ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some insight into the cosmopolitan agenda as part of the constituting nature of Tokyo as a world society. It discusses that in the case of early modern Japan, the idea of religion was a recent one in relation to the public as well as private realms. The chapter explores hospitality's connection with wider social and cultural processes and structures, both in the early modern era and today. It compares the theatricality of the tea ceremony to the performing arts; in the market place, one could find a sanctuary in the chashitsu, or tea room. The Ise Shrine does indeed symbolise the significance of the pilgrimage in Japanese tradition, situated as it is in a remote part of the Kansai region. In Edo the space consecrated to the tea ceremony invites and demands their participation the usual Zen-inspired word being rather concentration.
