Nobedan

Remember a rainy day from your childhood spent sitting at home, watching raindrops run down your room’s window. You marveled as each one of them streaked across the glass, moving here and there in a continuous trickle. It wasn’t that the raindrops constantly changed direction. That wouldn’t have been enough to hold your attention. Sometimes they moved ahead in a straight line (or just stayed still!), before diverging yet again along a completely different direction. The raindrops always kept you guessing, and that’s why you kept looking at them. We all did this when we were children.

 Now imagine that you are the raindrop. As you course around the garden, you know exactly where you are going, but somehow you must find a way to forget that before you reach there. In the language of the Japanese tea garden, this is what is called tsutai (streaming), a process whereby guests’ movements become part of how the garden’s scenery unfolds, creating a rhythmic motion that heightens our sense of anticipation before arriving at a tea ceremony. Sometimes stepping stones are enough to achieve this “streaming” sensation. Often, however, something else is needed: nobedan. 

Simply put, nobedan is a garden path paved with stones within a uniform width. Stepping stones are set at discontinuous intervals, meaning guests must watch always where they step. This makes for monotonous scenery if it continues too long. By contrast, nobedan paths are easy to walk upon and they make it easy to enjoy the whole garden’s scenery. When combined effectively with stepping stones, they can create a compelling feeling of tension and release.

Besides their functional utility, nobedan paths are also extraordinary objects of visual beauty. Through their use of cut stones and natural stones, nobedan paths are an excellent example of the harmonization of natural expression and human ingenuity in Japanese gardens. Take a moment to gaze at their gorgeous designs. Each one requires meticulous attention to the joints and spacing between the stones. Their hypnotic patterns of continuous discontinuity keep us endlessly guessing, just like…raindrops trickling down a windowpane.