Scenes from a Country Tea Room

In viewing the tea ceremony through Toyoda's eyes, Tanaka is examining the interface between traditional Japanese culture and some of the core assumptions of our modern global community. It addresses the question of whether or not the principles of the traditional arts have anything of value to teach us other than California zen, the Ninja Turtles and octopus sushi.

Finally, "Scenes from a Country Tea Room" pays homage to the thousands of Japanese and Japanese-American teachers or sensei who, like Matsui Sensei of the poems, have taught and continue to teach traditional Japanese arts in the Japanese-American community since the first Japanese immigrants arrived in the United States over a hundred years ago.