The business around them is crazy around here. Where as in some other country you would just pack a picnic basket and go to spend the evening under the trees, here they order craploads of sakura themed bento, drink sakura themed sake and beer and even be absent from the work to get wasted under the cherry blossoms.
And that’s only the hanami itself. The stores are filled with sakura themed stuff that is few yens cheaper than their normal counterpart and they sell like crazy.
It really is an interesting aspect of the culture.
Sakura themed stuff is just one example of the more global season themed stuff you'll find going on all year round. Sakura, peach, pear, sweet potato, mandarin orange, wasabi, etc. etc. 期間限定 (time limited) looks like the favorite keyword of marketeers, and it's most of the time associated with seasons.
And also, all of that stuff is tasty and worth celebrating. Japanese peaches and pears are legitimately special. Sweet potato from the yakiiiiimo truck is a treasured memory _and_ also delicious. Etc.
> not sure why Japan is being singled out here. Nearly every culture has celebrations that are then commercialized.
Japan takes it to another level though. In Europe I had never seen so much products customization happening across multiple categories at the same time.
Do they? In the USA there's Christmas merchandise in every store for 2 months. People buy trees, cars, tree decorations, candles, wreaths, house lights, cakes, egg nog, etc. etc. For Halloween custom stores open all over the place for 1-2 months, candy companies come out with all kinds of special candies, pumpkin patches show up all over town, and on and on.
Agreed. All of this is, I think, in some form, celebrating agricultural cycles, yes? Those are celebrated and turned in to holidays for good reason. I don't see why it's more interesting that it happens in country A vs. country B. But, that's just the world we live in.
> It really is an interesting aspect of the culture.
It's not just for Sakura (cherry blossoms), Japan has tons of events links to seasons or other celebrations where they release specific packaging/versions of many commodity items. But it's true that hanami (going to see cherry blossoms) is one of the most popular traditions around.
Random observation: Cherry trees have done something brilliant from an evolutionary standpoint - a symbiosis with the most intelligent species on the planet - to appeal to humans as irresistibly beautiful and it will only lead to more cultivation and expansion of the species.
What I've noticed is rather it's culture. Cherry trees blossom all over the world as do other trees. Almonds, Plums, Jacarandas, lots of others. Nothing special about cherry trees except they got lucky that one culture decided to celebrate them and others didn't
Yes, part of my point was it's just culture. I grew up in Los Angeles. I lived in Japan for many years and got used to the various celebrations. I then came back to Los Angeles and noticed all the trees blossoming that I and pretty much everyone else had ignored in the past.
So re post above, it's not the cherry trees are especially pretty. It's only that some people in Japan started appreciating them and promoting that appreciation until it spread throughout the country. It could just as easily have been any other blossoming tree or any other country. The only difference is culture not trees.
I left this page open and went to do something else. When I came back after couple of minutes, my laptop was super hot and CPU running at max. That's the consequence of these effects
And that’s only the hanami itself. The stores are filled with sakura themed stuff that is few yens cheaper than their normal counterpart and they sell like crazy.
It really is an interesting aspect of the culture.