40 Fun Facts About Hanami (Cherry Blossom Viewing)

Before cherry trees took over in the Heian period, which tree's blossoms did Japan's earliest hanami parties admire?

Plum blossoms were the fashion of the Nara-period court, and they are still viewed today at quieter parties that tend to draw an older crowd.

A teasing Japanese proverb says most hanami-goers care less about the flowers than about which food?

Dumplings rather than flowers, runs the saying, and hanami has its own kind: a skewer of three in pink, white and green.

What happened to the first 2,000 cherry trees Tokyo sent to Washington, found riddled with insects in 1910?

They were burned on presidential orders to protect American growers, and Tokyo answered with a second, healthy shipment of 3,020 trees in 1912.

Which Japanese prefecture sees the country's first cherry blossoms of the year, opening as early as January?

Okinawa's subtropical islands bloom in midwinter, some two months before the season reaches Tokyo around the end of March.

Which sport's Japanese national team, nicknamed the Brave Blossoms, has worn a cherry blossom badge since 1930?

Rugby gave the flower a sporting life: the first badge showed a bud, a half-open and a full bloom, replaced in 1952 by three open flowers.

A popular saying about hanami, taken from a Motojiro Kajii short story, claims what lies buried under the cherry trees?

Dead bodies are the story's startling opening image, and the line is still quoted when Japan's parks fill with picnickers each spring.

Which US first lady planted the first of Tokyo's gift cherry trees in Washington in March 1912?

Helen Taft planted it alongside the wife of Japan's ambassador, then presented her with a bouquet of American Beauty roses.

A Japanese proverb holds that as the cherry blossom is first among flowers, who is first among men?

The warrior was likened to the flower because his life, however glorious, could end suddenly; kabuki theatre popularised the saying.

Sakuramochi, the pink hanami sweet wrapped in a salt-pickled cherry leaf, is filled with a paste of what?

Red bean paste fills a sweet said to have been invented in 1717 by a temple gatekeeper in Edo, using leaves he swept from the temple grounds.

In which month do Japan's school and fiscal years begin, so that first days often fall amid the cherry blossoms?

April opens both, which is why welcome parties for new classmates and colleagues are so often held as hanami under the trees.

Which drink, once shared after offerings to the spirits believed to live in cherry trees, still fuels hanami parties?

Sake was poured at the Heian court's blossom feasts, and it remains the standard drink at parties that can run late into the night.

Hanami grew out of which country's custom of enjoying poetry and wine beneath flowering trees?

China's elite gathered to drink and write verse beneath the blossoms, and Japan's Nara-period aristocrats copied the fashion in their cities.

Before hanami became a party, cherry blossoms were watched as the signal to plant which crop?

Rice planting was announced by the blossoms, which were also read as an omen for the size of the coming harvest.

Tsukimi, an autumn cousin of hanami marked with pampas grass decorations, is a party held to admire what?

The moon is honoured with seasonal offerings such as taro and chestnuts, a custom traced to Heian aristocrats who recited poetry beneath it.

Washington's cherry trees from Tokyo ring which body of water, where the first two were planted in 1912?

Tidal Basin planting began on the north bank, where a Japanese stone lantern carved in 1651 is lit each spring during the city's festival.

Which Canadian city of more than 40,000 cherry trees has held a festival since 2005 honouring a gift from Japan?

Vancouver's festival commemorates 800 trees given by Japan, and Queen Elizabeth Park is among the favourite places to see the bloom.

Which big Japanese city is among the last on the cherry blossom front's route, blooming more than a month after Tokyo?

Sapporo's trees were forecast to open on May 1 in 2018, against March 26 in Tokyo, as the blossom front crept north to Hokkaido.

Which Tokyo hanami hotspot, home to several major museums, hangs paper lanterns among some 800 cherry trees?

Ueno Park's count climbs to about 1,200 trees once those of the neighbouring shrine and temple grounds are included.

Which nearly white cherry cultivar, named after a village now inside Tokyo, is Japan's most popular tree for hanami?

Somei-yoshino trees are all clones grafted from a single original, which is why a whole park bursts into bloom at once.

Hanami held after dark, with paper lanterns hung among the cherry trees, goes by which Japanese name?

Yozakura literally means night cherry blossom, and in big cities the parties beneath the lanterns can last until late.

Which Japanese coin has carried a design of cherry blossoms on its face since 1967?

100 yen coins gained their blossoms when silver was dropped from the alloy, a change that set off hoarding and smuggling of the older coins.

Which flowering trees did the United States send to Japan by 1915 as a return gift for Washington's cherry trees?

Dogwoods answered a gift that kept growing: Japan gave another 3,800 cherry trees in 1965, accepted by Lady Bird Johnson.

Which Georgia city bills itself as the Cherry Blossom Capital of the World, with some 300,000 trees?

Macon's trees trace back to a local realtor, William Fickling, who found one in his own yard and began giving saplings away around town.

The thousand-year-old Miharu Takizakura in Fukushima is a cherry tree named after which natural feature?

A waterfall is what its pale pink blossoms resemble as they spill in all directions from the branches, drawing some 300,000 visitors a year.

Which canal-side path in Kyoto, running between Ginkaku-ji and Nanzen-ji, is a favourite stroll during hanami?

Philosopher's Walk owes its name to two Kyoto University professors, Nishida Kitaro and Hajime Tanabe, thought to have exercised there daily.

Sakurayu, a tea of salt-pickled cherry blossoms steeped in hot water, is traditionally served at which occasion?

Weddings avoid green tea because a Japanese idiom about clouding the tea means being evasive, while the unfurling blossom stands for a beginning.

Cherry blossoms and leaves owe their scent to coumarin, a compound usually described as smelling like what?

Vanilla is the comparison, and salt-curing the leaves and petals for food cuts their coumarin to acceptable levels while keeping the scent.

The folk song Sakura Sakura is often the first piece taught to beginners on which Japanese stringed instrument?

Koto beginners can play every phrase on neighbouring strings, and the tune, far from ancient, was a popular city melody of the Edo period.

Japan's official observers declare a city's cherry blossoms open once a designated sample tree shows how many flowers?

About 5 open flowers, officially five or six, are enough for the announcement, while full bloom is called only once 80% of the blossoms are out.

Which Japanese aesthetic concept did 18th-century scholar Motoori Norinaga link to the brief life of cherry blossoms?

Mono no aware, often translated as the pathos of things, casts the falling petals as a lesson in accepting fate gracefully.

Which European capital holds a yearly hanami celebration among the cherry trees of its Kungsträdgården park?

Stockholm planted 63 Japanese cherry trees in the park in August 1998, and people now gather beneath them each spring.

Tokyo's cherry blossom season is declared open when a benchmark tree blooms in the grounds of which religious site?

Yasukuni Shrine hosts the capital's sample tree, one of more than 50 benchmark trees that weather officials track across the country.

Which ruler of Japan threw a famously grand hanami at the Daigo-ji temple in Kyoto in 1598?

Toyotomi Hideyoshi held the party, remembered as the Daigo no hanami, at the temple's Sambo-in, whose lanes are still lined with cherry trees.

Which shogun ordered cherry trees planted along Edo's Sumida River, helping open hanami to ordinary townspeople?

Tokugawa Yoshimune's riverside trees drew such crowds that a temple gatekeeper nearby made his name selling them leaf-wrapped sweets.

Which castle town in northern Japan fills a park of 2,600 cherry trees with visitors during the Golden Week holidays?

Hirosaki draws more than a million people to its festival, and its castle grounds rank with Takato's among Japan's three great blossom sites.

Which Kyoto hanami spot, entered through Yasaka Shrine, has as its star a weeping cherry lit up at night?

Maruyama Park is the city's main centre for blossom viewing and becomes extremely crowded, sitting right beside the Gion district.

South Korea's Jinhae Gunhangje cherry blossom festival grew out of memorial rites at a statue of which admiral?

Yi Sun-sin's statue, the first of him in the country, went up in 1952, and during the festival the usually closed naval academy opens to visitors.

Which travel writer, the first woman on National Geographic's board, lobbied 24 years for cherry trees in Washington?

Eliza Scidmore first proposed the idea in 1885 after a trip to Japan and was rebuffed by a string of park superintendents before succeeding.

Which New Jersey city's Branch Brook Park draws spring crowds to more than 5,000 cherry trees of 18 varieties?

Newark's display grew from a 1927 gift by Caroline Bamberger Fuld, sister of the department store magnate Louis Bamberger.

Which Tokyo garden's mix of early and late cherry varieties keeps hanami going for about a month?

Shinjuku Gyoen opens the season with weeping cherries and ends it with late-flowering Kanzan, dropping its usual Monday closure throughout.