Raw Japan

Cherry blossoms cheer up Japan

The season is back and so is the nation’s obsession. The map of Japan has turned pink on TV, with anchors and weather forecasters speculating when the day will be.

The stores are filling up their shelves with pink products, ranging from stickers to salt. And soon, people will start lining up for hours to get the best spots, so that they can appreciate its ephemeral beauty while gorging on bento (box meals) and booze.

The cherry blossoms are about to bloom.

While there are some 300 varieties of cherry blossoms, called “sakura”in Japanese, the main three in Japan are the somei yoshino (often seen in parks and riverbanks), yamazakura (which means “mountain sakuras” and are planted in mountainous areas, and shidarezakura (often seen in temples).

The delicate, pink flowers have been around for centuries in Japan, and the ancient national obsession can be seen in poems and literature from more than one thousand years ago.

Plum blossoms herald spring in chilly Japan

For many, the cherry blossom is the quintessential Japanese flower, its fragile pink petals symbolising the transience of life and its advent in spring an excuse for “hanami” picnics beneath the boughs, where sake and song flow in equal measure.

But some, myself included, confess to a deeper affection for the more modest plum, whose five-petalled white and pink flowers bloom in February, heralding spring despite a winter chill.