Tea Gardens of the Bay Area: San Mateo
People often ask me, why Japan? Why have I decided on this specific country to be so in love with? My answer changes often, from culture to the people to temperament, but I also think it has something to do with familiarity. I grew up in the San Mateo area of California, an area with a decent-sized Japanese-American population and a bit of the culture as well. Specifically, I grew up going to the Japanese Tea Garden in San Mateo's Central Park, and that aesthetic may have helped shape my current interests.
I've been wanting to revisit the park for awhile and have decided to do it in the context of visits to other such parks in the San Francisco Bay Area. The other two that I know of are in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and Hakone Gardens in Saratoga. If anyone knows of any others, please let me know.
The San Mateo Japanese Tea Garden, or サンマテオ日本庭園, was established in 1966, just six years before I was born. It's in Central Park in downtown San Mateo, which is about 20 miles south of San Francisco. As I said, I grew up coming to this garden. I looked forward to it, in fact, and it was my favorite part of the park. I particularly liked running across the bridges and exploring the paths, which ended at stone pagodas and little shrines. When I finally made it to Japan in 2004, I couldn't help but compare its famous gardens with my own little childhood playground.
For the last 20 or so years, the San Mateo Japanese Tea Garden has been cared for by Sam Fukudome. I have to say, Fukudome's care is exceptional. I have visited the garden off and on over the years and it still looks absolutely splendid. In fact, according to the city of San Mateo's website,
The Journal of Japanese Gardening sponsored a survey asking Japanese garden specialists to rate the highest quality public Japanese gardens in North America. With over 300 in the United States and Canada, San Mateo’s Japanese Tea Garden ranked number 14 beating Hakone Gardens in Saratoga and San Francisco’s tea garden in Golden Gate Park.
About the only thing I missed was a place to buy tea, like in Golden Gate Park. But hey, pretty good for San Mateo.
It's missing a place to buy yakisoba and reconstituted potato flake french fries too. Get on it Sam, damn you!
Posted by: rupan777 | January 22, 2008 at 01:04 PM