BOOKS

Every Day a Good Day

Every Day a Good Day

Fifteen lessons I learned about happiness from Japanese tea culture

Morishita Noriko
Translated by Eleanor Goldsmith

Japan Library series
Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture

Culture

¥2,900 + tax

ISBN 9784866580623
210 mm x 148 mm / 192 pp. / March 2019

¥2,100 + tax

ISBN 9784866581828
210 mm x 148 mm / 192 pp. / December 2020

I could not walk correctly.
I did not know where to sit.
I did not know which hand to use, what to pick up,
how to pick it up. Nothing had stuck with me,
even though I had done it all just an hour before.

You have to start from zero . . .

Reporter and essayist Morishita Noriko reflects on twenty-five years of studying the Japanese Way of Tea, from her first uncertain steps as a college student to her gradual discovery of freedom within the very rules that once seemed to hold her back. As Morishita experiences the trials and triumphs of adult life, from job-hunting setbacks to lost love, from the struggle to build a career to the pain of losing a loved one, Tea is always there to remind her that simply being present in the moment is enough. The joy of savoring the seasons with all five senses—of smelling the rain, of hearing each individual raindrop. The importance of cherishing each meeting as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Humor and heartbreak, despair and determination—in this memoir, Morishita vividly connects the Way of Tea to the full span of human experience, culminating in the exhilaration of realizing “I’m alive, right now!”

MORISHITA Noriko

Morishita Noriko was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture in 1956. She graduated from the Department of Japanese Literature at the Faculty of Humanities, Japan Women’s University. While still an undergraduate, she began working as a reporter, gathering stories for Shukan Asahi magazine’s popular Dekigotology column. Since publishing her experiences researching the column in the 1987 book Nori-yakko Dosue, she has enjoyed a flourishing career as an essayist and reporter. Morishita’s books include Nori-yakko perushawan o yuku, Zense e no boken: runesansu no tensai chokokuka o otte, and Itoshii tabemono.

*information as of time of publication

Japan Library series
Culture

Publisher:
Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture

Hardcover
¥2,900 + tax
ISBN 9784866580623
210 mm x 148 mm / 192 pp. / March 2019

Softcover
¥2,100 + tax
ISBN 9784866581828
210 mm x 148 mm / 192 pp. / December 2020

eBook
ISBN 9784866581071 (ePub)
ISBN 9784866580913 (PDF)

Contents / Preface to the English Edition / Foreword / Introduction: Chajin: A Person of Tea / 1. Learn That You Know Nothing / 2. Don’t Think with Your Head / 3. Focus Your Feelings on the Now / 4. Watch and Feel / 5. Look at Many Real Things / 6. Savor the Seasons / 7. Connect to Nature with All Five Senses / 8. Be Here, Now / 9. Give It Time and Let Nature Do the Rest / 10. Things Are Fine as They Are / 11. Parting Is Inevitable / 12. Listen for the Voice Within / 13. When It’s Raining, Listen to the Rain / 14. Growth Takes Time / 15. Live in the Moment with an Eye to the Future / Afterword / Postscript to the Japanese Paperback Edition / Tea Terms / About the Author and the Translator

"Some sections made me tear up, and others made me laugh out loud. Noriko’s writing is honest and vulnerable, like having a conversation with a close friend. I really appreciated that she did not sugarcoat her experiences. Studying anything for that many years is not easy, and the struggles she described were very relatable. I definitely feel like I deepened my understanding of the Japanese tea ceremony by following her journey."

Nicole Wilson
Tea for Me Please

「お茶」を通じて四季を五感で味わう歓びとともに、「いま、ここに生きる」感動を鮮やかに綴るエッセイ。黒木華、樹木希林出演で2018年に映画化されたことでも話題に。
*本英語版をもとに、3か国語(スペイン語・ポーランド語・ポルトガル語)に翻訳出版されている。

森下典子
1956(昭和31)年、神奈川県横浜市生れ。日本女子大学文学部国文学科卒業。大学時代から「週刊朝日」連載の人気コラム「デキゴトロジー」の取材記者として活躍。その体験をまとめた『典奴どすえ』を1987年に出版後、ルポライター、エッセイストとして活躍を続ける。『典奴ペルシャ湾を往く』『前世への冒険――ルネサンスの天才彫刻家を追って』『ひとり旅の途中』『日日是好日―「お茶」が教えてくれた15のしあわせ』『いとしいたべもの』などの著書がある。

*著者略歴は書籍刊行時のものを表示しています。

Original Japanese Edition

日日是好日:「お茶」が教えてくれた15のしあわせ

森下典子 著

新潮社 刊

2008/11/01