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| Grass, wild flowers, and a leaning cherry tree - the very picture of spring in Japan. |
 eian period (794-1185) aristocracy were probably the first to organize elaborate
poetry and sake drinking parties in private gardens to celebrat200 flowers and the changing seasons. The cherry, more than any other flower,
has come to symbolize that very Japanese of feelings known as mono no aware: an exquisite, but sad awareness of the impermanence of life. |
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The close identification between the Japanese sensibility and the transient beauty of
the cherry blossom, the national flower, is acute but difficult to put into words,
though many have tried. One writer famously claimed that, “If someone wishes to
know the essence of the Japanese spirit, it is the fragrant cherry blossom in the early morning.” |
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Few nations have squeezed so much pleasure and sadness from the contemplation
of a single flower in fresh bloom. The splendid but short lived span of the cherry
has inspired countless poems of loss and celebration. The great poet Matsuo
Basho was able to express the freshness of the blossom, but place it in an older,
timeless context, when he wrote the following haiku about a Japanese garden: |
Moss-grown,
By the cherry-flowers
A stone water-stand. |
| Another haiku poet of note, the Buddhist nun Chiyo-ni, captured the arresting beauty of the flower in the following haiku: |
Evening temple bell
Stopped in the sky
By cherry blossoms |
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| Shoes are removed but jackets kept on for a hanami on a chilly day at the Shinjuku-Gyoen park in Tokyo. |
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| The blossoms are important in another way, as they mark the passage of time.
When the cherry trees are in full bloom, the academic year begins, and fresh recruits
traditionally enter companies. If change is a strong tradition in Japan, renewal is an even stronger one. |
| In the same manner that the destructive progress of typhoons and snow fronts are earnestly reported by the TV channels, the progress of the flower is a national event that is enthusiastically followed in daily weather reports. From the moment the first sakura (cherry blossoms) appear in Okinawa and Kyushu in early March, to the last petals blown from the trees in Hokkaido, a day does not pass without the media monitoring the progress of the sakura zensen, or “cherry blossom front,” as it is known in Japan. |
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| Cherry blossoms cast a pink reflection over a pond of water lilies. |
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| Newspapers avidly report that the flower is sanbu zaki (30 percent open),
or gobu zaki (50 percent open), before triumphantly announcing that it has
reached what is regarded as its most exquisite point: shichibu zaki (70 percent).
If the weather conditions are right, this is the moment for a hanami (cherry-viewing party). |
| There is some urgency in organizing these events. Though the parties last up to a week,
purists insist that the blossom is at its best for no longer than three days. Some of these events can be
quite riotous. Ueno, the best known venue for hanami in Tokyo, has over 1,000 trees, for which reason it
attracts as many as a quarter of a million people a day. Huge quantities of food are consumed while women
dance in kimonos to music from portable karaoke sets. Beer and sake add to the jubilation. Despite the towering
heaps of garbage, no one would dare to pick a sprig of blossom, much less clamber up a tree. |
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| Connoisseurs less interested in the chance to party,
seek out the rarer species of tree like the wild cherries found in the Hama Rikyu garden,
or the twin-blossom varieties in Shinjuku-Gyoen park. The perfect moment, they will tell you,
is when a slight breeze releases a flurry of blossom, a hana-fubuki (petal storm), that dusts the
ground with pink and white flowers as pure and delicate as snow. |
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