Tea Culture from the Song Dynasty: Aesthetic Divergence in China and Japan
Abstract
The tea-drinking culture that flourished in the Song dynasty, after being transmitted to Japan through Buddhism and elite exchange, gradually developed into two distinct aesthetic traditions and spatial configurations in China and Japan. This paper asks why tea practices that shared a common origin in Song culture eventually evolved into significantly different tea cultures and aesthetics in the two societies? Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's theory of the "production of space," this paper argues that this divergence does not simply arise from differences in material form but from fundamental discrepancies in the logic of spatial production and structures of everyday practice. Through analysis of literati painting, historical tea treatises, and tea manuals, this paper points out that Chinese tea spaces developed into open and continuous places closely linked to garden culture, literati social gatherings, and self-cultivation. By contrast, the Japanese tearoom evolved into a compressed, enclosed, and ritualized "heterotopic" space that emphasizes bodily discipline and spiritual purification. Chinese tea culture tends to aestheticize daily life through tea practices, whereas Japanese tea culture transforms the tearoom into a spatial Gesamtkunstwerk. By tracing an analytical axis from space to everyday life, this paper offers a new framework for understanding cross-cultural aesthetic transformation in the history of East Asian art and ritual.
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