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Published: April 11th 2009
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The spring has come, and once again
The sun shines in the sky;
So gently smile the heavens, that
It almost makes me cry,
When blossoms droop and die.
--Kino Tomonori, c. 905
In 1995, the Japanese city of Kobe was completely destroyed by a devastating earthquake. Almost 4600 people died and a cosmopolitan port city was reduced to rubble in a matter of minutes. No more than 10 years later, a visitor to Kobe would have no idea that such a catastrophic natural disaster had occurred so recently, as the city, port, and infrastructure had all been rebuilt in modernity. Today, Kobe is just like the hundreds of Japanese cities that have been rebuilt from nothing, and judging by the looks of them, one would never guess…
Every year, all citizens of Japan await the blooming of the 桜 (“sakura” or Cherry Blossoms). For one brilliant week in Late March/Early April, the 桜 erupt, sugar-coating the Japanese landscape in its pink and white glory, inciting amateur Haiku poets and salarymen alike to gather beneath their sagging flowers and rejoice with sake´ serving as their muse. And as soon as the first big
rainstorm comes, sure enough these flowers will loosen from their branches and crumble back to earth, falling into a heap, leaving the trees bare, and signifying the end of a new beginning…
I am now convinced that Japan and Japanese people are what they are because of spring. You might be wondering how the two previous paragraphs could relate to one another, but I assure you that they do. Not only those, but also these are only two of many aspects of Japanese life that can be tied together using spring as its twine. First of all, it won’t come as any surprise to you that spring can symbolize a new start, a re-birth of life. In Japan, this rebirth of life is most embodied by the Cherry Blossoms. However, in the U.S., it would be strange to consider the end of life in the same sentence as the beginning of it. Could you imagine, on Marathon Monday in Boston, turning to your friend and saying “only 7 more months until winter…”? After all, hasn’t it just started, and haven’t we been waiting for this throughout the long, cold winter? Spring is about beginnings, not endings. “Sakura”, on
Sakura by night
at a Hanami party the other hand, introduce the notion that life has a timetable, and that just as everything begins, everything ends. This is an inherent philosophy of Japan that leads its people to celebrate life to the fullest, respectfully realize its inevitable end, and knowingly await it’s rebirthing of the life cycle that will continue into eternity.
As to the first paragraph, the Kobe Earthquake was just one of countless natural disasters that have left pitted Man vs. Nature in Japan. Situated on the “Pacific Rim of Fire”, Japan is essentially an archipelago of active volcanoes. Earthquakes have indiscriminately leveled big cities like Tokyo, Niigata, and Kobe, as well as small villages through its 2000-year history. That being said, Japanese people have been rebuilding their homes and communities for thousands of years. Add to this the destruction brought by centuries of civil war and an Allied Forces carpet-bombing campaign and 2 Atomic Bombs, and it’s difficult to think of a time when the Japanese weren’t rebuilding. Because they have been doing this for millennia, they have perfected it in a way. The country rebuilt itself in the wake of World War II to be the symbol of modernity, and Kobe
Sakura in the moonlight
Toryo Park in Tadotsu town made it impossible for a passer-by to know that it did not exist 10 short years ago.
Just as the cherry blossoms wilt away soon after their bloom, the Japanese also realize that despite the rebuilding process, the end will inevitably and unexpectedly come to an end once more. I believe that this makes them see life is a different way than traditional Western thinking. In James Clavell’s classic Samurai-era Japan novel “Shogun”, he depicts scene after scene of death in battle, by honorable suicide, and by natural causes. One of the paradoxes of Japanese philosophy is the juxtaposition of celebrating life, and mercilessly destructing it. This is how the Imperial Japanese Army was able to “rape” Nanking, slaughtering upwards of 300,000 Chinese men, women, and children. This is how the people of Okinawa (mostly women, because the men had been drafted) were ordered to “defend their homeland” and refuse capture by opposing Allied machine guns with sharpened wooden spears. And in the times of the samurai, disembowelment was a more acceptable way of apologizing than a bow.
Another scene in “Shogun” portrays a massive earthquake leveling the community in which they live. The “gaijin” is
amazed at how the Japanese people didn’t stop to mourn their loss; only quickly and diligently went about salvaging what they could. Their approach was “we’ve been doing this for generations, we are helpless to its occurrence, why be upset over things we cannot control?”
Likewise, the sakura have lived and died for generations in Japan. They are a reminder to its people that there will always be a new beginning, a beginning of a beautiful life that should be enjoyed to its fullest. And although we know that the inevitable will one day come, there is little reason to worry about that which we cannot control.
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