Author Information
Izumi Funayama, Sarah Lawrence College, United StatesAbstract
“Few practices are simultaneously as exotic and representative, esoteric and quotidian, instrumental and sensual, political and cultural as the Japanese tea ceremony” (Surak, 2013, p. 1). Surak’s statement represents a broader recognition of the Japanese tea ceremony (hereafter the JTC) as the embodiment of the quintessence of Japanese culture, not only internationally but also domestically. This embodiment of culture exists despite, as well as because of, the fact that most Japanese people themselves lack deep knowledge and experience of the JTC. However, in today's era of cultural globalization, a variety of cultural products and practices are now experienced worldwide, and the JTC is no exception. Based on thirteen years of ethnographic research, the present study examines the landscape of cultural globalization with a focus on this quintessentially Japanese cultural practice in the New York metropolitan area. The study analyzes the two primary, and frequently conflicting, dimensions of the JTC’s propagation in the area, namely, reconstruction and deconstruction of Japaneseness. In so doing, the study critically examines how (in)authenticity is valued within the JTC community and how this valuation can be interpreted in the larger context of cultural globalization. The study concludes that, as the JTC is at a point of increasing globalization as a cultural practice, the continued expansion of the JTC is contingent on how the community assesses (in)authenticity within the practice. The study, therefore, comments not only on (in)authenticity within this singular context but suggests the significance and imperatives of redefining the notion of cultural authenticity in modernity.
Paper Information
Conference: ACCS2025Stream: Cultural Studies
This paper is part of the ACCS2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
Full Paper
View / Download the full paper in a new tab/window
To cite this article:
Funayama I. (2025) Reconsidering Japaneseness and Authenticity: The Cultural Globalization of the Japanese Tea Ceremony in the New York Metropolitan Area ISSN: 2187-4751 – The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 49-62) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2187-4751.2025.4
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2187-4751.2025.4
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress