5 ms·

> people take a moment to appreciate the brevity of spring and its beauty, with the blooming and falling of cherry blossom. Nah, it's an excuse to get out of t

> people take a moment to appreciate the brevity of spring and its beauty, with the blooming and falling of cherry blossom. Nah, it's an excuse to get out of the office and get plastered. Here's a popular haiku that's for some odd reason usually not covered by literature professors: 酒なくて何の己が桜かな Without sake what is the point of cherry blossoms

asiachick 5y ago
Exactly. Sure the blossoms are beautiful but the #1 reason is to spend a day (or night) drinking with your friends.
freetime2 5y ago
I have done viewing parties with my friends where we have gotten extremely drunk (at Takada park where the header image is from, coincidentally), and have also done trips with my family and family friends where no alcohol was consumed. All were wonderful - although sometimes the crowds are a bit bigger than I would like.
- toyg 5y ago
  > sometimes the crowds are a bit bigger than I would like I think that's really metropolitan Japan in a nutshell, lol.
  - freetime2 5y ago
    True, but I was actually referring to the countryside! I live near a large-ish park that is very peaceful and quiet all year, but when the cherry blossoms bloom it gets so crowded that it’s almost unrecognizable. Metropolitan Japan is indeed on another level, though. I once visited Ueno Park while the cherry blossoms were in bloom and it was just a sea of people. This was pre-covid, and I still found it a bit gross. Still had a great time that day, though!
    - lars512 5y ago
      On the flip side, when I first saw Ueno park I thought it was incredibly ugly and barren. Then when the cherry blossoms came it was completely transformed overnight. I didn’t stay through until Summer to see the full season, but the park definitely wasn’t worse with the cherry blossoms, despite the people.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    What makes it extra annoying is that Japan is a collective culture which means that everyone is doing the same thing at the same time. But maybe it's also a human thing. My own country has a long coastline yet everyone seems to single out one single beach where everyone congregates.
    - toyg 5y ago
      Most people don't do things because they like them, but because they enable their relationships with other humans - so they can talk about something with them, compare their experiences, etc etc. This really is the conceptual basis for mass-culture; in Japan they've just accepted it a bit more openly than elsewhere.
    - jonpurdy 5y ago
      This is like beach season in South Korea. June 30th, Haeundae is deserted and has a few people looking around. July 1st hits and it is completely packed until Aug 31. Then Sept 1 hits and it is deserted again.
tkgally 5y ago
> it's an excuse to get out of the office and get plastered Yes. Visitors to Japan noted the go-out-and-have-fun focus of cherry-blossom viewing more than a century ago: “The foreigners are there for no other purpose than to see and enjoy, while the natives are ready for the first excuse to picnic. They are devoted to excursions, so the little men close their shops, and the little ladies gather the children, and, with the last baby on the mother’s back and the next one strapped to an older sister, they all clatter away to Ueno, where the daintiest shades sweep the air. They wander along the highways, and thousands of clogs resound by the banks of the Sumida, where the branches sweep off to the river, where the pleasure-boats ply the stream. The roadways are dense with the crowding, surging masses, all kindly, all sauntering leisurely, where venders of foods and of toys are making a harvest.” [1, 2] The trees can indeed be magnificent, but I prefer to look at them where parties are not allowed. I used to go to Shinjuku Gyo-en [3], which is conveniently located in central Tokyo. The last time I was there, at least, it did not allow picnics, so it was relatively uncrowded. In recent years, I have enjoyed the view for a few seconds each morning from the front car of the Toyoko Line train when it makes a brief stop over the Meguro River at Naka-meguro Station [4, 5]. It feels like you’re floating in an ocean of blossoms. [1] https://archive.org/details/womanaloneinhear00fishiala/page/28/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/womanaloneinhear00fishiala/page/... [2] http://gally.net/jatsi/nature/flora.html http://gally.net/jatsi/nature/flora.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Gyo-en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Gyo-en [4] https://tokyo23.asia/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nakameguro001.jpg https://tokyo23.asia/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nakameguro00... [5] https://www.flickr.com/photos/tokutomi/26124371626/in/album-72157666327862876/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/tokutomi/26124371626/in/album-...
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asiachick 5y ago

Exactly. Sure the blossoms are beautiful but the #1 reason is to spend a day (or night) drinking with your friends.

freetime2 5y ago

I have done viewing parties with my friends where we have gotten extremely drunk (at Takada park where the header image is from, coincidentally), and have also done trips with my family and family friends where no alcohol was consumed. All were wonderful - although sometimes the crowds are a bit bigger than I would like.

toyg 5y ago
> sometimes the crowds are a bit bigger than I would like I think that's really metropolitan Japan in a nutshell, lol.
- freetime2 5y ago
  True, but I was actually referring to the countryside! I live near a large-ish park that is very peaceful and quiet all year, but when the cherry blossoms bloom it gets so crowded that it’s almost unrecognizable. Metropolitan Japan is indeed on another level, though. I once visited Ueno Park while the cherry blossoms were in bloom and it was just a sea of people. This was pre-covid, and I still found it a bit gross. Still had a great time that day, though!
  - lars512 5y ago
    On the flip side, when I first saw Ueno park I thought it was incredibly ugly and barren. Then when the cherry blossoms came it was completely transformed overnight. I didn’t stay through until Summer to see the full season, but the park definitely wasn’t worse with the cherry blossoms, despite the people.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  What makes it extra annoying is that Japan is a collective culture which means that everyone is doing the same thing at the same time. But maybe it's also a human thing. My own country has a long coastline yet everyone seems to single out one single beach where everyone congregates.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Most people don't do things because they like them, but because they enable their relationships with other humans - so they can talk about something with them, compare their experiences, etc etc. This really is the conceptual basis for mass-culture; in Japan they've just accepted it a bit more openly than elsewhere.
  - jonpurdy 5y ago
    This is like beach season in South Korea. June 30th, Haeundae is deserted and has a few people looking around. July 1st hits and it is completely packed until Aug 31. Then Sept 1 hits and it is deserted again.

tkgally 5y ago

> it's an excuse to get out of the office and get plastered Yes. Visitors to Japan noted the go-out-and-have-fun focus of cherry-blossom viewing more than a century ago: “The foreigners are there for no other purpose than to see and enjoy, while the natives are ready for the first excuse to picnic. They are devoted to excursions, so the little men close their shops, and the little ladies gather the children, and, with the last baby on the mother’s back and the next one strapped to an older sister, they all clatter away to Ueno, where the daintiest shades sweep the air. They wander along the highways, and thousands of clogs resound by the banks of the Sumida, where the branches sweep off to the river, where the pleasure-boats ply the stream. The roadways are dense with the crowding, surging masses, all kindly, all sauntering leisurely, where venders of foods and of toys are making a harvest.” [1, 2] The trees can indeed be magnificent, but I prefer to look at them where parties are not allowed. I used to go to Shinjuku Gyo-en [3], which is conveniently located in central Tokyo. The last time I was there, at least, it did not allow picnics, so it was relatively uncrowded. In recent years, I have enjoyed the view for a few seconds each morning from the front car of the Toyoko Line train when it makes a brief stop over the Meguro River at Naka-meguro Station [4, 5]. It feels like you’re floating in an ocean of blossoms. [1] https://archive.org/details/womanaloneinhear00fishiala/page/28/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/womanaloneinhear00fishiala/page/... [2] http://gally.net/jatsi/nature/flora.html http://gally.net/jatsi/nature/flora.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Gyo-en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Gyo-en [4] https://tokyo23.asia/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nakameguro001.jpg https://tokyo23.asia/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/nakameguro00... [5] https://www.flickr.com/photos/tokutomi/26124371626/in/album-72157666327862876/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/tokutomi/26124371626/in/album-...

deleted 5y ago

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