The Japanese are not in the mood for merry cherry blossom festivals.

I was walking through my neighboring park and saw a small notice attached on a light pole. It said in Japanese "Sorry, this park's cherry blossom festival is cancelled. for this year."

At home, I searched through the Internet using Google Search with two Japanese key words meaning "cherry blossom festival" and "cancellation" and hit 849,000 search results. Even American base Misawa's cherry blossom festival was cancelled.

Since at least the Heian period that starts in 794, the Japanese have found the greatest seasonal pleasure of the whole year in cherry blossom viewing, picnic, and parties.

While cherry trees are at their best that last for a few days, many Japanese who are generally reserved in their behavior forget about that and get together with friends, family members, and colleagues under the cherry trees and chat, eat, drink, sing, and even dance during the daytime and even at night.

This phenomenon, cancelling any cheerful annual event throughout the country, simply means that the Japanese are still in the mourning for the loss caused by the triple disaster.

Personally I think it is about time we started to get back to normal life, but I also understand the deep wound left in the minds of  many people.

Then how long will the mourning of the Japanese as a nation last? Traditionally when someone dies, his or her family enters in the mourning for 49 days. According to the Japanese Buddhism, a dead person travels 49 days before arriving in front of the Judge Emma of the death world who will decide in which of the 6 worlds of reincarnation he or she should be reborn, or whether he or she should be merited to enter the eternal paradise of Buddha separated from the eternal cycle of metempsychosis. So the bereaved must pray earnestly so that the deceased be allowed to enter the eternal Paradise, or at least, not to be condemned by the Judge Emma to the worst of the six worlds, the Hell.

The important 49th day, including the day of the decease according to the tradition, from 11th March falls on 28th April.

Will Japan finish the period of mourning on this day? I don't know. If the parents die, traditionally, their children are supposed to be in the mourning for 12 to 13 months.