Three Tangerines

I am trying to learn about ceremonies.

Japan is, of course, famous for tea ceremonies. During nearly a month in Japan, my longest stay yet, I am becoming increasingly aware of the role that ceremonies play in everyday life. Although I still haven’t encountered a formal tea ceremony, I have become aware that most social interactions in Japan have ceremony potential.

When somebody enters a room, or leaves it, and everything happening in between–all of this is a series of art forms. Only an ignorant Westerner can fail to observe, and participate, in ceremony.

Here, in my apartment, for instance, it’s like a small theater stage, whenever clients leave after a session. Facing the interpreter and me, each client backs away into the short, narrow hallway by the door.

Following my interpreter’s example, I watch in a friendly manner: The donning of the coat, the dangling of a purse on an arm or the juggling of a shopping bag. Then my client exchanges fluffy slippers for street shoes, which is where the exit ceremony becomes a balancing act.

DEPARTURE CEREMONY

Paris has nothing on Tokyo. People are equally fashion obsessed and dress more carefully than today’s young Hollywood stars. Not once, at a workshop or session, have I seen one stain or wrinkle on any item of clothing (except, alas, on my own).

Here are some of my cherished memories of Departure Ceremony at the Front Hall:

• A petite and perfectly pretty woman in black sheath dress jacketed with a pearly pink sweater, adds her pink coat with a bow in the back. On come shiny pink shoes, one perfect leather bow at each toe.
• A stern-looking businessman (who cried like a baby during his regression therapy) briskly adds his silvery grey jacket to the rest of an impeccable three-piece suit. Without looking, he impeccably re-ties his necktie, with its pattern of pandas. His shoes are the very softest leather.
• One model-poised, elegant woman perches at the threshold, tucking her high heeled boots over pencil-thin blue jeans. Balancing carefully, holding her purse and at least one shopping bag, she must tug carefully to zip each boot because the fine-grained leather must stretch tight. Part stork, part angel, her beauty strikes me as indescribable. Even though she feels awkward, taking so long to zip up those boots, her grace is breathtaking.

Once outside my front door, on the landing, my client will bow. Interpreter and I will bow back in return. Goodbye’s will be exchanged.

MOSHEE MOSHEE

Answering the telephone in Japan, the slang term to use, I have learned, is “Mosheee moshee.” This is one of the few words that I have managed to learn on this trip, and I flatter myself that I pronounce it quite nicely. However, I long, just once, to use it to say goodbye. Mosheee moshee sounds so much like “Bye, bye” only better, squishily comfortable.

I restrain myself however.

And I do the same, eating tangerines. Heavens, I don’t just gobble them up straightaway. I let them linger, in their semi-elegant composition in the cereal bowl I have elegantly lined with a Kleenex.

But hours later, I know it is time. Clearing off my dining table, I get a plate and attempt to do elegant ceremony, First Bite of the Tangerine Gift.

Only, darn it, I can’t wait properly. Don’t you know it, I start peeling frantically, mutter a quick Grace and then gobble up that first piece. I’m in as much of a hurry as if I wore dentures that had fallen out unexpectedly. Get those teeth back in the head. Make it quick!

Where, oh where, is my sense of ceremony?

UNCEREMONIOUSNESS, LEARNED YOUNG

Is my unceremonious tangerine gobbling the result of greed alone? Maybe I can blame childhood training. Back home, my husband Mitch and I have a huge collection of videos we have taken of our son Matt. One of my favorites records his first birthday party, at age one. My friend, Linda Hiller, has brought her three year old twins, Andrew and Kaitlyn.

To me, the footage is precious. Matt, wearing his party hat, looks like a young and slightly crazed version of Merlin the wizard. Presented with a birthday cake, Matt is fascinated but not especially impressed. Give that boy a pebble and he’ll find it just as intriguing.

Then we move on to the presents, which I have thoughtfully strewn across his favorite place, the floor. It is a small pile of wrapped gifts. Matt has no clue what to do with them. So the twins run over and show him. It is a kid-sized initiation. Grabbing one gift each, both twins thoughtfully instruct my baby in the proper way for an American child to deals with wrapping paper: Rip, rip, rip.

Linda restrains her children, embarrassed, but I love what they have done and so does Matt, who now starts on his own: Rip, rip, rip. He plays with the brightly colored wrapping paper. He also plays with the presents.

And here I am now, gobbling away, flinging around torn tangerine peel like a small pile of wrapping paper.

Then the taste reaches me: Sweet, puckery, and absolutely celestial. With my second tangerine, I will stop first and read its aura, hearing its deva sing. For now, I taste a tangerine that would make Plato proud. This is no mere sample of tangerine-ness. This is The Form on which all such fruits are based.

Thanking Kaori, I tell her how her gift has shocked me. Never have I tasted any fruit quite so sublime.

“In Japan, fruits are labeled for quality,” she tells me. “And my father-in-law’s tangerines are Grade 1.”

What makes a food truly Grade 1, the food itself or the ceremony?

While in Japan, and while back home in America, I must research this.