A very kind Dr. and his wonderful family visited our little school in the suburbs of Tokyo today, all the way from South Africa and did the full Japanese culture experience.

Japanese Calligraphy/Shodo Part

Not only were they very friendly and in a great mood, a few of them also showed some unique talents when it comes to shodo:

They all applied their full attention to the practice of calligraphy, before they finally produced their final products:

Which ones are your favorites?

Personally I think the「愛」(ai, love) was beautifully, professionally done, and the　「風」(kaze, wind) had it’s own unique style.

Overall everyone did a great job, and Youshun commented on how much she enjoyed working with today’s class over tea later.

Tea Ceremony

They also seemed to grasp the concepts of sado(Tea Ceremony) quite easily, and did not rush or stress over doing everything perfect like some students, but rather focused on staying in the present and enjoying the experience.

Kokedama (Moss Ball)

Finally, they challenged the traditional Japanese art of kokedama, as you can see they even did a good job on the final part of a series of 3 challenging traditional Japanese arts.

We were really impressed.

We hope you had a wonderful time (and if the photos are any indicator, it looks like you did.)
Thank you for taking our class!

*As usual, Sensei Youshun was shy and didn’t want to appear in any of the pictures herself, maybe I will be able to persuade her to next time.