Explore everyday life in Japan
In Japan, plum blossoms are a telltale sign that spring is coming. As such, they are a very welcome sight and they tend to draw people out on their lunch breaks into parks and other places to take pictures and enjoy their strong fragrance.
While cherry blossoms, with their volume and lushness, tend to steal the show in Japan these days, plum blossoms offer up a different kind of beauty, one of sparseness and delicacy that was once more revered in Japan than the now famous cherry blossoms.
As spring moves from the southern parts of Japan up to the northern parts, the excitement of the coming cherry blossom season tends to eclipse the plum blossom season. The weather forecast on the daily news is supplemented with forecasts and updates about the progress of the cherry blossoms while not much is said about the plum blossoms.
The first cherry blooms of the south are photographed, displayed on the news, social media, and the Internet, and the opening of cherry blossom season is announced while the plum blossoms in the north are just opening.
Predictions are made and updated on the news for when the cherry blossoms in each part of Japan will be in full bloom so that people can make travel plans to go see them. Ohanami tours—one-day bus tours that bring tourists to see famous cherry trees and places of renowned cherry blooms—are advertised at travel agencies, while plum blossoms are left to a quiet, local, word of mouth level.
I have heard of festivals and walking tours that celebrate plum blossoms, but they seem to me to be harder to come by than those that are held for the cherry blossoms.
The plum blossom season is a quiet one, but it is one that is worth seeing, nonetheless.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.