Cherry Blossom Festival to honor Japanese culture in Columbus and at Ohio State

Columbus will host its very first Cherry Blossom Festival Saturday through April 1, with an event hosted by the Japanese Student Organization at the Ohio Union Sunday. Credit: Madison Kinner | Lantern Reporter

As Columbus welcomes spring, it will also welcome its very first Cherry Blossom Festival, with events scheduled throughout the city and on Ohio State’s campus from Saturday through April 10. 

The festival will celebrate Columbus’ cherry blossoms and the 10th anniversary of the gift of 20 cherry trees given to the city by Japan during the 2012 Columbus Bicentennial Celebration, according to Experience Columbus’ website. The festival will be modeled after the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C., which honors the 110th anniversary of the mayor of Tokyo donating cherry blossom trees to the city, according to the national festival’s website. 

Marlinda Iyer, chair of the Columbus festival and executive director at International Voluntary Organizations, said most of the festival events, such as performances and speakers, will take place at Franklin Park, where the cherry blossom trees are located. She said this festival is different from other festivals in Columbus because it will be a weeklong, citywide event. 

“We not only have it in the Adventure Center, but also at Ohio State University and at Franklin Park Conservatory, and there are schools that are also participating,” Iyer said. 

On Sunday, Ohio State’s festival will take place in the Ohio Union Performance Hall from 1-5 p.m. and will open to all with no tickets required for admission, Iyer said. 

Led by the Japanese Student Organization, Sho Weinstein, a fourth-year in chemical engineering and president of the group, said having a cherry blossom festival in Columbus amid national cherry blossom events is an exciting opportunity to honor Japanese culture locally.

“Cherry blossoms are Japanese cherry trees, so it’s a very big part of our culture as well, and we want to really highlight that for our event this year,” Weinstein said. 

Weinstein said Ohio State’s celebration will have booths, games and performances from the Japanese Student Organization and other Asian Pacific Islander Desi American organizations such as J2K. He said Ohio State will offer shuttles to and from Franklin Park as well. 

“That’s going to be nice, to hopefully have a lot of traffic between that as well, so we’ll hopefully get a little more people coming to our event through that,” Weinstein said. 

Although Ohio State will only participate in one day of the festival, Iyer said she hopes the rest of the festival and events — which will be hosted by other local schools — will encourage members of the community to get out and enjoy the outdoors and the cherry blossoms.

“Hopefully they will be enticed by the flowers, so that they will come and visit it every year, and also realize that the frail, the fleeting beauty of these spectacular flowers is kind of a lesson in life, how life is short and you have to make the most of it,” Iyer said.