h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: More than Just a Cup of Tea - A2200131
Author: kunoichi - U551001

This is my first Peer Review. Sprout encouraged me to put some of my articles in the Peer Review... so here goes!

And then no-one commented on this one.

I think it's good, anyway, particularly the section on the tea ceremony.

Maybe you could link to some of the other tea entries on h2g2?

Also, maybe turn the "I had..." into "this researcher had..."

Hopefully this will bring others along to comment!

sprout

Changing "I" into "this researcher" isn't really acceptable. Instead, you should rephrase sentences so that they don't refer to you. If there is a personal anecdote, make it into a paragraph and put it into italics, with a BLOCKQUOTE tag around it. Something like this:


One researcher commented as follows:

I was lucky enough to be initiated into the Japanese Tea Ceremony...

Good entry Kun-chan

Only scanned this quickly, but can't immediately spot anything that would prevent this being a good EG entry - my only concern is whether the topic has been covered already elsewhere in tea entries, but I'm a bit rushed at the moment so I'll have to come back on that

Pimms

Interesting!

Just a couple of little points:
1) In the same vein as changing "I was lucky enough..." to a third person point, you should probably also change "mine is red - men use purple" when describing the fukusa cloth to "women have red fukusa, whilst men have purple" or something similar.
2) "Before hand" should be "beforehand" - just after the fukusa description.
3) When talking about turning, what exactly do you mean? You say things like "[the host] turns the tea bowl to the right, twice". Is a single turn of 90 degrees, or 360, or something else? Also, in that case, you use right rather than clockwise/anti-clockwise, which is better.

But it's a great article!

Attempting a Tea Ceremony is one of the traditional features of studying Buddhism in A-Level Religious Studies at my former secondary school; I think we missed a few details, though. (Plus, I contrived to dip a towel in the tea.) This Entry brought back memories, and was very interesting besides.

There's only one word here that looks as if it may confuse; could we have some sort of description of an 'ikebana display'?

Given that you've referred to enlightenment, would some sort of discussion of the links to Zen be appropriate? I don't expect anything philosophical (although I've included the third link anyway), but perhaps just a bit of factual discussion. A quick search brought up these:

www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/JapanAccess/sado.htm

www.samurai-archives.com/tea.html

www.womensearlyart.net/immortals/tceremony.html

Rather alarmingly, I just tried an h2g2 search for 'Zen', and the only Edited Entry appears to be A579675 - 'Zen and the Art of Orange Peeling'. Pirsig has a lot to answer for.

Sorry, I forgot the 'http...' bit.

http://www.sg.emb-japan.go.jp/JapanAccess/sado.htm

http://www.samurai-archives.com/tea.html

http://www.womensearlyart.net/immortals/tceremony.html

I liked it... I just think that a mention of the English method of making tea should be included.

Hence, presumably, F1720740?thread=420975

Nice entry, kunoichi; and a lovely description of a lovely ceremony!

Hi kunoichi,

There are a few places where the word 'prOscribed' is used but I think you might mean 'prEscribed'

<<
The implements are ritually cleaned with a fukusa silk cloth (mine is red - men use purple), in front of the guests. (Of course, the implements were well cleaned before hand!) The use of the cloth over the various implements is fixed, and takes a lot of practice ...
>>

I'm guessing you're not a man and also guessing that _all_ women use a red fukusa

Maybe the word 'were' (in 'the implements were well cleaned') should be replaced with the word 'are'

The first thing I should point out since you are new is that you cannot retain copyright to anything you have written on this site, it's part of the terms of use here. I am telling you this just in case you wish to delete this article, even though I will be sorry to see it go as it is quite fascinating.

I am hoping that this article does make it into the Guide, because then I can link to it for my Japanese Friendship Garden article that I am writing (still working on it so it's not in PR yet, but getting there).

I think the romaji you have used is accurate, but not everyone on H2G2 will know it. Instead of -ou perhaps spell with -oo to represent the long 'o' sound.

One of the things that is interesting about tea ceremony is that there are several schools of it, and not all of them are as proscribed as what you have described. It's worth saying that the tea ceremony may be elaborate, instead of is elaborate. It's also worth mentioning that you are describing the tea ceremony of a particular school.

What is kaishi paper? Is it that edible thin stuff on the outside of ame? Can you serve a Cadbury Crème egg?

I know ikebana is a flower arrangement, and what style it might be, but I bet many readers here will not. Perhaps add a link to somewhere so it can be seen?

When the teacup is turned by the drinker, is it also done in quarter turns?

Do subsequent guests get their own teacup, or does everyone drink from the same one in turn?

Is there an order of departure or arrival?

Don't replace 'ou' with 'oo'; that would have the glorious effect of still confusing readers who don't know kana (how many English words use 'oo' to represent a long 'o'?), while misleading those who do. The standard practice in simplified/modified Hepburn romanisation is to indicate long vowels with a macron or circumflex, and I recommend this approach instead, preferably with an explanatory footnote -- although you could equally well use a footnote to say what 'ou' sounds like.

Regarding copyright, see items 9 and 10 here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/

Also the fifth item here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/DontPanic-Legal

You might want to link to Chaiwallah's entry on Chai A1054856

Isn't there a Cockney word "char" meaning tea? Or am I confused?

No I'm not. I've just got up and done some research for once and the word is listed as such in Chambers' Dictionary. Sooooo ... maybe this should be included: some English people clearly _do_ use a word approximating to the original!

Mol

I like this entry, it's on an interesting subject and you've included plenty of details.

If h2g2 is an international site (albeit run by the bbc), should you maybe change the 'we' in

'So how did we come to use the word 'tea' when the rest of the world (almost!) uses 'chai'? '

to 'the English' or 'English speakers' ? In this way the entry won't seem as though it's angled to one particular country/readership.

Or am I nitpicking?



Jules

I thought about this sentence, too. There was another entry about the Roman alphabet which was called 'our alphabet', and I made a similar comment on the PR thread there. For that entry, the concensus was that since H2G2 specifically calls itself an english-only site, it didn't need to be specified.

I did enjoy this article. I have a very small amount of experience with a Chinese tea ceremony ("The difference between the Chinese and Japanese tea ceremonies is that the Japanese one is all about the ceremony whereas ours is all about the tea." ). So, anyway, it's interesting to compare.

I was a bit surprised to find it at the bottom of an eaqually interesting descussion of the origins of the word 'tea' though. Which is my way of saying that I really think that the two sections could stand to be seperated. Otherwise I'd agree you would be rather obliged to go into detail about different tea ceremonies/ driking habits around the world. Seperating them means you could focus on just your varient of the Japanese ceremony. And get two credits for the price of one, of course

It's possible Ms Seawright has elvised. This is a pretty good basis for a new article so I hope (if she doesn't come back) it gets Fleamarketed.

I thought the article was brilliant. Informative. Also the description of the ceremony gave a real picture of what it would be like to be there. Maybe a few more words about the surroundings such as the colours. But that's just a very minor suggestion to add to what is already a great description.

Many thanks for your efforts.
v.