Japan is currently experiencing Sakura bloom season, during the months of March, April, and May. With over 1 million Sakura trees (the highest concentration of cherry trees in the world), it’s no surprise they make for a truly breath-taking spectacle, attracting countless of tourists to the country. The beautiful pink petals are expected to have an economic impact 1.8 times larger than last year of over ¥1.13 trillion (over $7.5 billion dollars) this season.
TVB journalist and news anchor Akina Fong was recently on holiday in Japan, when she witnessed the actions of a group of tourists reaching out for the branches of the cherry blossom tree and violently shaking them so the petals would fall around them for the perfect shot, causing outrage on social media.
Japanese consider Sakura sacred, representing the transience and elegance of human life. People wasted no time in condemning the tourists for their actions, and labelled the tourists “scarily self-centred”.
This is just one more incident of rude behavior that tourists have been doing in Japan since last year due to overtourism, like the tourist ban in the geisha district of Gion, Kyoto due to harassment to the maiko and geisha, being extremely loud and obnoxious on public transportation, standing in front of incoming traffic or crowds to take pictures.
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