Here in Michigan it is still cold. We even had snow a few days ago. We have a long winter this year. I look forward to seeing many flowers blooming. Yesterday I took a walk in a park which has a big cherry tree, but I couldn't see any cherry blossoms yet.
Cherry blossoms are kind of important to Japanese people. There are many cherry trees here and there in Japan. Japanese people really like cherry blossoms. People think that when the flowers bloom, spring has come. we have parties under the cherry blossoms, which are called “Ohanami”.
Again, We have many cherry trees, but we have to compete to get good places. So we save our seats early in the morning and keep sit there until the parties start, usually at night. This role is done by the junior of positions in the company or the group…
We often eat traditional Japanese food, and drink sake and beer there. We also eat sweet Japanese dumplings called “dango”. Some people do karaoke or party stunts. Then we don’t see the cherry blossoms any more… We have a proverb “hana yori danngo” (dumplings rather than flowers) which means that dumplings (substance) is preferable to beautiful things like flowers (appearance)that we cannot eat.
I miss the crazy Japanese culture...
