Spring's here!

Cherry blossom season has started...officially! That's right, the beginning of the season was declared yesterday. Every night, the leading story on the news is the "cherry blossom front", showing the progression of the blooming flowers as it moves from sunny Okinawa to northern Hokkaido.

Cherry blossoms are loved here as they represent the beauty and fleeting nature of life. They also mark new beginnings...spring is when the fiscal year and school year start. People change offices, kindergartners enter school, all under the beautiful pink flowers. To celebrate, people sit under the trees with their bottles of beer and bento boxes, and toast to the new year with hope. They can even enjoy the trees at night, as many of the larger parks illuminate the trees, and some places even have food stalls and buskers to add to the lively atmosphere. This is called o-hanami.

Japanese people will often tell you that they have four seasons, as if this was a unique phenomenon. While having four seasons is not unique to Japan, I don't think any other culture celebrates the changing of the seasons as much as these people do. The special food of the season is savoured and then disappears. In autumn, everything was chestnut or sweet potatoes. Now everything is sakura (cherry blossom) or strawberries. Carrots in the bento boxes are cut into sakura shapes. Rose wine is served at hotels. Pickled sakura flowers are placed on top of rice. Dozens of varieties of strawberry Pocky, cookies and chocolates are available. The brown and gray mufflers and mittens of winter are changing to pinks, greens and yellows. People make an occasion of enjoying the seasonal changes in nature, whether it be looking at the red maple leaves in fall or the pink blossoms in spring.

And what heralds the start of sakura season? Well, believe it or not (and this is no April Fool's joke!) there is a benchmark tree in a Tokyo park. There is an official cherry blossom guy who checks the tree everyday in March. When there are FIVE full blossoms, then the season has started! (No kidding, this guy goes to this tree with a clipboard and pencil and everything) On the morning of March 31st, he saw only three blossoms, but he returned in the afternoon. Due to the warm weather, two more blossoms emerged, and he was finally able to declare the season to have started! The news was met with applause by the onlookers and journalists. Soon there will be some good-natured jostling as people vie for a spot to picnic under the pink canopies. Let the rush begin! Kampai!