{"id":29989,"date":"2021-03-21T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/mar\/21\/cherry-blossom-festivals-nipped-in-the-bud-as-japan-leaves-lockdown"},"modified":"2021-03-21T16:00:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T07:00:48","slug":"cherry-blossom-festivals-nipped-in-the-bud-as-japan-leaves-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=29989","title":{"rendered":"Cherry blossom festivals nipped in the bud as Japan leaves lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tree-viewing parties are banned as many coronavirus restrictions remain<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/viewer.gutools.co.uk\/world\/series\/coronavirus-live\/latest\">Coronavirus \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/viewer.gutools.co.uk\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Japan will emerge from 10 weeks of coronavirus restrictions on Sunday, just in time for the peak of the annual cherry blossom viewing season.<\/p>\n<p>In normal years, the appearance of the delicate pink flowers is the cue for friends to spread out picnic blankets and lose their inhibitions in a ritual that often involves copious quantities of food and drink, and a nodding recognition of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/gallery\/2019\/apr\/01\/japanese-cherry-blossom-in-full-bloom-in-pictures\" title=\"\">floral spectacular<\/a>. But the lifting of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jan\/07\/japans-pm-declares-state-of-emergency-in-tokyo-amid-covid-crisis\" title=\"\">state of emergency<\/a>, announced earlier this month by the prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, will not be celebrated beneath the <em>sakura<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/mar\/21\/cherry-blossom-festivals-nipped-in-the-bud-as-japan-leaves-lockdown\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tree-viewing parties are banned as many coronavirus restrictions remainCoronavirus \u2013 latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageJapan will emerge from 10 weeks of coronavirus restrictions on Sunday, just in time for the peak of the annual cherry blo&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1066,88,1674,485,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-coronavirus","category-japan","category-plants","category-trees-and-forests","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30009,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29989\/revisions\/30009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}