ehrenreich argues that change often arises through anger, not through positive thinking. To me, Ehrenreich’s standpoint seems to be relaxed and sane. The society has to create equal opportunities for everybody (see an article in Swedish about that an equal society makes people healthier here), since not all individuals have the possibilities to become what’s considered as “successful”, or to have a good life. It’s beyond the individual. However the neo-liberal society stresses the individual’s responsibility. Ehrenreich points out these issues and show practical life situations as examples.

Check out an interview with Barbara Ehrenreich in Kobra, SVT, here

What’s Anthropology? The Basics …

To better grasp an understanding of what I mean with that I want to take on an anthropological perspective in this blog, I will first shortly explain what anthropology is about, and what it is that makes me interested in the subject.

In a later post I will write about my major research project, the master thesis, for which I did fieldwork in Lyon and which I wrote up in the spring of 2009. Throughout the blog I will also deal with topics, issues, and discussions which I experienced during my exchange studies (Toronto, Maynooth, Lyon), since these semesters have been very important for my knowledge development in the subject of anthropology.

So, what is anthropology?
When people ask me what anthropology is, I often say that it’s similar to sociology. However, there are major differences between these two sciences. First of all, the research methods differ. In anthropology the main research method is participant observation. This means that the anthropologist is to participate in the informants’ daily life and observe what’s going on. Thereby, the anthropologist will get an understanding of the life of the informant. The period of time when the anthropologist does this is called (ethnographic) fieldwork. Research methods can also be, for example, interviews or observation.

The anthropologist is interested in social and cultural differences and similarities between people. It has to do with social relations from the individual’s perspective as well as the relation between the individual and the society. Questions an anthropologist wants to answer might be: How do people do things? How do people experience situations and behaviours? Why is it like this? What does this mean for this person? What’s this person’s opinion concerning this issue? How does this person see this? Anthropologists are interested in people, identity issues and human relations and to try to understand people from their standpoint.

Anthropologists don’t trust statistics, but acknowledge that there are major differences between people. For anthropologists, questions do not often have a straightforward and simple answer. However, in my opinion, good anthropologists have the ability to explain complicated things in a somewhat easy way. Therefore, anthropology is interdisciplinary – theories from for example history, sociology, psychology or political science might be included in ethnographies (= the books which anthropologists write).

My interests
What I like about anthropology is that it is a broad science. You can basically study anything. Which also has its negative consequences for people like me who have difficulties with choosing and focusing the areas of research – everything is interesting! Which also can be seen as positive … Anyhow, during my years of studies in anthropology I have came across a few topics that were especially interesting to me: minority and immigration issues, gender, and feminist anthropology. More specific topics and issues will follow in this blog.

Welcome to Anthropialogy!

Anthropialogy is about anthropological thoughts from a feminist perspective. It’s also about various other areas of interest, such as travelling, languages, baking and food, DIY (do it yourself/handicraft), flowers and plants, dance, books, … A blog is kind of like a diary so the topics will changed depending on what I’m up to. However, I have created Anthropialogy in an effort to sustain my writing skills and my knowledge in anthropology. I will mainly write in English, but at times also in Swedish.

Feel most welcome to comment and discuss with me.

Anthropialogy handlar om antropologiska funderingar utifrån ett feministiskt synsätt, och har även inslag av andra intresseområden i mitt liv. Resande, språk, mat och att baka, handarbeta, blommor och växter, dans och böcker är viktigt för mig. En blogg är som en dagbok på många sätt så ämnena kommer att variera beroende på vad jag sysslar med. Tanken bakom Anthropialogy är dock att det ska vara ett utrymme för att upprätthålla mitt skrivande och mina kunskaper inom ämnet antropologi. Jag kommer huvudsakligen att skriva på engelska, men nu som då även på svenska.

Kommentera och diskutera gärna med mig.