Cherry trees reach full bloom in Tokyo; The spectacle marks the second earliest blossoming in the capital on record; Japanese culture prizes the perfect but delicate blossom, whose transience – they only last a week – is a reminder of the fragility of life.

March 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Cherry trees reach full bloom in Tokyo

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The spectacle marks the second earliest blossoming in the capital on record. -AFP 

Fri, Mar 22, 2013
AFP

TOKYO – Tokyo’s cherry trees were in stunning full bloom on Friday, Japan’s weather agency said, marking the second earliest blossoming in the capital on record.

The national weather service used Tokyo’s central Yasukuni Shrine as a barometer to judge the peak of the season, which sees a riot of white and delicate pinks exploding in parks, temple grounds, schools and on streets.

The spectacle signals the coming of spring and is marked by sometimes-raucous gatherings of friends, family or colleagues picnicking under the trees. Events can go on for many hours and often involve alcohol.

“High temperatures in early March are definitely one of the major factors behind the early full bloom in Tokyo,” an agency official said.

On Saturday, Japan’s weather agency, which has monitored cherry blossom since 1953, announced the official start of cherry blossom season in Tokyo. The earliest full blooming on record occurred in 2002.

Japanese culture prizes the perfect but delicate blossom, whose transience – they only last a week – is a reminder of the fragility of life.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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