The Sakura Mystique

The Japanese custom of hanami (花見) is generally known in the outside world. It is when companies, families, and groups of friends bring their employees and members to parks to sit on a blanket on the ground and drink and carouse and have a basically raucous time. People become remarkably unruly and have a good time, drawing pictures on each other’s bellies, singing songs, and eating onigiri (rice balls) and drinking soft drinks and hard drinks, like sake. During hanami outings occurring on weekend days, children are part of the scene, and adults and children play together. But when you are walking innocently through the park or campus and you notice droves of people doing this, you know it is more than just the natural attraction of the blooming sakura that causes it; it is a cultural mystique that has developed around the sakura that makes people feel drawn to them.

During the sakura blooming season, there is usually a spot on the news about where they are blooming and how beautiful they look. Evening shows feature stories of old sakura trees that have been well kept through the centuries or that are in need of being restored by tree surgeons. The oldest one in Japan is purportedly 2000 years old, planted by Takeru Yamato in Yamanashi Prefecture (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E4%BB%A3%E6%A1%9C).

Sakura start blooming each year in southern Japan in latter March, and the line of blooming trees moves northward. This is called the “sakura line” or sakura zensen (桜前線). As of yesterday, this line moved into Fukushima, the southernmost prefecture of the whole Tohoku area, which has suffered incredible loss on the eastern Pacific coast, due to the tsunami that followed last month’s 9.0 earthquake.

On TV, locals working to rebuild their devastated communities were interviewed, saying things like “The sakura make us strong and reliable,” and “If they are blooming so genkily, it makes me want to do my best.” Yesterday the City of Koriyama held a hanami event for the roughly 100 evacuation zone refugees from Tomiokamachi and Kawauchimura, who are currently living in a local gymnasium (no doubt awaiting temporary housing to be built), and this was on national news. Evacuees suffer through loss and incredible inconvenience, but throughout Japan they are seen as celebrities, and nothing could be a better photo op than the hanami moment.

But all of this is not to say that sakura are not grippingly attractive. I still remember doing hanami in Akita as a kid, sitting on a blanket in the park, and riding in the passenger's seat as my dad drove us under majestically cascading Tohoku cherry blossoms. Unlike Tokyo, the sakura up North do not bloom in time for the new school year (April 1^st); they bloom in time to really enjoy them: Golden Week (a succession of three national holidays, May 3-5).