As someone in Seattle, which also recently replaced a seawall and has had cherry trees that were removed during waterfront construction: can reporters please start putting “Washington, D.C.” in headlines?
To be fair to the other guy, most Americans are probably more familiar w/ DC’s trees than Washington’s. DC is a common school trip location for much of the East Coast and the cherry blossoms are right across from the Jefferson Memorial.
And famously has a lot of cherry trees that were gifts from Japan. And a bunch of shrines. And memorials. And Japanese sister cities, sister counties, and the whole state is a sister of Hyogo prefecture. Look, what I’m staying is Washington State and Japan are hella close so when you hear about “Washington” and “gifts from Japan” you think “State” waaaaaaaaay before D.C.
I think this might be an East v. West debate. On the East Coast I thought the exact opposite. This is the first time I’m hearing about WA & Japan’s connection. But hey, I’m glad I learned something today.
The Seattle Japanese Garden, completed in 1960, is located in the Madison Park neighborhood. During their October, 1960 stop in Seattle, the Japanese Crown Prince Akihito and Crown Princess Michiko visited the newly opened garden. Together, they planted a cherry tree and a white birch, the latter a symbol (o-shirushi) of the Princess’s family.
As someone near Seattle who’s lived on both coasts, this is highly unlikely. Native east coasters will continue to refer to the state as “Washington State” and the District of Columbia as “D.C.” while Washingtonians will continue refer to either as whatever they do, and both will continue to see the other as being weird af, with east coasters maintaining the point of view of “We got here first, you dorks.”, or some such.
Add comment