Japanese Samurai History - Now this is odd...

#4401 [2004-05-29 21:49:23]

Now this is odd...

by klancesegall

This is a picture of Tsuruga Castle's Rinkaku Tea House. Is it just
me, or does this door swing like a western style door? I always
thought Tea Houses had tiny doors that you practically had to crawl
through, anyways. Is this just an oddity?
http://www.sushicam.com/2003%20Journal%20entries/September%
202003/030907/pages/CRW_1628.htm

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#4402 [2004-05-30 06:05:03]

Re: [samuraihistory] Now this is odd...

by jckelly108

On Sun, 30 May 2004 04:49:23 -0000, Kyle Segallさん wrote in message

>This is a picture of Tsuruga Castle's Rinkaku Tea House. Is it just
>me, or does this door swing like a western style door? I always
>thought Tea Houses had tiny doors that you practically had to crawl
>through, anyways. Is this just an oddity?
>http://www.sushicam.com/2003%20Journal%20entries/September%
>202003/030907/pages/CRW_1628.htm
>

The tea house in the picture has two doors, which are typical.
Normally they are both sliding doors, not swiging doors. It is hard to
tell from the picture but I would guess that there is a very low
chance that it's a swinging door.

The tiny door that you mention is on the right-hand side of the
picture. It's knows as the "nijiri-guchi". This door is used by guests
at the time of the tea itself. You do have to crawl through it,
although crawl isn't precisely the right word. It's more like "slide
on one's knees while kneeling". The difference being that the posture
is kept upright when entering a tea house.

The larger door on the left is called the "sadou-guchi". This is a
bigger (but still small) door that is used by the host. It's used from
time to time to carry things into and out of the tea house. It leads
into a small (as you can imagine) room at the back of the tea house
that holds all of the tools and materials needed to do tea.

--
Jay Kelly
oyakata@...

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