The cherry trees will soon blossom in Japan.
It will be a particularly poignant sight. Even in normal times, the "sakura" flowers are a cause for rejoicing tinged with sadness, because they fall at the moment of their greatest beauty. They are the embodiment of a notion that is central to Japanese culture — "hakanasa," a hard-to-translate word that conveys the fragility, or evanescence, of life.
For Japan, this sense of transience is also a source of strength.