Читать книгу A Gaijin's Guide to Japan: An alternative look at Japanese life, history and culture - Ben Stevens - Страница 13

In the film The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso first comes to know Mr Miyagi through helping him tend his many bonsai. As bonsai require constant care and attention, Mr Miyagi would have needed all the help he could get. In fact, with that many bonsai to look after, it’s doubtful that Mr Miyagi would have been able to hold down his job as a handyman, never mind teach young Danny boy the finer points of Japanese fisticuffs.

One of the things The Karate Kid doesn’t teach you—or maybe it does; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it—is that bonsai first came to Japan from China, where they’d been around since the days of the Tang Dynasty (that’s a long time, believe me).

Controversy amongst bonsai aficionados continues to rage as to whether Chinese bonsai were merely trees already dwarfed by nature, thus making the Japanese the first people who were able to stunt a normal, healthy tree so that it can grow only between twenty-five centimetres to one metre tall.

Of course, you can’t just stick a young sapling in a pot and expect it to flourish. Because it wouldn’t; it would die. No, what you must do is to continually prune the fledgling bonsai, carefully removing every excess branch and twig until you’ve created the image you want for it. Perhaps you’d like it to resemble a wind-gnarled tree that’s situated on the very edge of a seaside cliff—your choice.

With sufficient care and attention—including frequent re-potting, root pruning and fertilisation—bonsai can last hundreds of years, passed down through generations. Though I suspect that the one Mr Miyagi gave Daniel’s mum probably ended up in the bin about a week later.