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context: gardens > flower arrangingModernNowadays there are a couple of thousand flower arranging schools in Japan, and millions of members. The two largest schools have over 100,000 teachers between them. One change is the gender balance: historically, men participated at least as much as women (only men got to be great ikebana artists, of course). Nowadays, in the increasingly westernized Japan, it is mostly done by women - but men are still totally dominant at the top, of the schools and the art. Old styles are still going strong, but it is a very untrammelled form now: it is even possible to enter ikebana competitions with displays containing no plant material at all, if the metals and plastics resemble ikebana styles. backwards: rikyu |