Sakura

An awful lot has been written and said about cherry blossoms in Japan. They have been made into Buddhist images of the evanescence of life, patriotic images of Japan’s national self, tragic images of young pilots on suicide missions and young lovers in difficult relationships. Gallons of ink and acres of paper—from botanical taxonomy (with Latin names) to classical poetry—have created a kind of sakura subculture, putatively unique to these islands, in which everyone is supposed to know what they mean and how important they are. The media begin discussing the sakura season weeks before it starts, analyzing temperature trends and centimeters of rainfall—Will they be early? Will they be late? Will this year’s blossoms be as profuse as last year’s? And the progression of budding and flowering from Okinawa northward appears on the nightly news as a pink cloud, spreading up the islands in slow, stately rhythm, bringing the blessings of national identity to the whole country. As the pink cloud approaches their part of Japan, folks plan their hanami (flower-viewing) outings—Which grove shall we visit this year? What shall we put in the picnic basket? How much sake is Grandpa likely to drink under the trees? For that’s the classic cherry-blossom outing: The whole family goes, spreads out a blanket under the cloud-like flowers, and eats and drinks until everyone’s happily tipsy, simultaneously wallowing in the transient beauty of the cherries and bemoaning their impending demise with the next strong wind or rain.

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, except the notion that no one who isn’t Japanese can understand it. Sakura are stunningly beautiful flowers, dozens of varieties, in colors ranging from almost-pure-white via every-possible-pink to dark-almost-plum, planted in rows along rivers and streams, singly in tiny front yards or in huge groves around major temples and shrines. They would be hard to miss and harder still not to appreciate. Kyoto has become a particular mecca for hanami because so many types of cherries grow here in so many settings, from the most delicate and wispy weeping types to huge, dark-trunked, ancient, senior-citizen sakura that have enriched a hundred springs. There’s even a variety that sports both pink and white blossoms on the same branches (we saw one this afternoon). The city government estimates that 10,000,000 tourists will visit the Kyoto valley this spring to look at the flowers. That’s ten million people in about three weeks, 97% of them Japanese, and they will flood the grounds of Nijo Castle, the Imperial Palace, the Kiyomizu temple, the Daigo temple, and dozens of other spots famous for their cherries. In these places, the architecture, the garden design, the placement of the trees all contribute to the enjoyment (though the huge numbers of fellow viewers might not). Today we walked along the Path of Philosophy, a famous canal in eastern Kyoto planted with hundreds of cherry trees—the crowds were thick (but not unbearable), the foreigners plentiful (but reasonably well behaved), and the flowers just gorgeous.

Things only begin to get precarious when the viewing of beautiful flowers, possible (indeed likely) in many places and cultures, becomes conflated with nationalism, with how special we are because we love and appreciate sakura. Come on, people. They’re flowers, and we all love them, and many of us find part of their beauty in the fact that they stay with us for so short a time. Foreigners walk along the Kamo and Takano rivers (as they do the Tidal Basin in Washington) to enjoy the clouds of bloom. Some foreigners even squeeze their way into the famous viewing spots, sit on the ground, get tiddly, and enjoy a classic hanami. We, however, will not do that, though we did attempt the Philosopher’s Walk for an hour or two. For ourselves, we have found a much quieter and less traveled set of trees, spread out over half a mile or so of riverbank in the steep, narrow Kibune valley north of the city. There we will walk with friends in the rustic atmosphere, as gently as possible, from one tree to the next, breathing in the calming fragrance and greeting the season of growth and flowering. We might drink some sake; we might even eat a skewer of “flower-viewing glutinous rice dumplings,” colored green, white, and pink for the occasion. Rituals do matter, after all. Happy spring everyone, happy Passover and Easter, and happy hanami to us all!