Japanese Aesthetic Garden

At Korakuen in Tokyo…

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Sam Po: It’s a promenade garden, designed to be strolled through, the winding paths revealing something new around each corner.

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Aesthetic rice harvest

Vizzie Torr: It certainly surprises. Mountains in miniature, rivers, lakes, forests, teahouse, pavilion, and at the end, a rice field.

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Sam Po: Where they actually grow rice. Aesthetics combined with pragmatics.

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Vizzie Torr: Well, I’d have to say that the rice-growing is more for show than to take to the market.

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Sam Po: But all this in the heart of Tokyo, outside the wall are hotels, schools, a baseball dome, an amusement park.

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Voice-over

Korakuen checks a lot of boxes in evaluating a Japanese aesthetic garden: miniaturization, concealment, scenery-borrowing, asymmetry. Japanese parks to be strolled through show the best of nature in a limited space.

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Cyclamen aesthetics

Cyclamen aestheticus

Discussion over cyclamen as a national flower…
Noam: You cannot claim the cyclamen as Cyprus’s national plant.

Neoklis: Why not? It meets the criteria for being a national plant. It is not already a national plant of another country. It’s widely distributed and well-known in Cyprus. It has an aesthetic value.

Noam: It originated from Europe to the Middle East and was only taken to Greek Islands by monks.

Neoklis: The species Cyclamen cyprium is native to Cyprus.

Noam: Cyclamen is already the national plant of Israel.

Neoklis: Ha. Cyclamen persicum. The Israelis are fighting Iran over a PLANT?

Noam: That is another kind of plant. And aesthetics?

Neoklis: Undeniably aesthetic. Delicate needle-like stigma, swept back petals. Striking.

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Voice-over

Cyclamen are beautiful. Paintable and photogenic.

Beauty can also have a dark side.

Cyclamen are somewhat poisonous.

Some humans attach an unlucky belief to cyclamen that “all good things will end”. It can be part of the floral arrangement at funerals.

Such are the beliefs of some humans. But there is an anthropomorphic aspect. Do cyclamen regard themselves as having a funereal nature? And would cyclamens claim Hebrews and Cypriots as their chosen people?

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