A Season of.. Joy

Spring has finally sprung here in Japan, which means one thing: Sakura. For those who don’t know, sakura is a Japanese word meaning cherry blossoms. Sakura bloom but once a year, and they only last for about 2 weeks. Mostly white, with just a tinge of pink, the blossoms are incredibly beautiful. A sakura tree in full bloom is truly something everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. The rich symbolism of such intense yet ephemeral beauty is not lost on the Japanese, and they treat each coming of season with proper pomp and circumstance. In fact, many people see sakura as a representation of the beauty of life itself; fleeting, yet so extraordinary while it exists. Yes, Sakura season is, perhaps, the world’s most metaphorical reason to get ridiculously drunk.

Like many occasions here in Japan, cherry blossom season is celebrated with large quantities of alcohol. Drinking is a very large part of the culture here, and there are many opportunities throughout the year to experience it. To give you an idea, here is a quick list of just some the occasions that I have observed where drinking is appropriate:

• Going Away/Welcome parties
• Completing a project
• Weddings
• Coming home from work
• Lunch
• Sunday morning

As you can see, the Japanese are fairly indiscriminate when it comes to drinking, and I admit to being more than a little surprised when I first encountered the drinking culture here. In fact, I first began to realize the extent of it at my first hanami, or “cherry blossom viewing party.”

About 2 months after I had first arrived in Japan, sakura season rolled around, and I was invited to one such party with my new co-workers. We went to Ueno Park, which is one of the more famous spots for sakura in Tokyo, and I remember being struck, first by beauty of the blossoms, second by the sheer multitude of people there, and lastly by the overwhelming percentage of them that were inebriated. I was told that, even though our party was starting at 7:00 pm, most people had been there all day. Drinking. Coming from a place where you can get arrested for even possessing an open container of alcohol in public, I was understandably taken aback.

But it wasn’t only the fact that they were drinking in public or even the number of drinkers that got me; It was also the diversity. In America, when most people think of binge drinking, they picture college students or hairy, middle-aged men with no shirts and little purpose in life. This was not the case at Ueno Park. There were men and women of all ages in attendance, starting from 20 and going all the way up past, and I’m pretty sure about this, 90 years old. Everyone was drinking together and having a good time.

Obviously, the culture surrounding drinking and drunkenness is quite different between America and Japan, but I think I understand why. That whole night in Ueno Park, surrounded by thousands of drunken people, I didn’t witness a single drunken brawl. Not even one. I mean, what’s mass drunkenness without a brawl or two, right?  In fact, the only incident I witnessed that night was when an overly intoxicated man in a business suit, who was causing problems by falling down and running into people, was escorted away by the police. I thought I was finally seeing some action! “Is he being arrested?” I asked one of my colleagues. “No,” she said, “They’re just escorting him safely to the train station.”