Regardless of the issue of the "4 seasons" (see
this article), many Japanese think that "hanami" (花見, lit. "flower viewing") is a tradition unique to Japan. What surprises me all the more is that many Westerners or Western guidebooks seem to agree with that without doing much thinking.
It seems to me that, in Western Europe at least, Spring has been associated with "flower viewing" since the Antiquity and the blossoming of trees and blooming of flowers is a deeply ingrained symbol of spring. One of the oldest cultural expression can be found in the root of the month of "April", which very probably comes from the Latin word "aprire", meaning "to open", "to blossom" or "to bloom".
In fact, in my experience Europeans care as much if not even more about flowers than the Japanese. The main difference is that the Japanese seem to care almost exclusively about
cherry blossoms (and some to plum and peach blossoms too, but much less), while Europeans care more about flowers. I remember when I was a child, the pupil's magazines would show
snowdrops or
crocus around March to announce the coming of Spring. Most people in the countryside would have a garden or parterres with daffodils, narcissus, pansies, tulips, roses, lilies, petunias or begonias. It felt like people cared more about flowers than the Japanese (or maybe that's because I live in Tokyo).
I am often told that what makes
hanami so special in Japan is that people go in groups to special places (parks, gardens, canals...) to see the cherry blossoms and picnic there. But that is what we used to do when I was a child, except that it was with flowers instead of blossoms. In a country like the Netherlands, there are so many places to go with your family watch the tulips or other flowers. A place like
Keukenhof gets hundreds of thousands of visitors per year from all around Europe (and outside Europe). There are also plenty of botanical gardens in all Western countries (I remember some nice ones in Australia
), even if they were more popular in the 19th or early 20th century than nowadays.
It cannot be argued that the Japanese tradition is much older than in Europe, as "tulip viewing" has been common at least since the early 15th century, and as the word "April" shows, flower viewing was already popular in Roman times, before the first kingdom was founded in Japan.
Now, could it be said that the Japanese
hanami is unique because of its association wth cherry, plum and peach blossoms ? If I am not mistaken, these blossoms are also popular in Korea and China, and could even have originated from China. Could our Korean and Chinese members explain how popular blossom viewing is in their country.
Originally Posted by Maciamo
Regardless of the issue of the "4 seasons" (see this article), many Japanese think that "hanami" (花見, lit. "flower viewing") is a tradition unique to Japan. What surprises me all the more is that many Westerners or Western guidebooks seem to agree with that without doing much thinking.
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