UH gets $600,000 gift for teahouse
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Plans are under way to build a Shi Wu Tea Lodge at the Lyon Arboretum in Manoa Valley as a tranquil gathering place for cultural activities, thanks to a $600,000 gift to the University of Hawai'i from internationally known artist and UH Professor Emeritus Tseng Yuho "Betty" Ecke.
The Ecke gift would pay for the structure — to be designed in the style of a Chinese country house with simple furnishings, Chinese folk art and tea implements. It would potentially be located overlooking the great lawn and the mountains beyond.
Lyon Arboretum is part of the UH system.
"We're discussing the teahouse as a center for Chinese culture and studies and teaching. I got very excited about it. It's been a very long time in the making," said Manoa chancellor Peter Englert. "All of this will depend on Board of Regents approval. But it's a significant step forward."
A fund-raising effort would be launched to raise an additional $700,000 — with $100,000 to furnish the lodge and about $600,000 provide an endowment to maintain it and pay for programs.
Ecke, 79, a retired professor of art and art history and a former volunteer curator at the Honolulu Academy of Art, has long dreamed of seeing the university have a structure dedicated to Chinese tea and the myriad cultural and artistic activities associated with it.
"During the 17th century when China opened trade with Europe, the ceramics and tea and silk were introduced internationally," Ecke said. "In China there must be 10,000 varieties of tea. And the tea masters in China, like those in Japan, love good ceramics. ... Our tea house, even with our modern scientific world, is a place for people to enjoy handmade art work."
The lodge would be a guild available to UH-Manoa faculty and staff, their guests and special visitors for workshops, seminars, meetings and tea services. Workshops could include arts and crafts of China offered by the Manoa Department of Chinese Studies and Department of Art. As well, in cooperation with the John A. Burns School of Medicine, the lodge could be the site for talks on Asian and Pacific nutrition and diet, medicinal herbs, natural healing and preventive healthcare.
Also envisioned are opening the lodge to the public for weekend tea service and events such as films, lectures, classes, small concerts and exhibitions.
Experienced tea masters could demonstrate the art of tea, and a gift shop would offer Chinese folk art and tea implements. A gallery will specialize in work by UH faculty as well as artists from Hawai'i, Asia, the U.S. Mainland and Europe.
"Shi Wu means to learn and understand universal experiences, to enhance and enjoy the six human senses: what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and comprehend," Ecke said. "Throughout my life I have experienced how the arts and scholarship enhance these senses and contribute to the positive side of humanity. ... I like to make one feel that art should be everywhere."
Under the direction of a board of advisers, the lodge will serve as a focal point for a broad range of interdisciplinary subjects "related to the aesthetic, scholarly and healthy attributes of tea," Englert said.
"In today's fast-paced world, there must still be a time and a place for the time-honored traditions of scholarship and community that the Shi Wu Tea Lodge will offer," Englert said.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
