Rites of Spring.
April 12, 2000.

This is the week of "Hanami" in Japan. Hanami is the one week period of the year when all the cherry trees(樱花树) are in bloom. Cities are covered in pink cherry petals and the parks are full of flowering trees. People go to the parks, sit down on a mat, and drink lots of beer and have a day-long picnic while watching the cherry blossoms.

In America, we have our own spring traditions. The crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd at opening day? Well, yes, but I'm thinking of suburban traditions(suburb:一般泛指城市的郊区，居民集中的地方):lawn and garden work and barbecues, which mostly involve standing in line at KMart(类似Wal-Mart的大型联锁店) or similar stores (for the equipment/tools).

This is a key difference between spring in Japan and spring in American suburbs. They have parks with cherry trees. We have parking lots with big box retail. They spend a whole day picnicking and drinking. We spend all day--in line(排队).

Anyone who has shopped at KMart knows--you will stand in line. Just for the privilege of buying stuff! And if you have a return? I once saw a guy trying to return a $7.95 lawn chair to our local Super KMart. He met and married the woman behind him and now their grandchildren are waiting in that line.

Now, walking into these stores, it looks like you'll be in and out pretty quickly, because there are about 3 zillion (or at least 30) cash registers down front. But savvy shoppers know that only in Target and maybe Wal-Mart will those registers ever all be operating at once. KMart likes to open as many as 3 of 'em, but only if they are really needed, such as at peak times
like Sunday afternoons with a major sale in progress.

You might think that with only 3 registers--and only 3 cashiers needed to operate them--KMart could find some incredible, superfast cashiers. The creme de la creme of big box retail. But the creme here is getting paid maybe $7 an hour. The smart ones know there are better jobs in the store than dealing with demanding customers who have been standing in line all day. For example, wandering the store, glassy-eyed ("Wow, the dish soap aisle..."). Coffee breaks are also popular.

All this might be bearable if it weren't for--the customers. For example, the person in front of you in line who has removed every price tag, barcode, and bit of identifying information from their items.

Here's a tip Martha Stewart(以家庭/庭院布置装修而出名的女士，拥有自己的公司/杂志/电视节目及专卖货品) would be proud of: lawn furniture at KMart is cheap and there's lots of it. Get some for the line so you can relax while the cashier tries to figure out the intercom system, then gives up and yells across the store for price checks ("I need a price check on loose M&Ms!--how many M&Ms do you have, honey?"). Put your feet up while the price checks are yelled back. Notice that each yell-back price is for a slightly different item than what the person in front of you actually has, but not to worry. That person is trying to write a personal check without identification, so the chance KMart will allow them to buy their items is basically zero. But this is all part of the fun, the great cycle of suburban retail! Oh right, cycles! Spring.

There are other rites of spring. Getting kidnapped by the lesbian biker mafia (why the column was late this month--but that is a story for another time). Falling in love. What better place to do either one than under the blooming flowers of a cherry tree?

Of course, inevitably, with all this springtime love going around, some folks will fall in love with people who are themselves falling in love with someone else. Now, this is not the preferred method, and I can't say I recommend it, but here again the advantage of Hanami can be seen. Namely: alcohol. When you have just been eited by love, where would you rather be?
Drinking heavily in a beautiful park, distracted by cherry blossoms, or in line at KMart, where to maintain your own sanity you ruminate for hours on your lost love as the line inches forward? I rest my case.

John, a (cute undergraduate) student of Kathryn, my (single grad student) grad school colleague, once came into the studio in the spring, complaining of inability to concentrate, to focus, to work. Kathryn waxed eloquent about how spring is a time of rebirth and renewal, how we are distracted by all this new life, the longer days, the new flowers, etc. etc. In fact, this was one of the most beautiful offhand essays on spring I have ever heard. He walked out, reassured. The door closed. "Sex!" she said. "It's all about sex! Rebirth and renewal, nothing! He's getting some every weekend with his cutie down at Stanford, he's cute, what's he so stressed about?!?" She was stressed out enough herself she had to go out for a cigarette and some more coffee.

But she was right about the renewal, the cycle that itself creates a sense of history. This is intrinsic to Hanami's annual celebration. But it is absent from the suburbs--at least the post-WWII(World War II) ones, designed with a purposeful absence of history and historical sense of place. With subdivisions, streets, and stores all designed in similar faux styles. Faux tudor, faux mission, faux colonial. A spring ritual of standing in line at KMart. No way, man!

So set your items down and walk out of that KMart. Leave your car in the lot and take the bus, if you can find one, until you get to a place where the sole connection to the past is not that the place is named after whatever was paved over or bulldozed to build it. Find a park and a corner store--or a good field if you're in the country--get a little something and
settle down there, take a look at what there is to see. At the details of somewhere with a little more history to it. Imagine there are people doing the same thing half the world away. Have been doing it for years and years.Will do it again next time spring rolls around.

Don't think about big box retail, or traffic, or the general ugliness and anonymity of faux, or whether increasing suburbanization will lead to a country where it's considered acceptable and even quite chic to stand in line at places like KMart. Forget all that. Enjoy the sun. Enjoy the flowers. Have a little beer and something to eat. Enjoy the spring.

-Spackle

Note: Many thanks to Julien for his note on Hanami, which is this month's column's first paragraph.

Copyright 2000.

中文注解：August