From Cherry Blossom Showers to Waterworld

April is surely the time of greatest change, both social and environmental, here in Japan. There are school and company entrance ceremonies and friends might suddenly disappear as they are tranferred to another branch office. The dull winter landscape gives way to a succession of blossoms, most famously the sakura, or cherry blossoms. The dramatic changes that take place at this time of year were more evident than usual to me, since I was away in New York for 10 days.
On my way to the airport the ground was covered with a delicate pink carpet of sakura petals and gusts of wind brought down the remaining petals in bursts of flower shower. When I returned, it was as if I had come to a different country, looking out of the airplane window, I saw a veritable water-world of flooded rice fields glistening in the sun. Driving back to Tsukuba the azalea (tsutsuji) lined the road and extravagant carp-streamers (koi nobori) flapped about in the yards of house-holds celebrating their male off-spring.
Now as a re-acclimatize to Japan-time, the farmers are busy transplanting the rice seedlings in the flooded fields, that being the original reason for having the many holidays which make up Golden Week.
At night I was glad to hear a familiar sound, the thunderous chorus of frogs which inhabit the paddy fields around my house, it gets so noisy that sometimes I can't have a phone conversation.
The fact that cherry blossoms bloom just before rice transplanting begins is one of the reasons for its great importance in Japanese culture.
One theory for the etymology of the word sakura is- where the God of the fields dwell. It was believed that the god manifested itself in spring to make agriculture possible, and that is why farmers have cherry blossom viewing parties-to honor the Gods!
Of course another reason for the Cherry-Viewing parties is that the Emperor Saga was fond of them, and the Japanese have always strived to emulate the ways of the Heian aristocrats.