Cherry Blossoms

Posted on April 24, 2009
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In China, trade blossoms are considered to represent beauty and femininity as a general principle.  They also considered to be a symbol of love in the language of herbs.

In Japan, there are additional connotations.  In fact the cherry blossom is considered to be the national symbol of Japan.  They also represent clouds, and are a a symbol of the passing and ephemeral nature of life, a concept which is strong in the Buddhist tradition of Japan.

This has led to the Cherry Blossom also being a symbol for mortality.  They’re very brief lived, budding, blossoming and dying within a short period of time.  Many people see this as a symbolic representation of the rapid passage of life.

As you can see, the cherry blossom has many different meanings, and can be used to mean different things in different contexts.  Quite often Japanese arts deliberately draws upon a dualistic reading of these meanings, in other words giving you a situation where either interpretation can be drawn, which is often a device used to convey irony.

Another meaning which we will be more familiar with in the West is that they cherry blossom represents the arrival of spring, which is the time when new life flourishes.  While this could seem contradictory with the earlier definition which relates to death, a great many Eastern philosophies consider that death and birth are very closely related, whether in me form of personal reincarnation or in the case of new life moving in to fill the vacuum left by death.

The Japanese also consider cherry blossoms to be lucky.

When Japan has been at war, the government and military use cherry blossoms to evoke feelings of pride and patriotism in the general population.When Japanese pilots were sent on suicide missions to in the second world war, cherry blossoms were painted on the side of their planes.As a result of this the sacrifice and death of the youth of Japan who were volunteering that these missions was romanticised, and this led to many more people stepping up to take their place.  The government even went so far as to encouraging people to believe that the blossoms in some way conveyed a hope of personal reincarnation to those who flew these missions.

So you see there are more meanings than you would initially think the cherry blossom, which is why so many westerners make mistakes when using it as an image on their artwork, not understanding the message that they are actually conveying.

This is why you should have a look at an article about a cherry blossom tattoos before you choose to have one done yourself.

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