Short Stuff: Cherry Blossoms

The Japanese Cherry Blossom is a sight to behold. But how did they get to Washington D. C.? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and this is short stuff and we're going to take a little tour, a little trip around the world and do a little Washington DC and do a little Japan.

• 1:24Josh Clark?

  And that's mostly it.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  I think everyone knows what we're talking about then because we're talking about cherry blossoms and the Japanese cherry tree, which is, does not produce actual like edible cherries that we know and love. It does provide a little fruit berry for animals and such, but it's not that kind of cherry tree. So just stop asking. It's better.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  It is better. I mean, I like my cherries for sure, but if you've ever seen a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, it is, it's such a sight to behold that Japan essentially created an entire.

• 2:00Josh Clark?

  Cultural season around it with its own emotions and songs and all sorts of stuff. It is really moving. If you're American or North American, or you just like traveling to the United States and happen to be here in the spring and go to Washington DC, there's a good chance that you've seen the cherry blossoms on the tidal basin blooming. And this is about the time they're going to start. I think in 2026, it's predicted the whole season's from March 20th to April 12th.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32Josh Clark?

  But if you really want to make sure that you're there for the peak, they usually say like the last day, last couple of days, maybe in March is usually when they peak.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Brooklyn Botanical Garden, by the way, shout out to them. I know DC gets all the press here in the United States for cherry blossoms, but they do pretty good on their own. That's where I've seen them. But in Japan is where the real show is. They've been cultivated there and really beloved since 8th century CE. And they first started appearing in poetry and in books and in pictures and things like that. They have a word for the cherry blossom, which is sakura. They have quite a few words for this, as it turns out, because it's Japan. And then their flower gazing when the time rolls around where they're in bloom is called hanami. And it's sort of a mixed bag in Japan because it's definitely, you know,

• 3:25Speaker 02

  spring and new beginnings. They, they start the new school year then. It's the start of their fiscal year. But it's also a little bittersweet because it also symbolizes like the ending of things, right?

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And the reason why is because cherry blossoms just stop all of a sudden at their peak. They don't like grow and peak and then fade. They grow and peak and that's that. They just fall off and die. So there's this idea, this concept of something dying in its prime, which is in and of itself quite bittersweet. They have a word for that. This kind of nostalgic, bittersweet feeling that's kind of associated with cherry blossoms is natzukashi, which means exactly what I just said.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And I was sort of laughing on the inside there because they, I got this from a lot of different sources, but this may have been someone House of Forks interviewed. The last name is Malot. And this guy was like, if you're watching a Japanese movie or TV show. And it's some like awesome young person that is the central character and they're walking around and you see the cherry trees blooming like that means that they're going to die in this movie for sure.

• 4:39Josh Clark?

  Right. That was John Mulat. He organizes the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival in DC every April.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that's the, I guess, the Japanese version of what we have in the United States, which is somebody coughs into a napkin and there's blood in it.

• 4:55Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, that's always a bad sign, isn't it?

• 4:58Speaker 02

  You're always gone.

• 4:59Josh Clark?

  Um, that never just becomes this thing that just happened and the movie moves on.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  That would be a fun red herring to put in a movie.

• 5:08Josh Clark?

  Sure. I think that would be a MacGuffin.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Oh God, the emails. This is the new haiku.

• 5:14Josh Clark?

  Oh, I forgot about haiku. I wonder if somebody could write a haiku about what a MacGuffin is or is not.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  It's coming. You asked for it.

• 5:22Josh Clark?

  Um, so you said that there's other words for cherry blossoms in Japanese and one of them is OHA, O-H-K-A. And tying in to that idea of something dying young in its prime, that's what Japanese kamikaze pilots were called in World War II. OHA. And that's what their planes, they're essentially human-driven missile planes were called OHA as well. And they had like cherry blossoms painted on the side of the plane.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  That's right. Symbolism all over the place. So let's take a break. We've covered some of Japan and now we're going to talk about DC right after this.

• 6:25Speaker 03

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 6:28Josh Clark?

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• 7:30Josh Clark?

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• 8:41Speaker 02

  All right, so we promised talk of Washington DC, the most famous purveyor, provider, rather, of cherry blossoms here in the United States. And it all started on March 28, 1912, when The Washington Post ran a little story with the headline, "Mrs. Taft Plants a Tree." And that is when Helen Nellie Taft, wife of William Howard Taft, the president, planted a couple of cherry blossom trees that were gifts from Tokyo. But the story is a little more interesting than that, right?

• 9:11Josh Clark?

  Well, apparently, The Washington Post journalist left in the middle of it.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:16Josh Clark?

  Because it just said, "Plants a tree." So it's not even a correct, ineffective headline. But yes, that is just the broad stroke. That's the end result of decades of organizing and campaigning by a woman named Eliza Skidmore. She was the first board member of, sorry, the first woman board member of the National Geographic Society. She was very well traveled. She loved to go to Japan. And so, having traveled to Japan, she had been exposed to the cherry blossoms and was like, "These are the greatest things ever. We should get some of these back in Washington DC." And I'm sure that she thought this would be no problem whatsoever. Well, fast forward almost 30 years, and she finally gets this thing done.

• 10:00Josh Clark?

  But it's thanks to the intervention of two other people who just also happened to be men.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I do love this quote, though. I want to read it because it just shows how enchanted she was. Potomac Park there on the river, they were reclaiming it at the time. And this was in 1885. And she wrote that, basically, like, they had to plant something there in this space. And she said, "They might as well plant the most beautiful thing in the world, the Japanese cherry tree."

• 10:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  It's very sweet. But yeah, you mentioned a couple of dudes. One guy was named David Fairchild. And it's kind of cool when you look back at how all these convergent things kind of take place to make something happen. I love stories like this. But this was a guy who was the, he worked at the USDA, which is a new thing at the time for our Department of Agriculture, is a job that I want. I don't know if they still have it. But he was a plant explorer. So he would travel all over the world looking for plants that they could cultivate in the United States.

• 10:55Josh Clark?

  They do not still have that.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Man, I can't imagine anything better.

• 10:59Josh Clark?

  They had it until like last year, I think.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Man, I wish somebody would have told me.

• 11:04Josh Clark?

  So David Fairchild was like, hey, these actually can work in Washington DC. I think he transplanted a few and showed that they could live. Skidmore found out about this and she was like, okay, I'm going to try one last time. I'm going to get in touch with this new first lady, Nellie Taft, and I'm going to say, please, for love of God, hear me out about these cherry trees. Everybody thinks it's a good idea. Please let's start planting cherry trees in DC. She got a reply two days later after she sent the letter. And Nellie Taft said, I have taken up the matter and have promised the trees. And all of a sudden, things just started looking up for Eliza Skidmore's idea.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, after 25 years, can't imagine how she felt. She got in touch with a guy named Dr. Takamine, who was a wealthy Japanese chemist. And he had been beating the cherry tree drum for New York City for a while. And she knew this, they were fellow enthusiasts. So she said, hey, Mrs. Taft said like, she's going to try to make this thing happen. He was like, well, I'm a wealthy Japanese chemist, so I can pull some strings. Why don't we make this like an official, like state gift from Japan to the United States?

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  The great idea. So Japan said, here are 2,000 cherry blossom trees. And also here's a bunch of insects and disease in them.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, unfortunately.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  They're lousy with Japanese beetles and God knows what disease that cherry trees get.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:32Josh Clark?

  So they had to burn them. And Japan was like, did you have to like, take a photograph and send it to us of all the cherry trees burning?

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:38Josh Clark?

  So they sent them 3,000 more. And those are the ones that included the two that Mrs. Taft planted. The next day after those, that second shipment of 3,020 healthy trees arrived.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  That's right. I guess they hedged their bets and sent the extra thousand, plus 20, which is kind of funny. They line the tidal basin there in DC, Potomac Park, kind of right there around, was it the Jefferson Memorial? I think.

• 13:06Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's gorgeous if you've ever been there. I know Yumi lived in DC, right?

• 13:11Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm. Yes, he's been there plenty of times.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  So she was, she's probably all over that, I bet.

• 13:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, all over. She would roll in them.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:19Josh Clark?

  Park Rangers would be like, please, you're not allowed to do that.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  It's you again.

• 13:22Josh Clark?

  She said, I can't help myself, sakura.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  So yeah, that's DC. You know, peak bloom, you can, like Josh said earlier, you never know exactly when it's going to happen. So it's kind of one of those things that can be heartbreaking. If you, you know, have to book your ticket ahead of time and you have no flexibility in your schedule. There have been plenty of people that missed the cherry bloom in DC when they have gone just for that. So.

• 13:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I know.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  It's, it's super sad when that happens. So maybe don't aim, this is my advice. Maybe don't aim for peak bloom. Just try and be there at some point during that, that timeframe.

• 13:58Josh Clark?

  And it is something to see. You're just surrounded by blooming cherry trees.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  It's gorgeous.

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  But you can also, I mean, if you can't make it to DC or you made it and you missed your mark, you can plant a cherry tree. They're really beautiful. I would recommend the autumn alice because it not only blooms in the spring, it blooms in the autumn too.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Do you have one?

• 14:18Josh Clark?

  No, I've planted plenty of them, but I do not, we have a weeping cherry. It only blooms once a year.

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Is that why it's sad?

• 14:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah. It's that I wish I was like an autumn alice.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Oh, man. I have not, oh, man, have I seen the DC?

• 14:35Speaker 02

  I don't know if I've actually seen the DC bloom. I feel like I did one time visiting my sister years ago. But I also think I would have known it because there are so many more trees than even the ones in Brooklyn.

• 14:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah. I've not seen the DC ones unless I just don't remember them. But we were in Japan around this time, but a little before it.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  I bet that was great.

• 14:55Josh Clark?

  So there were some sporadic blooming.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:57Josh Clark?

  But the thing I do remember is that the Starbucks there had a sakura, like coffee, latte.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 15:05Josh Clark?

  And they just made up a taste because obviously cherry blossoms don't have a taste. But it's one of the best tasting lattes I've ever had in my life. And of course it was, right?

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Can you recall a note?

• 15:17Josh Clark?

  An E flat.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  You wiseacre.

• 15:22Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 15:23Speaker 02

  No, just, you know, it's not just DC and Japan. These things grow in temperate climates all over the world. And they're certainly planted a lot for, you know, tourism and the wow factor. So you can, you can see them all over the place. So just if DC and Japan are off the map for you, you can probably find some nearby.

• 15:39Josh Clark?

  Sure. I think that's it for short stuff, right?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that means we're out.

• 15:47Speaker 06

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