Tea ceremony in the Artificial Nature (Zen garden at Bamboo pools at the Cosmopolitan pools)
The concept of Mirate, presenting symbolic similarities between different things, is one of the main acts of a tea ceremony. Mai ended her experimental tea ceremony series with the theme Nodate (outside tea ceremony) which was the surprise tea ceremony and Mitate of Las Vegas strip as Zen garden. It provided a lot of elements when we had the wind, animals, nature sounds, sun, and smell of grass.
So one of the practices in buddhism is to remind us that everything changes all the time. Mai came back to Las Vegas after 10 years and it looks very different. They've destroyed old buildings to build new ones. This style of architecture is actually very zen. The Cosmopolitan pool is the extreme copy of nature.
So when I appeared to the P3 Studio on Saturday at 4 pm., Mai took me up to the pools and said we are having our tea ceremony outside by the pools. They set up the Ipad on video connected to the projector on the wall in the Studio so that wherever we walked to and experienced, people can see through the windows downstairs while we were being filmed. We walked through the pools documenting everything and our journey basically and Mai told me to pretend that the pool was the ocean and if I listened, I'm suppose to hear the ocean waves. It was quite meditative and relaxing. My day was suppose to be a busy day, one full with errands and annoying list of things to do, but once I sat down underneath the cool shade of the umbrella she made, with the icy tea and warmth of the sun, I just wanted to stay there all day and take it easy. I told myself there was no hurry with the small things in life. Although we were being watched by people at the pools, it was a fun experience to bring out the curiosity in them. When we arrived at the Bamboo pools at the back, there was a small, cozy and intimate area in the corner that was cut off from the pools. It offered us the privacy we needed, but we still got the great view of the strip and buildings.
Mai made me two cups of Matcha powder green tea from Kyoto with watermelon essence. It was very nostalgic since in Asia, that's all we drank. My favorite tea and really the only one I would drink is Matcha powder green tea. There was also sweet cold watermelon we ate out of the watermelon. Inside the umbrella were 5 colors of thread I spotted when I looked up, Mai actually made them and historical culture claims that it's suppose to keep the evil and bad spirits out so that we would be protected. I related that to the Dream catchers, assuming that most of the spiritual histories would be somewhat related and similar to the Natives. The experience was a lot more free spirited and lenient than I thought it would be. More traditional tea ceremonies would be very strict on manners and behaviors. It was a casual afternoon, we just chatted about ourselves and what our focus in art is. I asked Mai to talk about food culture and lifestyles in Manhattan.
The tea ceremony is fairly new for her as this is a new project she is getting into. I learned a few tidbits here and there about the rules of drinking tea in the ceremony. When you receive your cup, you turn it in so that the face of the cup is inside facing towards you. You sip three times and on the last half sip, you are suppose to make a sipping noise to let her know that you are done with your tea. Return the cup to her with the face of the cup towards her. Usually, tea cups are printed with lots of design and textures on them, we only had the wooden ones but we still made marks for the face of our cups. Overall, she was very genuine and nice, I loved the experience. After the ceremony, we helped cleaned and brought everything back down so I was happy I was able to make it for the last session for the outside ceremony for the day. So for the entire time, I had Daniel take photos and record for me while we drank our tea to document so you guys can enjoy the experience as well! :)
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