花見 (hanami) - Flower Viewing

Kids hanami parade

Blue tarp required

桜

Cherry Blossom Time

“Just wait until the first week of April.”

“Sakura time is the best in Japan.”

“It’s the best 5 days of the year.”

The only time I’ve ever heard a group of people speak with such anticipation of a 4-5 day period, I was 10 and discussing Christmas Break with my friends at recess.  I’ve been here 5 months now and have never mentioned my October arrival time without a local or foreigner immediately bringing up the topic of sakura, or Japanese cherry blossoms. 

I know spring is exciting.  It’s warming up.  You’re on the brink t-shirt and/or skirt season.  The world becomes lively and colorful again.  However, in my home state of California, not much changes.  Surfers switch to spring wetsuits to mark the occasion, but that’s pretty much it.  Japan is different.  Few countries in the world have such distinct seasons.  Fall is beautifully painted red, orange, and yellow.  Winter is bitterly cold and dry on the east coast and a constant snow bombardment in the west.  Summer is infamously hot and oppressively humid.  Spring, I’m told, may be the closest human beings get to experience some kind of paradise in a lifetime.  Yellow canola flowers pop up along rivers and roads early on, bringing much needed color to the bare winter landscape.  Next come the plum trees with their deep purple and dark pink blossoms.  I am, by no means, passionate about flowers (sorry Mom), but the plum trees are awe inspiriting to say the least.  As exciting as they were to me, the Japanese seemed surprisingly uninterested.  All they continued to talk about were the sakura. 

Plum Blossoms in March

Americans know these blossoms well.  Washington DC has embraced them as their own for much of the past century.  It should be said, to knock DC off of its high horse, that these were actually a gift from Japan.   In 1912, the mayor of Tokyo presented the trees to Washington as a way to symbolize the growing relationship between the two nations and the hope for peace in the future (oops).  Either way, the blossoms have since become a world icon.

In Japan, this week has been more exciting that Christmas and New Year combined.  Always kind and polite, my host population has suddenly become happy and outgoing.  “All of this for some little pink and white flowers,” I thought.  Pictures only make me think of the popcorn tree art project my friend Steven and I made in kindergarten.

Cherry Blossoms

I was wrong, these aren’t just flowers.  Every single naked tree in Toyokawa, Shinshiro, and Toyohashi is a cherry tree patiently waiting for these 5 special days when they can play peacock for our enjoyment.  Lines of trees turn to blossom tunnels that hang gracefully over streets and riverbeds.  Parks are framed in pink, school yards are hidden behind walls of flora, and your eyes are finally distracted from the bland concrete architecture for which Japan has become famous.  They’re everywhere, and I’m feeling really excited as well.  I guess Scrooge has fallen to the happy epidemic sweeping the country.  

More blossom pictures to come soon!