Although spring officially started here nearly three weeks ago, it has just been in the last few days that it’s really felt like it. I am now wearing boxers around the pad instead of sweats, sleeping and lounging with the windows open, and hanging laundry outside to dry. Have to say it feels damn nice. Winter in this country is not like winter in America. Because of the lack of insulation and central heating in nearly all places, you never really escape the cold. Sure you can turn on your kerosene heater and sit under the kotatsu but those are temporary fixes. For, as soon as you decide to, say, go to the kitchen for a snack or take a shower or get up to water the plants you are plunged back into the cold. And of course, you don’t leave your heaters running all night, for fear of death, and when you wake up in the morning you find that the temperature just outside your blanket is the same as it is outside. It’s fun at first, but after a while grows old and you find yourself willing the earth to tilt back towards the sun.
So because of all this, when the weather does finally start to warm up, you really notice it. Hell, in all my joy I’ve even started to run again. Of course, part of the reason for this lies in other areas (namely a slight gut that I am going to get rid of—call it that extra winter layer courtesy of a damn fine Japanese diet), but waking up in the morning and realizing that you’re not a prisoner under your covers when you don’t see your breath and that you are actually free to get up and dance around without the fumes of kerosene is a great thing. In fact, this sense of freedom was so strong in me that I just had to enjoy it to its full potential with a good run. So I did and have been every couple days since and hope to keep it up. But enough about me.
Spring in Japan is a time for rebirth and beginnings. The new school year starts, employees start new jobs and new positions, rice gets planted, and, just like in America, baseball season starts. But of course, the most identifiable aspect of the arrival of spring in Japan is the blooming of the sakura (cherry blossoms).
Sakura have no equal in America; and what I mean by this is that you don’t have loads of Americans getting all excited about the arrival of some form of flora. I imagine in some town somewhere in America there are some citizens who do celebrate slightly when some kind of flower blooms, but here we are talking the whole country and we are talking for generation after generation. They take this so seriously (in a fun way) that the government puts out a report on it each year listing when the wave of sakura are expected to reach certain cities and towns and the nightly news does stories about the local areas to best view the trees. Here in Kofu the sakura began blooming this last week and today are looking to be about two days from peaking.
The Japanese also tend to use the sakura as an “excuse” to get outside and celebrate the arrival of spring. They sit under the trees, they eat picnic bento, they drink sake under the trees, and generally have a good time being outdoors. And if you’ve ever lived here and amongst these people, you’d know that they are not often seen eating and drinking outdoors. In fact, at the local fort/castle I never, for the entire rest of the year, see anybody sitting under the trees eating and socializing. But during the sakura week there are old people, young students, groups of men, and young couples all out there, enjoying the show and each others’ company. It is really quite an interesting custom and is one sterotype about the Japanese that seems to be true.
But alas, the blooming of the sakura also means their imminent demise. They don’t last long--a week to ten days is all. By this time next week the ground around the trees will be littered with fallen petals and the breezes will spread them around in a reminder that life is brief. In fact, I read somewhere that the Japanese, at least those of the more romantic nature I would assume, liken the life of the sakura to that of the samurai warrior, beautiful and short.