Tree-Butchering Crews At Work On Tsukuba's Winter Greenery

If you love trees or nature in general, a ride on the TX these days can be a depressing experience. Especially the segment between Moriya and Tsukuba Center. Vast tracts (by Japanese standards) of woodland have been bulldozed away on both sides, leaving a barren landscape upon which monstrous apartment complexes, shopping malls, and sterile housing communities are being constructed.

In Tsukuba City itself, with its numerous parks and tree-lined walkways and boulevards, you might have thought you were in an oasis of greenery in early winter, as the planners of this city have provided us with numerous tree species, including many which stay green all year-round.

Voila! A Job Well Done

If so, you were in for a disturbing surprise.  As February starts to draw near, the tree and bush maintenance crews, working for companies which have lucrative long term contracts with the city, go into action, or should I say go on the rampage, and they slowly make their way down the avenues and walkways, sawing away most branches, leaving behind sad looking mutilated trunks. Where once, in the dead of winter, you had a tree-canopy-covered walkway, you now have a path which is desolate and forlorn.

The work itself, though, provides plenty of entertainment. I was surprised to see how many people of all ages and genders gather to watch the workmen and women, using cherry pickers and other assorted machinery to do their butchering and noisily dispose of the leaves and branches in garbage trucks.

When I commented to one Japanese gentleman who was observing the proceedings that it was a shame that all this winter greenery should be turned into trash he responded by saying "MITOSHI GA YOKU NARU", or NOW WE HAVE A CLEAR VIEW! 

One Of Our Lovely Parks

There must be a more sensitive and aesthetic way of grooming and maintaining trees and bushes, especially for the huge sums of money that the city, prefectural, and national governments pay to the companies who do this work.

The Japanese often say that they love nature. But the annual transformation of Tsukuba's wonderful trees into disfigured BONSAI makes me question exactly WHAT THAT MEANS.

One thing seems sure to me though, those who grow up in this culture have a great talent for NOT SEEING, or noticing anything unpleasant. Show your friends and acquaintances these pictures I have taken and ask them if they have ever taken note of such trees before. Everyone I have tried this with has said that this was their first time to think about it, and that it really was STRANGE to have parks full of such SAD trees.

So, please keep in mind, if you are new to Japan and have a garden, if you hire gardeners to take care of your yard be extremely explicit in what you want them to do. Even if you do you will probably come home to a garden of branchless stumps (as has happened to me).