"Hana-bie" or cold spring days

March 30, 2009

"Hana-bie" or cold spring days

We, Japanese, love cherry blossoms, “sakura” in Japanese.
Sakura is perhaps the most favored flower in Japan.
Why do Japanese love cherry blossoms so much?
People cite various reasons in numerous ways.
The most frequently mentioned reason is that cherry blossoms begin to scatter
almost as soon as they get in full bloom. So short a life.
Japanese tend to be attracted by fragile, weak things.
The Meteorological Agency of Japan “declared” on March 21 that monitor cherry trees in Tokyo have started blooming. This was earlier than the usual season.
But there came cold days with chilly rains and winds
after the start of blooming. Japanese call cold weather
around this time of the year “hana-bie.”
Hana means flower and bie or hie means coldness. In all, the term means
cold weather with sakura in bloom. Sakura is an important item
referred to in “waka” classical Japanese poems with fixed numbers of syllables.
Flower usually denotes cherry blossoms when it comes to waka poems.
A waka poem made by Ki Tomonori, a court official in the early Heian era, and included in the Kokinwakashu poem anthology of the tenth century goes:

In soft, ever-emitting sunlight,
On a spring day,
Why are the cherry blossoms falling so restlessly?
(A personal translation)

A cherry tree in my backyard began to bloom a week ago,
but I found this morning that part of them already started scattering.
“The other blossoms are still in the bud. They look hard in the coldness. I’m afraid there may be a few days with no blossoms in the tree,” my wife told me nervously.
The cherry blossoms remind us of the regular seasonal shifts despite the ongoing global climate changes.