Coronavirus leaves Japan’s cherry blossoms without admirers
The world has been forced to miss out on the beauty of cherry blossom season.
Cherry blossom season is so revered in Japan that TV stations include the flowering of the trees in weather reports, with screens pinkening as the buds bloom northwards from the warmer climes of Kyushu to the upper island of Hokkaido.
This year’s has been a fizzer, however, with restrictions in place for hanami (blossom-viewing events) and international arrivals down to zero. Last year’s northern spring season attracted an estimated 8.5 million overseas visitors and billions of yen for the tourism and hospitality industry.
In a very corona-era statement, the Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, has lamented the 2020 hanami restrictions and likened the inability of Japan’s residents to sit under a blossom-heavy sakura (cherry) tree and picnic in drifts of petals as “like taking hugs away from Italians”.
Seasonal events, especially with nature as a focus, are huge mainstays of many economies and climate upheaval has become another factor that’s starting to imperil special-interest tourism. The 2019 hanami season, marketed to start in the first 10 days of April, got under way in March, catching many operators off-guard. In a rare show of defiance across a country of order and obedience, sakura came out again in some regions in October, stealing the show just when autumn leaves were aflame. Last December, the fiery brilliance of turning maples could still be seen in the gardens of the new Aman Kyoto hotel and across the old imperial capital’s shrines and temples. The TV forecasts of snow, complete with imaginary flakes, were mere whimsy and the heavy jackets I’d packed remained mostly unworn.
The Japanese have set words for many emotions and practices, mostly from Zen beliefs, including chisoku, composed of two kanji characters, one for knowledge or wisdom and the other for sufficiency. Chisoku reminds us “there is no limit to human desire and so it is essential to know when something is enough”. A mantra for life in this age of uncertainty, perhaps.
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