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Hanami

For over a thousand years, Japanese have had a thing about enjoying flowers when they are in bloom. The practice is called hanami which literally means "viewing flowers". Today, it mostly refers to celebrating cherry trees (sakura) and sometimes flowering plums (ume) in parks and in the countryside. A common English name for hanami is Cherry Blossom Festival.

The scene below is of a canal on the Meguro River at Nakameguro Park in Tōkyō. It is a favorite place for couples to stroll during hanami.

Since sakura bloom at different times in different parts of Japan, there is no fixed date for hanami. They typically bloom as early as January in Okinawa, late March to April on the big island of Honshu, and May on Hokkaido. The weather can also influence when trees bloom. Media outlets of all sorts announce the projected times for hanami all over Japan.

In general, hanami isn't a formal affair. Families commonly pack lunches or dinners and go to parks or into the countryside to enjoy the views, either in small groups or in flower-viewing parties. Vendors often set up booths in parks to sell bentō (like box lunches) for those who aren't do-it-yourselfers. There are other ways of enjoying the time besides picnicking on lawns as this river scene illustrates.

Besides city parks, there are many places in the countryside where hanami can be enjoyed, too, like this one that combines sakura viewing along with Japan's iconic Mt. Fuji.

Japan isn't the only place where hanami occurs, though it may not be called that. In 1912, Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tōkyō gave 3,020 sakura trees to Washington, D.C. They were planted around the tidal basin. That is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in the background. (And, Yes. That is a photograph.)

As Japan's national flower, sakura represents a time of renewal and optimism, blooming as it does toward the end of winter and beginning of spring. The blossoms are short-lived, however, so sakura also symbolizes the transience of life. They are symbolize clouds, too, because of their tendency to bloom en masse.

San Diego's Japanese Friendship Garden has over 200 cherry blossom trees. The types vary--some blooming earlier than others--to extend the duration of its Cherry Blossom Festival.

Sakura: Japan's National Flower

The cherry trees in Japan known as sakura are all ornamentals. The fruit they bear is not edible. Many of the cherry trees currently enjoyed for hanami are not wild species but cultivar, selected since the Heian Period (794 - 1185) for relatively large blossoms. Books from the Edo Period (1603 - 1867) describe more than 200 varieties of sakura. Sakura blossoms range in color from pink to nearly pure white. Basic blossoms are fairly simple. Rather than adhering directly on the branches of the tree, sakura blossoms have their own stem. Think about the stems attached to the fruit of regular cherry trees.

They often blossom in clusters.

Note the cleft at the ends of the blossoms. This is one of the things that distinguishes most cherry blossoms from plum (ume) blossoms.

These white sakura blossoms are from Washington, D.C.'s tidal basin.

Some varieties are double-flowered with as many as 20 to 50 petals.

Artwork

Japanese artists haven't been shy about painting sakura. There are so many that it is hard to choose which ones to show. The five below are representative. This first one is by Ogata Korin (1658 - 1716), a founder of the Rinpa school and its emphasis on decorative art.

The next two ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints) were by Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849). I don't know much about the first painting, Mt. Fuji Seen Through Cherry Blossoms.

This second of Hokusai's prints is part of his 11-part series, Snow, Moon, and Flowers at Famous Scenic Spots (1832 -1833). The setting is the Cherry Blossom Shrine in Settsu province.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 - 1858) produced the next two prints. The first is #35 from from his 100 Famous Views of Edo published in 1856. It shows the Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River. The people at the bottom of the print are on the way to the Hashiba ferry. That is Mt. Tsukuba in the background.

The next is titled Flowering Blossoms along the Sumida River, published sometime between 1843 and 1847.