But did a path diverge that first time I saw a real performance of chanoyu (literally "hot water for tea," the ritualized and aestheticized act of making tea; also called chado or sado (the Way of tea, or in the West, "tea ceremony")? Was there a forking in the universe when I set my eyes upon Sadako and her ivory-white hands making a bowl of tea for me, and I decided to study this ancient art of "moving Zen meditation"?

I was a graduate student in fine art, interested in studying firsthand traditional Asian ceramics. None of the studio instructors in the art department at the University of Hawai'i admitted to any fluency in any ceramics tradition, so on my own I found my way to the UH's student tea club. Reading Okakura Kakuzo's The Book of Tea and Yanagi Soetsu's The Unknown Craftsman had inspired me to seek out the rustic, restrained tradition of sabi and wabi, shibumi and shibui. Tea, I thought, might be an avenue to the ceramic tradition because of its heavy use of ceramic utensils.

Ogawa sensei (the sensei term is an honorific title for teacher, doctor or "master") was the advisor and instructor for the student club, which was composed of equal parts transfer students from Japan eager to retain or regain something about their own culture in a foreign land, and "local" students of Asian or Caucasian ancestry with a personal and/or academic interest in Japanese culture. He made me welcome and invited me to serve as guest during a practice temae (the "ritual" of making tea). I could ask questions, he said, while the student prepared the tea according to prearranged patterns of movements.

Cool, I thought. I was about to start asking him questions right away, when his eyes turned to the sliding paper door across the room. It slid open and the student bowed, her knees on the floor and her legs folded under her in seiza, the formal sitting posture, with one's legs folded under, then she picked up a flat lacquered tray, stood up, and walked over to where I was sitting.

Ogawa sensei likewise was sitting in seiza, his back against a wooden post in a strategic position that allowed him to see every movement of the teishu (the "host"). I would later learn that this location, close to the tokonoma (alcove) was the traditional "teaching" position. If I wasn't so nervous about displaying proper manners, my jaw would have dropped to the floor. The student, attired in regular Western dress, slid the soles of her feet across the tatami reed mats in an unhurried, un-Western grace. She sat down in front of me, placed the tray topped by powdery sugar candies down, and glanced at my face.

She smiled. My cheeks flushed red. What do I do now?

She continued to smile, then she bowed.

Ogawa sensei laughed. "Okay, okay, now you bow too. In tea ceremony, whenever someone bows that means they are showing you respect. So you bow back. Respect is always mutual in order to have harmony." I tried to mimic the student's bow as best as I could. Her clear, white face didn't draw any response, but she stood up and walked back through the open door to the other room. She reappeared a moment later, carrying a ceramic tea bowl and some utensils.

She turned at the entrance and walked up the room, so that I saw her in profile. She was beautiful, in what to me was an unusual way. Her back was straight, her feet never left the mats, creating a pleasing sliding sound as she walked, and she hardly glanced at me since the first initial bow. Her skin was white, like ivory, and her body moved in a restrained, controlled way.