The Lotus and the Monorail

Captured with a Sony NEX-3

Every summer, Chiba Park becomes a sea of green and pink. The lotus blossoms rise early, elegant and self-contained, untouched by the city hum around them. I still remember the morning I took this photograph — 2012, the 60th anniversary of Chiba Park’s lotus season.

The monorail had just glided into view, yellow and cheerful against the blue sky. For a few seconds, the flower and the train aligned perfectly — nature and machinery, stillness and motion, 静と動. I pressed the shutter almost instinctively.

Looking back, that moment feels like a metaphor for life in Japan. The country moves fast, always innovating, but somehow manages to hold on to its quiet rituals — morning walks in the park, the first bloom of the season, the subtle discipline of noticing beauty.

The photo went on to win a small recognition that year, but the real prize was something else — realizing that coexistenceis Japan’s truest aesthetic. The lotus doesn’t resist the train above it. It just continues to bloom, unbothered, graceful.