Love Letter from Brussels
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Has ‘Winter’ come to an end? (no. 35)
May 5, 2016
Since my last Love Letter from Brussels of 31 March, I took over a month off from writing. Partly as an excuse for one month break, I would like to tell you about two large events that took place in the past month.
Ghent Floralies
On 22 April, the long-awaited Ghent Floralies finally kicked off. As I mentioned in my previous Love Letter, Ghent Floralies is a flower show that has been held in Ghent since 1808, even before Belgium became independent in 1830. As such, this flower show is more than half a century older than the famous British Chelsea Flower Show and this year marks the 208th year and 35th edition (until now the show has been organized every five years) of the Floralies. This year, as part of the 150 Years of Friendship between Japan and Belgium, Japan was accepted as the guest country of the event and one of the 4 venues was mainly focused on traditional Japanese floral art such as ikebana.
On 21 April, prior to the official opening, Their Majesties the King and the Queen visited the Floralies and they came first to the Japan-themed venue, where I had the honor, together with my wife, to converse with Their Majesties. The venue displayed large works of Ms. Akane Teshigahara, Iemoto (headmistress) of the Sogetsu School, who visited Belgium on the occasion of the Floralies. Their Majesties expressed a strong interest in her creations, which they vividly discussed with Iemoto Akane herself.
After admiring the works of every Japanese ikebana school, the King and the Queen visited a room with many bonsais on display. They seemed strongly impressed and showed a keen interest in the bonsai trees so they asked me a lot of questions, which I tried to answer to the best of my knowledge..
Right outside the venue stood a large work from the famous Belgian florist Daniel Ost. Just like Iemoto Akane’s works, Mr. Ost’s creation was highly impressive and the King and Queen stopped for a moment to listen to Mr. Ost’s explanation about his work. Mr. Ost was wearing the decoration he’d been awarded by the Japanese government last year and the royal couple asked him about that as well.
The exit of the exhibition hall boasted a Japanese garden, a gift for this occasion by Ghent’s sister city, City of Kanazawa. The garden was modeled after the famous Kenroku-en Garden in Kanazawa, featuring fountains, lanterns and a rock garden. Furthermore, an example of the Japanese technique to protect trees from the weight of snow called “yukitsuri” was also reconstructed. The sister city partnership between Ghent and Kanazawa celebrates its 45th anniversary this year. The Royal couple had the opportunity to exchange a couple of words with the Deputy Mayor of the city of Kanazawa, who was visiting in honor of this anniversary.
In the official opening on the next day, 22 April, Iemoto Akane carried out an ikebana demonstration at the music hall. I don’t really possess enough literary talent to properly describe everything that was going on but to state it briefly: it was a magnificent event. Iemoto Akane started from a small creation and, while talking naturally, she gradually constructed her ikebana piece. The audience had their eyes glued on this process the entire time.One of Iemoto Akane’s remarks that left an impression on me is that “flower arrangement in foreign countries means adding flowers, whereas Japanese ikebana involves a lot of diminishing”. I understood that abroad the concept is to “add more (Plus)”. In ikebana, however, you cut away and “take more (Minus)”, creating more space in the process. Once you cut a flower or a branch, you can’t return it to its original state. Watching the headmistress, increasingly “taking more” on stage with a certain nervousness and adjusting her creation to match the clear vision she has, was a highly exalting experience.
. The demonstration took up to an hour and a half, but the last creation, which was huge and filled the stage of a 1000-person accommodating hall, took about 30 minutes to complete. The deep emotion of watching that process up to the finished work cannot be felt unless you were there and it was an invaluable experience.Proof of Trust, Friendship and Solidarity
There’s something I mentioned during my speech before the start of the demonstration. It’s the following: the fact that the Iemoto is visiting Belgium right after the Brussels terrorists attacks in March is quite a decision and is in itself a proof of the strong trust, friendship and solidarity that Japan and Belgium and its people share with each other. Surely without the Iemoto’s visit, the Japanese part of the Floralies wouldn’t have been such a great success. I would like to take this opportunity to once again express my heartfelt gratitude to Iemoto Akane and all her staff.
The Prime Minister’s visit to Europe
Since it’s been widely broadcasted on TV already, I will be brief. On May 3, two days after the end of the Floralies on May 1st, Prime Minister Abe and his wife visited Brussels as part of their European tour. The Prime Minister toured 6 countries in just one week, truly in super express mode. Although he stayed in Belgium for just one night, literally for 24 hours, the Prime Minister went on a courtesy visit to His Majesty the King, had a summit meeting and lunch with Belgian Prime Minister Michel and had a meeting and dinner with prominent EU leaders. Furthermore, he made a speech at an ‘Investment Seminar’, so it truly was a busy schedule.
Also during the Prime Minister’s visit “trust, friendship and solidarity” were the keywords. Right after their arrival in Belgium, Prime Minister Abe and his wife went to metro station Maalbeek, where the suicide bombing took place, to lay down flowers and pray for the victims. In his various talks with his Belgian counterparts, he stressed that Japan will always be with Belgium at this difficult time. In the meeting with Prime Minister Michel, they both agreed to set up bilateral counterterrorism talks by the end of the year. Much progress was made and I think it was a wonderful visit.
Has ‘Winter’ come to an end?
After the Prime Minister’s visit, I suddenly realized that we had unusually (?) constantly fine weather. The temperature has risen into the mid-twenties, more and more people are wearing short sleeves outdoors and these days it stays light until about 21:00 in the evening. The next few months, we’ll be having the most wonderful season here in Belgium. Thanks to everyone’s efforts, All Nippon Airways resumed its direct flights between Brussels and Narita already on 11 April. Of course, there are still many celebrations in Belgium for the 150 Years of Friendship so I call on everybody to visit Brussels!