Thursday, November 18, 2010

Tea Philosophy in Japanese

On our recent trip back to Taiwan, my father gave this hand written memo to Josephine for her to show me. I posted it on facebook with my translation as:
"Drink water when you're thirsty and have some tea while you're lonely..."
but, Jospehine might be right...not only when you're lonely...it could have much broader meaning with your soul... and tea could heal it all.

We have received great response from our facebook friends on this one.
last week, I thought of writing and forward this note to my sensei, brother CS Lou.

Look what I got in return. Amazingly stated....

" 無茶(mucha)不合理 unreasonable、absurd

無茶苦茶(mucha kucha) 亂七八糟 in confusion,extremely

滅茶苦茶(mecha kucha)一團糟 topsy-turvy

お茶を濁す(ocha o nigosu)敷衍了事 temporize, give an evasive reply

茶化す(chakasu)滑稽化 瞞天過海 mock at make fun of

鬼も十八番茶も出花 (oni mo jyuhachi bancha mo debana)
  剛泡好的三番茶,或初成長的十八歲姑娘,都一樣可口可人。

茶腹も一時(chabara mo ittoki)
A cup of tea may stay hunger for a time.

茶目な (cha me na)playful,mischievous

日本茶人很理性,記得我第一次到九州,訪問一位當地大茶商時,該社長問
我結婚了沒,那時我已三十多歲,我說有孩子了,他說 “よかった” 好極了。
我好奇地問他,為什麼? 他說一個人結婚了以後,算是 ‘一人前’
ichi nin mae意思就是一個完整的人,否則就是半人分,比較不完整,比較不可靠。"



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