Calligraphy, In the Mist (Muchu)

These characters, meaning “In the Mist,” form part of Muchuan (“Hermitage in the Mist”), the name given to this tearoom, built for the 2003 opening of the Asian Art Museum in its current Civic Center location. The name—appropriate for a tearoom in the famously foggy city of San Francisco—was chosen by Yamada Sobin, twenty-sixth abbot of Shinjuan, a subtemple of the large Zen temple of Daitokuji in Kyoto.

The abbot formally presented his chosen name with this calligraphy: two characters written in a decisive semicursive script. His calligraphy was subsequently used to make the carved name plaque hanging on the wall to the left of the tearoom.