SAKURA BY ORMONDE Jane Perfume

| BY ELAINE PILLEY

across Japan. Or picture yourself meandering beside the moat of Tokyo’s Imperial Castle in Tokyo, under great swags of tunnel blossom, or through the heady cloudscapes (“sakuri fubuki”) while riding Kyoto’s Yozakura sakura night train. You could be savoring a bento box lunch in Matsumae Parkin Hokkaido. Or finally, maybe you are musing on the fragility of life and the transience of all things while nibbling on “hanami dango” dumplings or a Sakuramichi pink rice cake with red bean paste while sitting by a lone Somei Yoshino tree or in a vast cherry orchard on

Mount Atago. Sakura keeps you in springtime all year.

The cherry tree and its pink blossoms are revered in Japan.

The joyful tradition of “hanami” (flower viewing and smelling) is an ancient custom—and a popular tradition. The practice was first associated with plum blossoms before becoming almost exclusively linked with sakura by the Heian Period (794–1185).

Cherries are associated with Buddhism’s ‘Mono no aware.’

Basically, the pathos of things,” “an empathy toward things,” or “a sensitivity to ephemera,” gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at the passing of all things.

In Japan, there are more than 600 kinds of flowering cherry trees. The trees in Mt. Yoshino are Yamazakura. In Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture, there is Kariyado no Gebazakura, the oldest Yamazakura in Japan, which has been designated as a unique Japanese national treasure. Sakura represents spring.