scent of plum blossoms
on the misty mountain path
a big rising sun

Since it’s that time of year…

(For an exposition on the haiku form, see the Minstrels, poem #23 (another Basho))

We’re in the middle of cherry blossom season here in Japan, and the country is going through its annual bout of spring fever. To understand why, it helps to know a bit of Japanese history…

In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu put an end to several hundred years of constant fighting among Japan’s feudal (and feuding) lords, and established himself as the first Shogun (I think the word means ‘commander-in-chief’, but I’m not sure). This marked the beginning of the Edo period of Japanese history - although the Emperor still nominally ruled the country from his palace in Kyoto, the real power was centred in the eastern city of Edo (modern day Tokyo).

During the Edo period, the upper classes were bound by a rigid code of honour. The heads of noble families (the ‘daimyo’) were obliged to spend half of every year in Edo, and the other half in their personal fiefs; their wives and children, however, were forced to remain in the capital, courtesy the ‘hospitality’ of the Shogun. The ruinous expenditures of shifting residence every six months, coupled with the fact that their families were virtual hostages of the ruler, meant that the daimyo were never able to mount a successful challenge against the authority of the Shogun, and the system remained stable (and completely isolated from the outside world) for over 250 years.

It was during this period that the Samurai rose to prominence. Originally the armed retainers of the daimyo, it was recognized (most shrewdly, by the Shoguns) that they were the real wielders of power in what was essentially a medieval society. The Samurai developed their own code of honour, in which loyalty and stoicism played prominent roles; this code has survived virtually unchanged to this date, and it forms an important part of modern Japanese society and culture.

So, where does the sakura feature in all of this? Over time, the humble cherry blossom became a symbol of the Samurai and their code - starkly beautiful, short-lived, and glorious in death. When the Shogunate was finally overthrown in 1868 and the Emperor Meiji was restored to the throne, cherry trees all over Japan were cut down - the Emperor (a modernising nationalist) wanted no reminders of the feudal past to remain. Today, though, the sakura tree has regained its place in the national consciousness, and every spring, the Japanese indulge themselves in an orgy of celebration when the delicate pink blossoms finally make their appearance after a cold and bare winter. The time is right to go to a park, spread out a mat, drink sake, and do hanami (‘hana’ = flower, ‘mi’ = see).

You know what? I think I’ll do just that, come the weekend :-)

— Thomas

PS. For those of you utterly beyond redemption, here’s the Japanese original:

ume ga ka ni
notto hinoderu
yamaji kana

PPS. I think I digressed a bit from the actual ‘poetic’ content of today’s haiku. Suffice to say that I find it intensely evocative - the image in my mind is that of saffron-clad Buddhist monks in a temple as old as the hills, ringing a deep gong to welcome the sunrise, while pilgrims from afar walk up the mountain paths through a carpet of fallen blossoms…