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Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the eye-heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
and this is short stuff, and we're gonna take a little tour, a little trip around the world, and do a little Washington, D.C., and do a little japanian, and that's mostly it. - I think everyone knows what we're talking about then,
'cause we're talking about cherry blossoms in the Japanese cherry tree, which does not produce actual,
“like edible cherries that we know and love,”
does provide a little fruit berry for animals and such, but it's not that kind of cherry tree. It's just stop asking, it's better. - 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's such a sight to behold that Japan essentially created an entire, 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, D.C.,
there's a good chance that you've seen the cherry blossoms on the title basin blooming. And this is about the time they're going to start, to think in 2026, it's predicted the whole seasons from March 20th to April 12th.
- Yeah. - But if you really want to make sure that you're there for the peak, they usually say like the last day, the last couple days may be in March is usually when they peak.
- Yeah, for sure. Brooklyn, Batankel Garden, by the way, shout out to them. I know D.C. gets all the press here in the United States, Pro Cherry blossoms, but they do pretty good on their own.
That's where I've seen them. But in Japan, as 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. And 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 spring and new beginnings. They start the new school year then.
It's just started their fiscal year. But it's also a little bittersweet
“because it also symbolizes like the ending of things, right?”
Yeah, and the reason why is because cherry blossoms just stop all of a sudden at their peak. They don't like grow in peak and then fade. They grow in 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. And they have a word for that. This kind of nostalgic bittersweet feeling that's kind of associated with cherry blossoms
is Natsukashi, which means exactly what I just said. 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 to forks interviewed.
The last name is Malat. 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. Right. That was a John Malat.
He organizes the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival in DC every April. 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.
Oh, yeah, that's always a bad sign, isn't it?
Yeah, you're always gone. And that never just becomes this thing that just happened in the movie moves on. That would be a fine red herring to put in a movie. Oh, sure.
I think that would be a mgaffin. Oh, God. But the emails. This is the new, uh, Hiku. Oh, I forgot about Hiku.
I wonder somebody could write a Hiku about what a mgaffin is or a clown. It's coming. You asked for it. So you said that there's other words for cherry blossoms
in Japanese. One of them is Oka, OHKA. And tying into the idea of something dying,
“and it's prime, that's what Japanese kamikaze pilots were called”
in World War II, Oka. And that's what they're planes. They're essentially human-driven missile planes were called Oka as well. And they had like cherry blossoms painted on the side of the plane. 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. (upbeat music)
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on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) ♪ Oh, they said we wouldn't feel just in time ♪ ♪ Stuff you shouldn't know ♪
- All right, so we promised talk of Washington DC, the most famous pervayer 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. Taff to Plants of Tree. And that is when Helen Nelly Taffed a wife of William Howard Taffed, 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?”
- Well, apparently the Washington Post journalist left in the middle of it. - Okay, so Plants A tree. So it's not even a correct, in effect, of 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.
It 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,
but it's thanks to the intervention of two other people who just also happened to be met. - Yeah, for sure. I do love this quote that 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 an 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." - Yeah. - Dairy sweet. - 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 think 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. - They do not still have that? - Man, I can't imagine anything better.
“- They had it until like last year, I think.”
- Yeah. - Man, it was about to hold me. - So David Fairchild was like, hey, these actually can work in Washington, D.C., I think he transplanted a few,
and showed that they could live, a skid more found out about this, and she was like, okay, I'm gonna try one last time.
I'm gonna get in touch with this new first lady, Nellie Tafft,
and I'm going to say, please, for love, God, hear me out about these cherry trees. Everybody thinks it's a good idea. Please, let's start planning cherry trees in D.C., she got a reply two days later,
after she sent the letter. And Nellie Tafft said, "I have taken up the matter and I'm promised the trees." And all of a sudden things just started looking up for Eliza Skipmore's idea.
- Yeah, I mean, after 25 years, I can't imagine how she felt. She got in touch with a guy named Dr. Takamini, 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. Tafft said, like, she's gonna try to make this thing happen. He was like, well, I'm a wealthy Japanese chemist,
so I can pull some strings. But why don't we make this like an official state gift from Japan to the United States? - The great idea. So Japan said, here are 2,000 cherry blossom trees.
And also, here's a bunch of insects and disease. - Yeah, fortunately. - They're lousy with Japanese beetles, and God knows what disease that cherry trees get. So they had to burn them.
“In Japan was like, did you have to take a photograph”
and send it to us of all the cherry trees burning? - Yeah. - So they send them 3,000 more. And those are the ones that included the two that Mrs. Tafft planted the next day after those the second shipment of 3,000
and 20 healthy trees arrived. - That's right, I guess they hedge their bets since the extra 1,000 plus 20, which is kind of funny. They line the title basin, their in DC, Potomac Park, kind of right there around,
was it Jefferson Memorial, I think? - Oh, yes. - Yeah. - It's gorgeous if you've ever been there. I know you may live in DC, right? - Yes, it's been there for many times.
- So she was probably all over that, I bet. - Oh, all over. She would roll in them. - Yeah. (laughs) - Park range would be like, please, yeah, not allowed to do this to you again.
- I can't help myself, Sakuna. - So yeah, that's DC, you know, peak bloom. You can like Josh said earlier.
You never know exactly when it's gonna happen.
So it's kind of one of those things.
“It can be heartbreaking if you have to book your ticket ahead of time”
and you have no flexibility in your schedule there. Been plenty of people that missed the cherry bloom in DC when they have gone just for that. So yeah, I know. - It's super sad when that happened.
So maybe don't aim, this might advice. Maybe don't aim for peak bloom. Just try and be there at some point during that time frame. - And it is something to see. You're just surrounded by blooming cherry trees.
It's gorgeous, but you can also, I mean, if you can't make it a DC or you made it and you missed your mark, you can plan the cherry tree. They're really beautiful. I would recommend the autumn nalis
because they're not only blooms in the spring, it blooms in the autumn too. - Do you have them? - No, I plan in plenty of them, but I do not, we have a weeping cherry.
They only blooms once a year. - Is that what it's had? (laughs) - So no, we're shows like an autumn nalis. - Oh man.
I have not, oh man, have I seen the DC? - 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's so many more trees
than even the ones in Brooklyn.
- 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, that was great. - So there were some sporadic blooming,
“but the thing I do remember is that the Starbucks”
there had a Sakura coffee latte.
- They just made up a taste, 'cause obviously cherry blossoms don't have a taste, but it's one of the best tasting lattes I've ever had. - Oh, wow.
- And of course it was, right?
- Can you recall a note? An E-flat. (laughs) - An E-flat. - You got anything else?
- No, 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 tourism and the wow factor, so 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. - Sure.
- I think that's it for short stuff, right? - Yeah, that means we're out. (upbeat music)
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