When Spring Arrives, So Does Pollen
Today is March 3 in Japan — Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Day, a traditional celebration that wishes for the health and happiness of girls. Peach blossoms, decorative dolls, and pink-colored sweets gently announce the arrival of spring.
Yet spring in Tokyo often presents a different scene. Faces disappear behind masks. Sneezes echo along the streets. Runny noses, congestion, itchy eyes, and tears unrelated to emotion become just as much a part of the season.
It is the height of pollen season. Cedar pollen begins drifting through the air in February and, in many parts of Japan, continues well into May.
For many people, it is far more than a minor annoyance. The symptoms can be genuinely draining. Concentration fades, sleep is disrupted, and productivity quietly slips away.
The Photo Everyone Recognized
Recently, a photo began circulating on social media.
Taken by a driver passing through Okutama, on the capital’s mountainous western edge, the photo was shot from inside a moving car, through the side window toward the mountains. It shows what appears at first glance to be mist rising from a forested slope. A pale cloud drifts upward, almost atmospheric, almost beautiful.
It is not fog.
It is cedar pollen.
The comments followed instantly: “It hurts just to look at this.” “My eyes are itchy through the screen.” The humor was real, but so was the shared understanding. When pollen becomes visible, spring in Japan has officially arrived.
Spring Begins with Cedar
In Japan, spring begins with cedar.
Across most of the country, from Kyushu through Honshu, cedar pollen fills the air each year — though Hokkaido and Okinawa are largely spared, their climates and vegetation different.
Postwar reforestation projects in the 1950s covered vast mountainsides with Japanese cedar trees, valued for their fast growth and straight trunks — qualities that made them ideal for construction. Decades later, those trees are mature — and prolific pollen producers.
Cedar pollinosis was first officially documented in 1963. Since the 1970s, cases have increased dramatically. Today, roughly 40 to 45 percent of the population experiences symptoms.
In other words, those who suffer are close to being the majority.
“It Started for Me This Year”
I should confess: I am not one of them — at least not yet.
Every spring, I hear the same exchanges:
“It’s started.”
“The pollen is flying today.”
For years, I listened from a comfortable distance, as if these conversations were simply another seasonal ritual — like remarking on warmer afternoons or longer daylight.
But another sentence appears just as often:
“It started for me this year.”
The other day at my regular hair salon, my stylist said it casually while trimming my hair:
“It just began this year. Suddenly.”
Yesterday’s observer becomes today’s patient. In Japan, hay fever frequently emerges in adulthood. You can go decades symptom-free — and then one spring, something changes.
Those of us breathing easily may simply be waiting our turn.
A Season Built into Daily Life
In Tokyo, pollen season is woven into everyday routines.
Weather forecasts in spring include pollen levels alongside temperature and rainfall. A presenter may announce, with complete seriousness, “Extremely high levels expected today.”
Step into a drugstore and you’ll find large seasonal displays near the entrance: masks, antihistamines, eye drops, nasal sprays. The shelves shift with the calendar.
Air purifiers are another matter. For those, people turn to electronics stores or online retailers, as if preparing their homes for a different kind of weather system.
The arrangement — both in shops and in households — is as predictable as cherry blossom merchandise a few weeks later.
Pollen is not just an inconvenience. It is a seasonal system.
Even a Campaign Slogan
When nearly half the population is affected, the issue inevitably drifts into politics.
The current Governor of Tokyo once included “Zero Hay Fever” in her campaign platform.
Each spring, when forecasts warn of heavy dispersal, a familiar light remark circulates:
“So… how’s that zero going?”
It is less a serious challenge than a recurring seasonal joke — one that returns as reliably as the pollen itself.
What Fills the Air
Spring in Tokyo is beautiful. The air softens. Light lingers longer in the evening, stretching the day by quiet minutes. Plum blossoms fade, and cherry blossoms prepare to bloom, their buds still tight against the sky.
And yet, mixed into that brightness is something invisible but persistent — something that drifts unnoticed until the body begins to react.
On a spring day in Tokyo, the flowers are not the only thing in the air.
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