Published on April 18, 2019.
Based on Sekihei’s serialized column in the Sankei Shimbun, this article examines the unusual fascination in China with Japan’s new era name “Reiwa,” the cherry-blossom tourism boom in Japan, and the traditions, culture, and natural beauty that continue to attract Chinese visitors.
It portrays the striking reality that, despite decades of anti-Japanese education in China, Japan’s beauty and cultural depth still captivate many Chinese people.

2019-04-18
It is truly interesting that Japan’s traditions, Japan’s culture, and Japan’s beauty naturally captivate so many Chinese people.
The following is from Sekihei’s serialized column published in today’s Sankei Shimbun.
What the “Japan Boom” Means.
In this April, the last one of the Heisei era, a modest “Japan boom” is taking place in neighboring China.
It began with the announcement of Japan’s new era name.
Immediately after “Reiwa” was announced at around 11:41 a.m. on the 1st, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, major Chinese portal sites such as Sina and NetEase, and the web edition of the Global Times, which is affiliated with the People’s Daily, all rushed out breaking news as if they were competing with the Japanese media.
In response, comments on Japan’s new era name flooded the internet, and this single theme stirred great excitement throughout China’s online space.
For nearly a week afterward, the new era name remained a hot topic.
Not only the aforementioned Global Times, but also in the great metropolis of Shanghai, the city’s highest-circulation paper Xinmin Evening News and the national newspaper Wenhui Bao published commentaries and hosted roundtable discussions with experts, further fueling interest in the new era name.
Among them were commentaries lavishly praising Japan, saying that one cannot help but admire the wisdom of the Japanese in cherishing the era-name system, which originated in Chinese civilization, to such an extent and integrating it so closely into modern life.
At the same time, there were also comments that went out of their way to stress that the source of “Reiwa” could ultimately be traced back to Chinese classics, insisting that “Japan cannot erase the traces of China.”
On the internet, while many voices expressed praise and envy that China’s lost traditions still survive in Japan, there were also posts trying to belittle Japan’s new era name by noting that in Chinese the pronunciation of “rei” is the same as that of “zero,” and twisting it into the claim that “Reiwa means, in other words, zero desire for peace.”
But in any case, although it is Japan that is changing eras, the spectacle of the Chinese media and internet becoming so heated and making such a fuss over it is indeed mysterious.
What lies behind it, I believe, is the Chinese people’s twisted feeling toward Japan, mixed with envy and jealousy, toward a country that still keeps alive traditions that China itself has lost.
April is, in Japan, the season of cherry blossoms.
In fact, for several years now, a boom in “going to Japan to view cherry blossoms” has been taking place in China.
The Chinese-language newspaper Chinese Herald, published in Japan, carried an article dated March 28 under the headline, “Chinese People Explosively Flock to Japan for Cherry-Blossom Viewing.”
According to it, there has emerged a phenomenon of large numbers of Chinese people descending on Japan for blossom viewing, and in this season alone about 1 million Chinese tourists are expected to visit Japan.
Indeed, during this month, which marked the final cherry-blossom season of the Heisei era, scenes were reported of Chinese tourists overflowing at famous blossom-viewing spots such as Kawazu in the Izu Peninsula, Chidorigafuchi in Tokyo, and well-known locations in Kyoto and Nara.
The author himself, whose hobby is photography and who visited many blossom-viewing spots, also saw in many places the figures of his former compatriots gazing in fascination at the cherry blossoms.
Thus, cherry blossoms, the symbol of Japan’s natural beauty, are captivating many Chinese people and drawing their hearts toward Japan.
Of course, cherry blossoms are not the only thing that Chinese people find appealing.
Japan’s beautiful natural scenery through the four seasons, its atmospheric hot-spring inns and Japanese gardens, its old temples and historic townscapes that call to mind China’s own good old days, and Japan’s warm hospitality that reaches the heart, all of these things have captured the hearts of many Chinese people and brought about an unprecedented boom in tourism to Japan.
It is truly interesting that, despite nearly 30 years of “anti-Japanese education” carried on since the Jiang Zemin era, Japan’s traditions, Japan’s culture, and Japan’s beauty naturally continue to captivate so many Chinese people.
That is surely because Japan is, to this extent, such a good country overflowing with charm.