The sakura trees (flowers?) are blooming now in Tokyo! There’s a whole culture around the sakura, which is all very interesting to me, someone from a country where we don’t really make such a big deal about natural events like this. People start getting hyped up about the sakura pretty far in advance, and on TV along with the weather report they’ll have a little display of the “sakura line,” which shows the line of sakura bloomage moving up the country from the south. I heard from my friend (haven’t looked it up myself yet so feel free to fact check me on this if you’re concerned about it), apparently there’s a specific sakura tree in the Imperial Palace, and when that tree has precisely 5 sakura flowers bloomed, it’s the official start of the sakura season (?) in Tokyo. The ideal day for “flower viewing” will be announced. This year is May 31st.
Flower viewing (hanami) is the practice of going to a place with sakura trees and, well, looking at them. Usually it involves getting there super early to get a good spot, a picnic, and alcohol, no matter how early it is. I’ve never been to one yet, but I have at least two planned for this week, one with my host family and one with Niji. Leave it to the Japanese to make looking at flowers into a drinking event!
The special thing about the sakura is that you can only see them bloom for about two weeks. It’s the ephemeral nature of them that the Japanese claim to like, although if you go to any park with sakura trees you’ll see hordes of people crowding around the trees to try to get that perfect picture that will last forever (and will probably look exactly the same as another photo they took the year before, and the year before that…). I’m guilty of taking such pictures, but I’m not Japanese.
Putting aside the humorous image of lots of people drinking and talking incessantly about the flowers, I actually think it’s a really cool thing that people acknowledge and appreciate nature by making an event out of it. I think in a lot of ways the Japanese are closer to nature than most Americans. I’ve already been out with my friend to see the flowers when they just started blooming and take pictures of them, but I’m excited to go to real flower viewing events and see what the big deal’s about.
Abby in Japan 