http://pixxiefishbooks.blogspot.com/2...

At my school, I was asked to join the tea ceremony club (sado). The members are me, a bunch of giggling first- and second-year students who don't want to speak English, and three Japanese teachers who don't speak much English at all. So the teacher who is in charge of the club bought me this book. It is targeted toward Japanese-speaking people who have to introduce and explain the tea ceremony in English, but it works well for me, too. Mostly, it is like a Japanese-English dictionary specifically directed at tea ceremony. There are long lists of the items used in the ceremony, with illustrations, and the names of each written in English and in Japanese (both in kanji and in hiragana/katakana). There are a few short explanatory sections, written in English and Japanese, and the last section has some short skits, again in both languages - I guess to demonstrate common conversations one might have while explaining tea ceremony to a foreigner. I wish it had more how-to sections - how to fold my tea cloth (fukusa), how to hold the tea cup, etc., but I guess it's technically targeted at people who already know how to do all that. Anyway, it's helping the tea club bridge the language gap, and it's a handy little reference book. ( )

Originally intended to instruct Japanese teachers of English-speaking students, this book also works very well the other way round. Most tea students will find greatest usefulness in the book's vocabulary lists and illustrations. (It's unlikely that anyone will ever hold the rather stilted student-to-student dialogues found in this book, though.) ( )