Sakura Sakura

Good morning, dear patrons! Or should I say, good evening? I'm writing to you not from the United States, but from Taipei, having just spent about two weeks in Mainland China.

I went equipped with a VPN (this Patreon post is bought to you by Mullvad, apparently), but though it was able to get me past the Great Firewall, I was unable to use Patreon the whole time.

So, better late than never, here we are: it's time for some travel blog posts on Asian culture, which I hope will be some fun content for you, as I'm not producing a March video due to traveling.
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I'm currently in the People's Republic of China, and it is cherry blossom season here in the Tier 2 city of Wuxi, not far from Shanghai.

Now, it's very likely that many of you haven't heard of Wuxi before: it certainly isn't a major city like Beijing, Nanjing, or Shanghai. And yet, Wuxi is home to nearly 7.5 million people! That's 1.5 million people more than the entire country of Denmark, living in a single city most people don't even know exists.

Wuxi is known for many things in China: it's famous for its sweetly flavored xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), its seafood, or should I say, lakefood, taken from Lake Tai, for its gigantic Buddha statue and it's beautiful mountains... but also, for it's cherry blossoms. It's sakura season here in China. (see, ex. 1).

Many are surprised to hear, I think, that there are indeed so many cherry blossoms in China, as they imagine it as really more of a Japanese thing.

And, to be fair, it is.

The cherry blossom, the sakura, is very prevalent in Japan, and it has a long history of cultivation there: the varietals of cherry blossom I've been seeing all over Wuxi are almost all Japanese species introduced to the region.

But not all cherry blossoms come from Japan. In fact, cherry blossoms aren't originally from Japan at all. Take a look at Exhibit 2: this flower here is called zhong ying: the bell blossom, if you will. And the zhong ying is said to be the ying hua wang -- the emperor of all cherry blossoms. Why, I hear you ask? Well, it's because the bell blossom is the progenitor: it was the first sakura. And it comes from the Himalayas, and thus, by Chinese reckoning, the sakura is de facto Chinese.

I know, I know: there's a lot to unpack there. Putting aside the Tibetan elephant in the room for a moment, if you've any experience in East Asia, you know how it is: everyone claims they invented everything. And in different ways, they're all correct. Except the Koreans, of course.

Just to be clear, that was a joke.

It's funny, because Koreans tend to be especially fond of claiming that everything has a Korean origin. It's less funny when you realize that it might be a collective traumatic response to cultural eradication, but I digress.

Unfunny jokes aside, there's a certain poetry here in all of this, isn't there? The East Asian countries are like quarreling siblings sometimes, always elbowing each other for position, and sometimes very seriously hurting each other in the process. But maybe it doesn't matter who invented the cherry blossom, or who is the most important in its cultivation.

There are Japanese cherry blossoms in Wuxi, and everyone loves them. It is a beautiful day outside, and people are cheerful. Imagine a world where we could all enjoy the things around us for what they are, instead of fighting over who they belong to? Maybe it is naive, but I'd like to imagine it's possible. Recent news here in China seems to show a shift in the wind: China, Japan, and South Korea are allegedly organizing a unified response against tariffs being placed on them.

They say, here in Wuxi, that it takes a little rain for the cherry blossoms to reach their peak bloom. Some food for thought, perhaps. Thank you for reading! I will see you again, my dear Patrons, hopefully soon.

• Moony
  
  P.S. I'll add some photos of sakura flavored foods and maybe some video too! That'll be a bonus though. For this first post, I'll make it public, so others can also see what we've been up to in here.