Naoko Abe > Quotes

“A moon of unsurpassable brilliance flooded the silent landscape with a cruel glare of greenish light, which traced sharp inky shadows of the trees on the rounded white folds. The snow crystals caught and reflected the moonlight upon a myriad facets until I appeared to be walking in a world of sparkling diamonds. The frightful stillness of the woodland at midnight was almost startling – everything seemed to be frost-bound and nerveless. Even the icy air seemed frozen into immobility. The crisp crunch of my footfall appeared to be an unpardonable intrusion, while the scars they made upon the smooth field of scintillating white seemed a positive sacrilege.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“The first-known cultivated cherry in Japan was a weeping cherry, a form of Edo-higan. Aristocrats were enchanted by the way in which the thin, supple branches bent over towards the ground, giving the illusion of tears when the tree blossomed, and so they propagated this mutation by collecting seeds and planting them in their gardens.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“In AD 812 the imperial family hosted a cherry-blossom viewing party for the first time, establishing a link with the cherry culture that continues to this day. The Japanese aristocracy, which sought to forge a national identity away from Chinese influence, celebrated cherries as their own special flower. At their annual hanami gatherings they wrote poems about the flower and about life, and then read them aloud.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“the Meiji leaders faced a dilemma. How could they unite, emotionally and spiritually, thirty-four million people who had no sense of belonging to a ‘nation’? During the Edo period, from 1603 to 1868, everyone belonged to his own domain and was beholden to one of the 270 or so daimyō. No one called himself or herself ‘Japanese’. But now, in case of an emergency, the government would need to convince millions of ordinary people to take up arms.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“To Ingram, the way that Japan had lurched into a culture of extreme uniformity was alien, restrictive and potentially dangerous. The disappearance of diversity, highlighted by the extinction of the Taihaku cherry, was indicative of Japan’s militaristic mood in the 1920s and 1930s. The ubiquity of the lookalike Somei-yoshino cherry spoke volumes about the dark path of conformity which the Japanese followed, until their 1945 defeat.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Collingwood Ingram was a cherry-tree colossus. A passionate advocate for the blossoms and a leading authority on them, he saved some varieties from extinction. He built the world’s biggest collection of cherry-tree varieties outside Japan in his Kent garden. His broader legacy was to spread a diverse cherry-tree culture almost single-handedly across the British Isles and the world at large.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“By the late 1880s more than 30 per cent of all cherry trees in Tokyo were Somei-yoshino.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“in the 1960s, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party that has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955 sought to make the cherry tree a recognisable global icon of the nation’s rebirth,”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“I had seen a thousand ‘Visit Japan’ advertisements, often highlighting the same two icons: a snow-capped Mount Fuji and the cherry blossom.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“ancient Japan, cherry blossoms had been emblematic of new life and new beginnings.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“cherries were portrayed as symbols of youth, love, romance and contentment,”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“By shutting itself off from most of the world and banning Catholicism, Japan avoided being colonised and enjoyed peace for more than 200 years.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“The Somei-yoshino variety has only existed for 150 years at most, Sano stressed to me. Given the 2,000-year-plus history of Japan’s cherry trees, the monotone scenery of the twenty-first century is an historical exception rather than the norm.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“the four centuries before 1853, when Japan had a transformative encounter with the West, its history divided in two. The first period, ranging from 1467 to 1600, was the so-called Age of Civil Wars, also known as the Sengoku era. The second period, until 1853, was a peaceful time of seclusion called Sakoku, which means ‘country in chains’, when Japan had little contact with the rest of the world. This was the golden age of cherry blossoms.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“in Britain, tens of thousands of cherries were planted between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, bringing colour, variety and a touch of Asian exoticism to the urban environment. The trees’ popularity became evident in the names of streets, parks, pubs and restaurants.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“the feudal domains were re-designated as prefectures, which were similar to English counties and US states, and the daimyō lords who ruled these fiefdoms were replaced by governors sent from Tokyo.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“From a virtual standing start in the 1920s, Japanese flowering cherry trees became a part of British people’s daily lives within half a century.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Millions more were planted nationwide after Japan’s military victory against Russia in 1905, and to celebrate Emperor Taishō’s accession to the throne in 1912 and Emperor Shōwa’s (Hirohito) in 1926. Other cherries were neglected or simply disappeared. Few people cared, and fewer still did anything about it.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“during this peaceful Sakoku period that unique arts and culture evolved, mostly in Edo and other large cities. These included ukiyo-e woodblock prints, pottery, haiku poetry, kabuki plays and the creation of about 250 varieties of cherry blossom in the Edo gardens of the daimyō lords.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“In Japan, the season is much more defined. The flowers of each Somei-yoshino tree survive for about eight days, no more, and the reason they all blossom together and then lose those blossoms together is that they are clones.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“in the 1930s, as successive governments used the popularity of sakura, and its imperial links, as propaganda tools among an unquestioning people. Rather than focusing on cherry blossom as a symbol of life, the songs, plays and school textbooks now focused more on death. Classic poems were deliberately misinterpreted, and it became the norm to believe that the Yamato damashii, or ‘true Japanese spirit’, involved a willingness to die for the emperor–Japan’s living god–much as the cherry petals died after a short but glorious life.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“from the late nineteenth century onwards, the newly cultivated Somei-yoshino cherries were a convenience.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Catching up with the West became a national obsession and a new era of rapid economic, social and political development took hold.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Britain racked by post-war austerity, the sight of cherry blossoms in full bloom was an uplifting experience. Few people associated these Japanese flowering cherries with Japan’s conduct during the war,”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Since 2011 cherry trees, a symbol of life and rebirth, have been planted in great numbers near Fukushima, in memory of those who died and to help resurrect neighbourhoods washed away during the tsunami.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Japanese sakuramori, or cherry guardian,”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“the decade between 1955 and 1965 a ‘Somei-yoshino bubble’ because so many trees were planted by local governments, both to beautify land that had been bombed by the Americans”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Japanese arts, crafts and culture became a craze after the 1860s. In particular woodblock prints and paintings featuring cherry blossoms, by artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige,”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Other nations have special flowers, of course. But who could imagine virtually the entire population of Britain or Germany or America visiting parks on one particular weekend to view a flower, no matter how lovely?”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms

“Check the map of any British town or village and there’s almost always a ‘Cherry’ or ‘Cherry Tree’ avenue, close, park, road, street or way, mostly named during or after the 1950s, each containing a few hastily planted trees to justify its name.”
― Naoko Abe, The Sakura Obsession: The Incredible Story of the Plant Hunter Who Saved Japan's Cherry Blossoms