Hanami is here!　花見シーズンがやってくる！

ENTRY

2016.03.23

Hello everyone,

It’s almost Hanami time! The cherry blossoms are due to start blooming tomorrow here in Shizuoka prefecture. That means people will be having picnics in the parks all over Shizuoka this weekend or the weekend after to see them in full bloom.

While this custom began in Japan, it has spread to other countries too. Smaller hanami celebrations take place in the U.S.A., Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and China. In 1912, Japan gave 3,000 sakura trees as a gift to the United States to celebrate the nations’ friendship. These trees were planted in Washington, D.C., and another 3,800 trees were donated in 1965. These sakura trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction, and every year, the “National Cherry Blossom Festival” takes place when they bloom in early spring. In Rome, in Italy, Hanami is celebrated in the park of the Eur, where a lot of cherry trees were donated by Japan in 1959.

In Ireland there are no such hanami celebrations, but my mother put a cherry blossom tree in their garden when my daughter was born. It reminds her of her granddaughter in Japan. You can find many cherry blossom trees in parks all over Ireland, and people often have picnics under them, so they are celebrating Hanami without even knowing it! Enjoy the sakura!

Alan

みなさんこんにちは。

もうすぐで花見の時期がやってきますね。ここ静岡県では桜の開花が明日のようです。なので今週末やそれ以降に公園などにピクニックに行く方が沢山いそうですねこの花見という習慣が日本で始まった頃、同時に海外にも広まっていきました。アメリカや台湾、韓国、フィリピン、中国などでも規模は小さいながらも花見が広まりました。1912年、日本政府はアメリカとの交友を祝うために3000本の桜の木を贈りました。それらの桜の木は首都ワシントンに植えられたのです。そして1965年には新たに3800本の桜が寄付されました。そしてこの桜はそれ以降人気の観光地となっており、毎年桜が開花する4月には桜まつりが開かれます