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This article is about cherry blossoms and their cultural significance to the Japanese. For other uses, see Sakura (disambiguation).
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Sakura at Asuwa River, Fukui, Fukui, Japan
Cherry Blossom or Sakura (Japanese kanji : æ¡œ or æ«»; katakana: サクラ; hiragana: ã•ãら) is the Japanese name for ornamental cherry trees, Prunus serrulata, and their blossoms. Cherry fruit (known as sakuranbo) comes from a different species of tree. Sakura is also a given name. The word "sakura" becomes "zakura" when used in a compound word such as "shidarezakura".
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Sakura is indigenous to the Himalayas, including northern India, and to east Asian states such as China, Japan and Korea. Japan has a wide variety of sakura; well over 200 cultivars can be found there.Brandow Samuels, Gayle. Enduring Roots: Encounters with Trees, History, and the American Landscape. 1999, page 75. Many were artificially hybridized or grafted by Japanese horticulturalists centuries ago.[citation needed]
Painting of Mount Fuji and sakura.
Every year the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the public track the sakura zensen (cherry-blossom front) as it moves northward up the archipelago with the approach of warmer weather via nightly forecasts following the weather segment of news programs. The blossoming begins in Okinawa in January and typically reaches Kyoto and Tokyo at the end of March or the beginning of April. It proceeds into areas at the higher altitudes and northward, arriving in HokkaidŠa few weeks later. Japanese pay close attention to these forecasts and turn out in large numbers at parks, shrines, and temples with family and friends to hold flower-viewing parties. Hanami festivals celebrate the beauty of the sakura and for many are a chance to relax and enjoy the beautiful view. The custom of hanami dates back many centuries in Japan: the eighth-century chronicle Nihon Shoki (日本書紀) records hanami festivals being held as early as the third century CE.Most Japanese schools and public buildings have sakura trees outside of them. Since the fiscal and school year both begin in April, in many parts of Honshū, the first day of work or school coincides with the cherry blossom season.
Whereas in China the cherry blossom symbolizes feminine beauty, the feminine principle, or love, in Japan the cherry blossoms are believed to exemplify the transient nature of life, because of their short blooming times. Cherry blossoms are an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life,Choy Lee, Khoon. Japan--between Myth and Reality. 1995, page 142. an aspect of Japanese cultural tradition that is often associated with Buddhistic influence,Young, John and Nakajima-Okano, Kimiko. Learn Japanese: New College Text. 1985, page 268. and which is embodied in the concept of mono no aware.Slaymaker, Douglas. The Body in Postwar Japanese Fiction. 2004, page 122. The association of the Sakura with mono no aware dates back to 18th-century scholar Motoori Norinaga. The transience of the blossoms, the extreme beauty and quick death, has often been associated with mortality; for this reason, Sakura are richly symbolic, and have been utilized often in Japanese art, manga, anime, and film, as well as at musical performances for ambient effect. The band Kagrra, which is associated with the visual kei movement, is an example of this latter phenomenon. There is at least one popular folk song, originally meant for the shakuhachi (bamboo flute), titled "Sakura", and several pop songs. The flower is also represented on all manner of consumer goods in Japan, including kimono, stationery, and dishware.
During World War II, the sakura was used to motivate and manipulate the Japanese people, to stoke nationalism and militarism among the populace.Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms. 2002, page 9-10.Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms. 2002, page 122-3. Japanese pilots would paint them on the sides of their planes before embarking on a suicide mission, or even take branches of the trees with them on their missions. A cherry blossom painted on the side of the bomber symbolized the intensity and ephemerality of life;Sakamoto, Kerri: One Hundred Million Hearts. Vintage Book, 2004. ISBN 0-676-97512-7. in this way, the aesthetic association was altered such that falling cherry petals came to represent the sacrifice of youth in suicide missions to honor the emperor. The government even encouraged the people to believe that the souls of downed warriors were reincarnated in the blossoms.
In its colonial enterprises, imperial Japan often planted cherry trees as a means of "claiming occupied territory as Japanese space". For this reason, the symbolic import of the cherry trees is quite different in Korea, where the trees at Seoul\'s Gyeongbok Palace were cut down to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of liberation from Japanese colonial rule. Some cherry trees remain in Korea, although they are conceptualized not as the embodiment of transience, as in Japan, but rather as "blossom[ing] continuously like the Koreans".
The most popular variety of sakura in Japan is the Somei Yoshino. Its flowers are nearly pure white, tinged with the palest pink, especially near the stem. They bloom and usually fall (or “scatter,†散る chiru) within a week, before the leaves come out. Therefore, the trees look nearly white from top to bottom. The variety takes its name from the village of Somei (now part of Toshima in Tokyo). It was developed in the mid- to late-19th century at the end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji period. The Somei Yoshino is so widely associated with cherry blossoms that jidaigeki and other works of fiction often depict the variety in the Edo period or earlier; such depictions are anachronisms.
Winter sakura (fuyuzakura/Prunus subhirtella Autumnalis) begins to bloom in the fall and continues blooming sporadically throughout the winter. It is said to be a cross between Tokyo Higan cherry (edohiganzakura/P. incisa) and Mamezakura/P. pendula. "Winter-flowering cherry", accessed 1 January, 2008.
Other categories include yamazakura, yaezakura, and shidarezakura. The yaezakura have large flowers, thick with rich pink petals. The shidarezakura, or weeping cherry, has branches that fall like those of a weeping willow, bearing cascades of pink flowers.
A province in Western Philippines, Palawan, serves as home to an endemic Palawan Cherry Blossoms, which appears to resemble that of Japan\'s, thus the name.
Sakura in Washington, D.C.
Japan gave 3,000 sakura trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations\' then-growing friendship. These trees have since lined the shore of the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. (see West Potomac Park), and the gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965. The sakura trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring.
Other cities such as Philadelphia and Macon, Georgia have an annual Cherry Blossom Festival (or Sakura Matsuri). The Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City also has a large, well-attended festival[1].
The cherry blossom is a major tourist attraction in Germany\'s Altes Land orchard region.
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