02/19/2026
Year of the fire horse starts.
Happy Lunar New Year! Although Japan celebrated the new year on January 1, various Asian countries are enjoying the Lunar New Year this week. With 2025 being the Year of the Horse, we'd like to share this chawan (tea bowl) from our collection featuring a horse illustration. The calligraphy on the right is 人間萬事，a famous quote from the Chinese text 淮南子 (Huainanzi) of Daoist teachings, compiled in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E). Min Peng, community tea class student, writes, "In a year of the horse, the 6th Urasenke grandmaster, Rikkansai (1694-1726) displayed a kakejiku (hanging scroll) for the hatsugama (first tea gathering of the year), inscribing this phrase 人間万事 Ningen Banji (All matters in human life) alongside a drawing of a horse. The drawing refers to a well-known parable 塞翁が馬 Saio ga Uma (The Old Man's Horse).
The parable tells a story of an old man living close to the frontier and one day he lost his prized horse. The neighbors came to offer their condolences but the old man did not appear to be upset and said that it might be a fortunate thing. The neighbors didn’t understand. After a few weeks, the lost horse came back with another horse as its mate. The neighbors this time offered their congratulations but the old man did not appear to be happy and said it might not be a fortunate thing. Once again, the neighbors didn’t understand. Some time later, the old man’s son broke his leg while riding the new horse. The neighbors came again to express their sympathy yet the old man showed no worry and said that this, too, might be a fortunate thing. The neighbors were baffled. Years later, war broke out and many young men were conscripted but not the old man’s son. Because of his broken leg, the old man's son was spared and his life was saved.
This parable is to say we cannot truly know whether an event that happened to us is fortunate or not in the long run. One should try to keep positive on the situations that appear unfortunate and cautious even when things appear to go well. All matters in human life, the phrase suggests, unfold like the story of the old man losing his horse."
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