By Kevin Cooney
I'm a huge fan of cherry blossoms. That is not a sentence I had ever expected to say, but there it is. It's nothing to do with cherry blossoms. Rather I should say, I like cherry blossom season. I love walking through a park on a weeknight and seeing it overflowing with revelry. It's a sight, the singing drunken salaryman swaying arm in arm with a beer in hand, giggling old ladies and men eating a homemade feast off a cardboard box table and children running amok while their otherwise engaged parents drain tall cans of beer.
I'm not the only one either. Though the two characters that make up the word hanami (花見）translate literally to "flower watching" I suppose what I do is actually people watching. I've watched a lot of people over the years and noticed a few things about the social phenomenon that is hanami.
1) The only time anybody actually looks at the trees is when their head is tilted back to get the final slurp of booze from the can.
2) Every year the beer cans are decorated with cherry blossoms earlier and earlier. Something to do with global warming I think.
3) If you get drunk, naked and crazy in a park as a pop star recently did, you will be arrested. Unless of course it's hanami season, then its understandable.
4) Drinking... Lots and lots of drinking.
I suppose one of the things I most loved about hanami when I first arrived was the way it completely dispelled my incorrect impression of the Japanese people. I was led to believe the stereotype: quiet, shy, reserved and restrained. But the riotous laughter, singing and beer chugging dispelled that quickly. I often explain hanami to friends back home by saying it's the Mardi Gras of Japan. That is something, that as a concept, seem paradoxical: Japanese Mardi Gras.
Now, I don't want you to think hanami is just drunken bacchanalia. It's not 100% boozing in the park. It's more like 99%. Hanami is often described as a metaphor for our brief life on earth. The fragile petals symbolic of our fragile existence. Or not so fragile when you consider how long Japanese people live. Which is in itself pretty amazing when you see how much these people can drink!
I think mono no aware (もののあわれ - kanji I don't know）is the Japanese phrase we are looking for...finding special supreme beauty in a thing precisely because it is fleeting.
Drop this phrase as the petals begin to fall, a wistful look heavenwards swirling the last of the lager in the Kirin can. Unfailingly, will rank up you in the esteem of all Japanese present.
But peaceable drinking in public--vs. drunken hooligan glassing or keg party brawling in the UK, USA, etc.--is one of the things we love about the lifestyle here. Not always pretty, but yet to see it get violent.
Cheers! and Kampai! 'Tis once again the season! Thanks for the reminder.