Why is the cherry tree so importent in japan?

Answer 1

The brief and beautiful flowering and inevitable falling of the cherry blossom encapsulates the ideal of "bushido" - the way of the samurai. Samurai were meant to live a brief, intense existence and be ready to fall in battle (or by suicide) at any moment for the sake of their master, just as the cherry blossom falls at its moment of greatest beauty. The kamikaze pilots of WW2 were also indoctrinated with this ideal. More recently, the author Yukio Mishima tried to revive the spirit of bushido and wrote about it at length in his masterpiece "The Sea of Fertility" (particularly book 2, Runaway Horses).

It's also a marker of the arrival of spring, and it is a Japanese tradition to go and get drunk under the blossoms.

Answer 2

Japanese have long been observers of various blooming flowers. The cherry blossom viewing goes back over a 1000 years.

Originally it was plum blossoms, a tradition which came from China but sometime in the Heian period cherry blossoms supplanted the plum in the hearts of the Japanese. Some suggested this might be due to the fact that the plum blossom season is too cold in Kyoto to enjoy late in the night without shivering.

The samurai took the cherry blossom as their personal motif. They saw themselves like the cherry blossoms - brilliantly beautiful for a short time then falling at the height of its glory.

Answer 3

I don't know why the Cherries are so important.
I only know about my own experience.
My first year with the cherry-blossom - i wondered why everybody were taking pics - even old men.
'they must have hundreds of pics of cherries ' I thought.
Now - I have hundreds of pictures - and are returning every year to Japan to see the cherries - and take new photos.
there is some kind of magic going on!

Answer 4

Nice view, beginning of spring season, blooms pretty in many areas in Japan, having fun together with families, friends and co-workers under the cherry tree.

Answer 5

I even have one on my backyard, and that i stay relatively faraway from Japan... i assume you're able to purchase one on the US, and merely fake this is eastern and depart all your pals questioning the type you probably did it. as far because of fact the eastern cherry blossom being from united statesa.... properly, isn't that ironic....

Answer 6

Along with Mount Fuji and other traditional icons of Japanese culture, it is seen by them to be a representation of the very nature of what being Japanese is meant to be. For example, the first rays of sunlight on Mount Fuji is one such imagery that the poets have long used as their metaphor.

Answer 7

Because this flower blooms,you'll know it's spring.
People eat and drink under the tree and enjoy the beautiful flower in Japan.

Answer 8

There's so beautiful and bountiful. From that they've been the subject of poetry, art and photography.

The fleeting blossom time reminds us of life and how we should seize the day. Japanese people like that concept or lesson.

Answer 9

traditionally in literature and what not, because it symbolizes the ephemereal quality and briefness of beauty and life. it embodies the concept of mono-no-aware of japanese sensitivity. because it only blooms for such a short period but within that period it is singularly beautiful and it dies relatively quickly.

nowadays - because it's pretty, and it's an occassion to get together with family and friends and go "hanami" - flower viewing and have a picnic.

Answer 10

Cherry tree brings new life to all mamasans.