For 360 days of the year, Larry Berg Flight Path Park in Richmond, B.C., is among the Lower Mainland’s most barren public grounds. Built directly in line with the Vancouver airport’s south runway, it is favoured by aerophiles, plane-spotters and those who find solace in the ear-splitting roar of jet engines.
But for one week every spring, when the park’s dozens of cherry trees are in full bloom, the tiny park is overrun with sakurabitos – cherry blossom enthusiasts – who snarl traffic all the way into Vancouver.
Last Sunday, families picnicked among the park’s sakura grove. Several women came in silky, flowing hanfu gowns, whose design dates to Beijing’s imperial era. A group of punks wore their hair freshly dyed – pink, purple and orange. A surprising number of cats had come to enjoy the springtime rite.
Cherry blossoms call on us to be present, says Amar Kaur, who brought her new husband to see them. “We take relationships for granted. We take our lives for granted.” But the blossoms remind us to “be still,” to behold. Their impermanence, she adds, reminds us of our own.
Everywhere that day, phones and cameras were out. Among them, an elderly woman stood apart. She was fingering the paper-thin blossoms, smiling so deeply her eyes were closed.
Then she began singing in a rich, ethereal soprano a Mandarin folk song dating to the Qing dynasty.
“The cherry blossom is so quiet and soft it relaxes your spirit,” said Anna Dai, who, one week earlier, had turned 91.
The professionally trained singer moved to Richmond 21 years ago, following her husband’s death. Every year since, Ms. Dai’s daughter, Julie Wei, has taken her to meet the blossoms – her most cherished day of the calendar.
In the Lower Mainland, the turn of seasons is less dramatic than elsewhere in Canada. The giant wave of pink that sweeps the region more than anything else signals the arrival of spring, and a break from the dreariness of winter.
Greater Vancouver’s love affair with cherry blossoms started in 1925, when the mayors of Kobe and Yokohama gave the city 500 Ojochin cherry trees to honour Japanese Canadians who served in the First World War.
A decade later, Bunjiro and Kimi Uyeda, local philanthropists who ran a silk store on Granville Street, donated another thousand cherry trees to Vancouver. (Three months before the trees were planted, the Uyedas were forcibly detained – among the 21,000 Japanese Canadians forcibly interned for the duration of the Second World War.)
Following the war, Tokyo donated several hundred more trees to the city, in part as a peace offering.
Today, the region has more than 45,000 cherry trees and another 13,000 flowering plum trees. They have become a part of its cultural fabric and allure, symbols of spring, renewal and life’s fleeting nature.
For the joy of seeing a cherry tree in full bloom is also the sorrow of knowing that it will soon be over, Ms. Wei notes.
Indeed, the next morning, three days of relentless, hard rains began falling. By Tuesday, Larry Berg Park, emptied of people once more, looked as though it had been hit by a pink blizzard. Thousands of rose-gold petals were plastered to the hillocks and pathways. Their wild, brief dance with glory was already a memory.
