Sakura

Before going on this trip, I was totally preoccupied with my Honors Thesis and wondering if it was really a good idea to embark on this journey when the rest of my peers are dying from the stress of fluff production. I even toyed with the idea of asking Mum to find a replacement for me so I could stay at home while the rest of the family enjoyed the hot spring baths and gazed at the sakura.

But in the end, with God's grace I managed to rush the essay and finished my final draft for my professor to read. Yes, two hours before leaving the house for the airport.



To be honest, the Sakura is just a pink flower. A little thought, peppered with some frank, vicious logic similar to the opinion of a scientist obsessed with objectivity, it really is nothing fantastic. That's was the first thought that crossed my mind when I first set my eyes on the flowers at the airport. I couldn't understand why so many people, not just the Japanese themselves, were so crazy over this flower. At once, my Sociological background begins to suggest tourism ploys, need for symbol of national solidarity, cultural capital and elitism...

Then I dropped the thoughts. That was silly. People actually write poetry about the sakura, from intense emotions to light-hearted glosses. People will think about the flower before they die, before they went to war, before they knocked out from an overdose of sake. They had to be something about the flower, and I had to find out for myself.


It was only when I was sitting in an outdoor onsen gazing at some sakura that it suddenly hit me. I had to go back in time to understand the circumstances leading to the sakura being selected by choice as an emblem of beauty.


The sakura is first and foremost, pink. And the color pink is a huge contrast from the brown, yellow and green that formed most of the environment that people in the past lived in, be it farmers or samurai, merchants or artisans. Secondly, it was the symbol of spring, and probably the most obvious indicator of the end of a cold long season.

As the steam from the onsen danced into the sky, I also realized that most baths were taken outdoors in the past where the sakura can be seen, and people usually bathed with their friends or families, not with strangers. The nakedness brought about a level of intimacy not found in most Westernized countries, or even in neighboring China.

Then it hit on me.


Beauty has no meaning without memories. Memories that stir up emotions more diverse and complicated than the spectrum of colors found in the rainbow.



When people of the past commented on the sakura, they were unconsciously connecting to their memories. Poetry on the sakura when the war is lost and the suicidal harikiri was inevitable, the sakura is the most vivid memory of friends and family for whom the war was fought for. Literature on the sakura before one's deathbed is the best way to connect to future readers should one have the goal of leaving a legacy of memories to be invoked upon reading.


That's why children are unbiased towards beauty. Because they have no memories to link to. They are not impressed with shiny trinkets or beautiful scenes, much less flowers or music. Granted, one can get their attention for a short while; likewise the pink of the sakura stands out in the greenery of the mountains.



I understood. Leaning back with the warm water lapping against my skin, now made shiny from the minerals in the pool, the beauty of the sakura leaped forth from the petals that one by one danced in the cool winds of Spring. I envisioned a family: father, mother and children enjoying the onsen, naked, under the shelter of a sakura tree. I envisioned friends of a sick man who is lying in bed immobilized by the winter cold, and now celebrating the coming of warm sunlight and the hope of life symbolized by the opening of the sakura.


Beauty is only beauty because of the memories we give it.




Maybe that's why we all see beauty in different ways, and yet they can remain that way as long as our minds can conjure the memories that we attach to this indescribable beauty, beauty that continues to challenge our very human limitations to share our souls.










P.S. Dad, Mum. Thanks for organizing this trip. I know it cost a bomb, but I also know that it means a lot to the both of you, and thus you spared no expense for this opportunity to spend time together as a family. I really enjoyed myself, and you both are the main reason why I enjoyed it so much. In my heart, the memories of you have been irrevocably attached to the amazing beauty that God has bestowed to the sakura.




The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverish. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. -Frank Lloyd Wright