Tea Ceremony Master’s 55th Year Teaching Celebrated at Disney Hall with 300 Guests
Cultural News, November 2004
A formal tea ceremony site was set up at Founders Room in Walt Disney Concert Hall. Under the supervision of Mme. Sosei Matsumoto (left in back), Mme. Soko Yasuda (right) serves guests tea. (Cultural News Photo)
Mme. Sosei Matsumoto (second from left) greets one of her guests in front of the Blue Ribbon statue at the garden of Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Cultural News Photo)
To celebrate Mme. Sosei Matsumoto’s 55th year teaching the Urasenke Tradition of the Way of Tea in Los Angeles, a tea gathering and luncheon took place with 300 guests at Walt Disney Concert Hall on October 16, 2004. A formal tea serving site with tatami mats was set up in the Founders Room inside the concert building, and two open air sites were set up in the Blue Ribbon Garden outside the concert hall building. The luncheon was held at the BP Hall which is usually used as a venue for pre-concert lectures.
Mme. Matsumoto has taught countless individuals, and over 150 of her students have become certified instructors themselves. Mme. Matsumoto is Special Advisor to the Chado Urasenke Tankokai Los Angeles Association, the largest organization in its kind in the U.S., and has earned the Urasenke high title of Meiyo Shihan, or “Eminent Master.”
Hawaii-born Mme. Matsumoto is 84 years old. It was one snowy day in March 1941, when Mme. Matsumoto was invited to a tearoom called Yuin, one of the famous Urasenke Konnichian in Kyoto, and had the honor of drinking tea served by the 14th generation Grand Master Tantansai. That was the very beginning of her long journey in the Way of Tea.
World War II broke out shortly after that, but it eventually came to an end, and it was in March 1951, when the 15th generation Grand Master Hounsai (Wakasosho at that time, the current Great Grand Master) came to Los Angeles to sow the seed of Tea. Since then Chado Urasenke has grown to be the largest association in the U.S.
In the same year, Hollywood produced a movie featuring the Japanese actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi in which Miss Yamaguchi and Mme. Matsumoto appeared in some tea ceremony scenes. Surprisingly Tea was well accepted in Hollywood.
After the movie, Mme. Matsumoto started receiving numerous requests to introduce the Way of Tea to the general public through junior and high schools, universities, churches, and other organizations.
In 1950, Mme. Matsumoto purchased her current house near Downtown Los Angeles. She found it unusual to have coincidentally moved into the house on the memorial day of Sotan, the third generation Grand Master.
Mme. Matsumoto’s husband, who was an engineer and had a deep understanding of Japanese culture, built an eight-mat tearoom for her, working as a Sunday carpenter.
In June 1959, the tearoom received its formal name, Showaken, from Grand Master Tantansai and became a full-scale training site for Tea. At that time there was no place to introduce Japanese culture in Little Tokyo, so she had student visitors almost every week to teach the Way of Tea as part of their school curricula, as requested by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Southern California. Mme. Matsumoto still receives such requests even today
In 1994, the National Endowment for Arts in the U.S. awarded Mme. Matsumoto the National Heritage Fellowship, in recognition of her excellent chado teaching activities over the years and her consequent contribution to the traditional art heritage of America.