Cherry blossoms or sakura , the flowers that have launched a thousand haikus, are in full bloom in Japan. During peak flowering time, which lasts from a week to 10 days, the nation engages in a frenzy of blossom appreciation with the kind of ardour that other countries reserve for sporting events or religious festivals. In the run-up to sakura , a televised Cherry Blossom Forecast offers a petal-by-petal analysis of the advance of the blooms as they ripple from the south to the north like a pink and white Mexican wave.
And because this is Japan, a country that loves accuracy and order, the sakura season isn’t official until a specially appointed civil servant — an army of officials spends weeks examining “barometer” trees in locations that are secret — gives the signal that yes, indeed, the trees are in bloom. Over 600 different varieties of cherry trees exist, but it’s the pale pink blossoms of the yoshino that are used by the bloom-investigating bureaucrats as the yardstick by which to judge the season open.
Among the cherry blossom’s fans are swooning poets and aesthetes, but also cash register-dinging retailers. Like with Christmas in the West, shops in Japan are quick to switch to saccharine sakura mode, with cherry blossom Kit Kats, cherry blossom cookie cutters, sakuramochi or rice cakes wrapped in cherry tree leaves and so on and on, on offer. You can sip on a cherry blossom mojito (with sakura liqueur and cranberry juice instead of the usual white rum) in upmarket bars.
But it’s more in keeping with tradition to have a wild booze-up under a cherry blossom tree. For the short sakura period, usually staid city parks are transformed into rowdy scrums with everyone from grandmas to pet dogs in prams in the mood to party. The mode of this partying is the hanami , literally “looking at flowers”, which is a flower appreciation picnic held under the blossoming trees.
Force of beauty
Usual social conventions are turned topsy-turvy by the sheer force of beauty. The quiet and polite morph into raucous revellers. Students visit the trees playing hooky from classes. Neighbourhoods organise their own sake -soaked viewings. Companies send their newest employees to stake out areas, by spreading blue tarp on prized squares of ground, for corporate picnicking. Modern-day hanamis are a democratic microcosm of Japanese society, but the tradition has origins stretching back to at least a thousand years, when it was mostly aristocrats and poets who would philosophise and sip sake (rice wine) under the shade of blossoms. Some of the finest bards wrote their most beloved verses while enjoying a cherry blossom picnic.
Consider Kobayashi Issa’s (1762-1827) haiku:
“Under the cherry-blossoms
none are utter strangers.”
Or Matsuo Basho’s (1644–1694):
“Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossom.”
This haiku refers to the philosophical underpinning of the Japanese fascination with sakura : their ephemeral nature. Within a week of blooming, cherry blossom petals float gently off the trees in a snow-like flurry and no human entreaty can prevent this swift, yet elegant demise. Sakura are an embodiment of ‘mono no aware’, a Japanese aesthetic concept that refers to the pathos of things evoked by an awareness of their impermanence. It is the pain of the finiteness of things, laced with the knowledge that transience is an essential part of their beauty or essence. Luckily in Japan, it’s easy enough to numb the pain with a long swig of sake and a wistful bite of red-bean filled mochi (rice cake).
