Human Flower Project

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Skagit Valley-- What’s in the Foreground?

Maritime climate and immigrant labor switch on Washington’s electric tulips.

Tulip fields of Skagit Valley, Washington
Photo: Wade B. Clark, Jr.

Today the monthlong Tulip Festival of Skagit Valley winds down. Located halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, this region welcomes the spillover guests from both cities and beyond every April to see its brilliant flower fields in bloom.

As in other parts of the Great Northwest, the Skagit Valley’s horticulture took off during World War I, when European seed companies couldn’t stay in production. As it turned out, this part of Washington was ideal farm country, especially for brassica (stinky) vegetables, like cabbage and broccoli. “The valley’s cool maritime climate helps growers manage the rate at which plants mature, making it easier to ensure that male and female plants required for hybrid production are ready for cross-pollination at the same time. And the Skagit winters are cold enough to allow biennial crops to vernalize — the wintertime chilling that encourages seed production the following year — but not so cold as to put them at risk of freezing.”

Daffodils, tulips and iris thrived here too. Rather, we should say, they could thrive if properly tended. The first Skagit flower-raisers were Dutch, German, and Scandinavian. But for nearly half a century, it’s been Hispanic immigrants who have turned the valley into Maremeko stripes of pink, yellow, red and white.

Flower farms here prospered quietly. Only in 1982, when a Seattle travel agent “discovered” April’s bloom display, did the tour buses begin rolling in. But even then, visitors saw the rainbow fields as Mother Nature’s feat, rather than the accomplishment of hundreds of Latino workers. Depictions of the Skagit Valley in its glory typically showed swatches of color all the way to the horizon, without one person in sight.

That changed in 1994. Jesus Guillen had moved from the Rio Grande to the Skagit Valley with his family in 1960. “An artist and a laborer from the Texas border country, Jesus dreamed of living in a place where his children would be able to attend school and pursue their own dreams.” Guillen became a field hand in La Conner and with wife Anita raised his family here, finding time after hours to pursue his art.

Painting by Jesus Guillen
chosen for the 1995 festival poster
Photo: Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

In 1994 one of his paintings was chosen for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival poster; for the first time, human beings, not flowers, were thrust foreward. With immigration so much in the social foreground today, Guillen’s poster has gained renewed attention. Isolde Raftery of the Skagit Valley Herald interviewed a number of area artists, including Al Currier, whose painting became the 1998 festival selection. Currier’s piece, too, featured people and was, he said, indebted to Guillen.

“’(Farmworkers) are the blood and guts of the valley,’ Currier said. ‘Sometimes they’re kind of overlooked.’”

Jesus Guillen died in 1994, the same year that his Human Flower Project became a Skagit Valley emblem and revelation. His son Michael has been able “to pursue his own dream”; he’s an artist working in Seattle.

“Dad had a strong philosophy of life that focused on the dignity of the individual,” says daughter Angelica. “He felt we all had an obligation to find that thing within us that made us happy, not out of ego, but out of doing something good for the community.”

Jesus Guillen’s poster is available from the Tulip Festival.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

A Florist’s Work is Never Done

Aren’t weddings and funerals enough?

Smithville Florist’s float for the 2006 Jamboree Parade
Photo: Bill Bishop

You’d think florists would have their hands full in late April, with weddings, prom flowers, and the never-say-die duties of sympathy flowers. But in a small town like Smithville, Texas, there’s more. Roy Wood, of Smithville Florist, can be counted on to decorate every holiday and local celebration, including the annual Jamboree. And, boy, is it ever appreciated.

Each year’s parade seems to serve up more cars and trucks. Hey, we can see that spectacle any day of the week sitting in Austin traffic! So thanks to Roy and his crew for their happy float, decorated with sunflowers, a huge butterfly, and bubble-gunning riders. Smithville Florist took the trophy this afternoon for “Best Hometown Float” and sure earned it.

Friday, April 28, 2006

Betty, You Made It!

Ceramic sculptor Betty Woodman, with a retrospective at the Met, has her vases filled with flowers in the museum’s Great Hall.

“The Ming Sisters” by Betty Woodman
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thanks to friend and superstar potter Lisa Orr for inspiration today. Lisa notified us of the new Betty Woodman retrospective that has just opened (through July 30) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Decades ago Woodman asked if the Met would use her vases for its flower arrangements in the Great Hall. “They said, ‘Don’t be silly,’ “ Woodman, now 75 years old, told the NY Times.

Now Betty’s gotten her wish, and more.

Woodman vases in the Met’s Great Hall
Photo: Frank R. Conrad, for the New York Times

The Met, which owns ancient Greek redware pots and Etruscan funerary urns, has never before curated an exhibit of contemporary ceramics.  Writing in the Times today, Grace Glueck compliments Woodman’s “exuberance,” and describes how her vessels manage to be painterly, sculptural and architectural all at once. She sees Woodman’s art “in a class by itself” though in the Great Hall her vases are generously accompanied—stuffed with branches of what appears to be forsythia.

According to Lisa Orr, who studied with Woodman back in 1989, “One of the reasons she makes so many vases is that she consoles herself with flowers around her NY loft because she does not have a view of beautiful nature out a window.  Also she lives near the flower district and can really load up!”

For museum-goers hell bent on mummy cases, armor or Rembrandt, please take time on your next visit to the Met to enjoy the flowers in the Great Hall. For years, these huge arrangements were designed by Chris Giftos, an especially favored customer at the same flower district. (His successor is Remco Van Vliet.)

The giant arrangements are an ongoing gift to the museum—and its visitors and visiting vases—from Lila Wallace. She snipped $4 million from her Readers Digest fortune expressly for this purpose.

Grace Glueck winds up her review: “Ms. Woodman has done five ebullient substitutes for the pompous urns in the Met’s Great Hall that hold the floral arrangements refreshed weekly there. It would be nice if the Met got to keep them.”

Hey, Grace, the Met might even be able to afford buying a couple of Betty’s vases—ya think?

 

Thursday, April 27, 2006

If You’re Going to Sevilla…

The Feria de Abril, once a cattle market, now features horse-drawn carriages and lots of flowers in the ladies’ hair.

In Andalusian costume for Feria de Abril
Photo: Sevilla Tourism

Until April 30th, the beautiful and gracious city of Sevilla, Spain, will be more than usually awash in fans and lanterns—oh, and really tight polka-dot skirts.

The Andalusians can get away with this, and do, especially at the annual Feria de Abril (April Fair). What began as a big livestock trade day has evolved into a much more decorous celebration. In the spotlight are the well-to-do families of the city, who present their handsome young people in traditional Andalusian costumes, drawn past the hoi-polloi on horseback or in carriages. Proper attire for this occasion will be cropped black jackets and flat-topped black hats (Zorro!) for the men, and for the women shuddering, bright flamenco gowns.

Young ladies at Feria de Abril, Sevilla
Photo: Jean Marc Stephan

The flamenco costume for women is elaborately accessorized: a fan, shoes with high but heavy heels, a floral shawl, decorative combs, and to top it off a showy flower in the hair. Why flowers? We can only guess: flamenco dancers traditionally pull their hair back into a tight chignon, to sharpen the profile. A red (or nowadays bright blue) flower against a glossy black head is sparkling, suggestive and dramatic. It may have been that Spanish women also wanted flowers handy to toss into the bullfight ring, and there will be many bullfights this week in Seville.

Spanish readers, please advise.

Whatever the reason, the floral hair accessory is a must for every female, young or not so young, at this spring festival of Southern Spain. Feria de Abril may showcase the first families of the city, but with a flower behind her ear, any woman looks like a queen.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Tulip Itinerary

The Netherlands? Of course, but here’s a farther-flinging trip for tulip enthusiasts.

Tulip fields of the Netherlands seen from a tourboat
Photo: Barges in France

The tulip blooms of Holland have been delayed by a cool spring. But now here they come.

Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, the Grande Dame of tulip landscapes, simply has extended its open season a few weeks, until May 21.  Events and exhibitions this year feature two opportunistic species: birds of prey and interior designers, along with hyacinths, narcissus and tulips—the main attraction. Keukenhof was laid out in the 1840s by architects Zocher & Son. In 1949, the mayor of Lisse, W.J.H. Lambooy, pulled ten major bulb-growers together and “conceived the idea of a permanent annual open-air flower exhibition.” The tulips and “theme gardens” there have become a mainstay of the Dutch travel industry.

One of the most imaginative garden writers around, Felder Rushing, noted that Northern Europe possesses a distinct gardening advantage over his home, the Southern U.S.: its light. “The angle of the sun is so low way up there, colors get ‘punched up’ and seem more vivid than they do in our muggy heat, which washes out a lot of the blue and green. Same thing in England, New England and British Columbia. Because of the climate, many plants grow better. And because of the angle of the sun, they simply look better.”

Just ask the 700,000 tourists who—on foot, astride bikes, and from passing boats—visit Keukenhof Gardens each year.

An interesting story today by Alex Rijckaert reports, however, that Holland’s bulb sales have been declining. “The number of bulb growers has fallen more than 40 percent since 1990 and the amount of cultivated flower land has been stagnant for five years, according to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics.” China and Poland are tough competitors, both with good climates for bulb production, cheaper labor and much, much more arable land.

Dutch marketers can’t do anything about the nation’s hectares, so they are fighting back with nearly-instant gratification. “The usually urban-dwelling younger consumer ‘doesn’t want to wait several months to see their gardens bloom,’” said Henk Westerhof, a leading horticultural exporter.  So Holland’s growers are offering more “potted tulips already in bloom, that you plant in your garden as soon as you come home, with an immediate and concrete result.” Another new product, for sale in Britain, is “an aluminium can decorated with flowers...Simply remove the lid and pour water on the flower bulb inside and three weeks later, a tulip pops up.” (We received one of these jiffy amaryllis bulbs for Christmas and found it quite wonderful.)

Tiles, with tulips and other flowers
Rustem Pasha Mosque, Istanbul
Photo: Cornucopia

On the tulip trail, our friend Cyndy Clark of Lexington, KY, recommends Amsterdam’s Tulip Museum. Here one may discover how the tulips came to the Netherlands and took the nation by storm in the 17th Century.

The serious tulip enthusiast, however, won’t be content with a visit to the Netherlands only. Such a person will want to visit Iran in the spring. This is the native land of wild tulips, and eco-tour agencies now offer excursions to the Zagros region. “Drive 90 km back to Shahr-e-Kord and then 220 km south to Yasuj through mountains and plains covered with red wild tulips and deep valleys with lots of waterfalls and streams,” says one travel company. A contributor to this travel message board makes a compelling case for visiting the Iranian countryside. “The wild flowers in spring are incredible....  I have ridden through tulips so tall they touched the horse’s belly.”

The intensive domestication of tulips first took place in Turkey; here, the flower thrived not just botanically but culturally, in Ottoman gardens and throughout all the Turkish arts. This extended essay by Jon Mandaville will fill you in on how the gardens of the sultan Ahmet III developed and how his ambassadorial gifts ignited Western Europe’s tulip craze.

Holland (Michigan) Tulip Time
May 2004
Photo: Yan Lan

Heading back West, tulip sighting will continue through May in Holland, Michigan. We very much enjoyed Yan Lan’s photo album of this New World town’s celebration of its Dutch heritage and tulips.

And don’t unpack! Commercial flights should be departing any time now for the Moon, where scientist Bernard Foing hopes to plant tulips bulbs with success. “Lunar soil would receive its first gift from the Amsterdam tulip trade, perhaps planted inside a plastic biosphere with carbon dioxide on tap.”

Foing told the BBC, “With current missions we have much better knowledge of the polar regions as a site where we could search for ice; and also ... we have identified some ‘peaks of eternal light’ where we would like to land - these are areas near the poles of the Moon which have sunlight all the time, even in winter.” Will tulips look as delicious blooming in “peaks of eternal” lunar light as they do beneath the low-slating rays of the Netherlands? We’ll hope to see.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

ANZAC wreaths

Rosemary and laurel remember the bloody struggle for Gallipoli, 1915.

Students from Scots College Prep School, New South Wales
lay a wreath at Australia’s Tomb of the Unknown Solider
Photo: Australian War Memorial

Across New Zealand and Australia, April 25 brings reflection, solemnity, realism and pride. This difficult mix of emotions gains public coherence through an old floral custom: the laying of wreaths.

April 25th is ANZAC Day, when, in 1915, New Zealand and Australian infantrymen landed in Turkey, joining French and British forces on the Eastern Front of World War I. The Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed before dawn on a cove north of Gaba Tepe, Turkey. They would face nine-months of blood, known as the Battle of Gallipoli.

“It was the first great conflict experienced by those fledgling nations. Before Gallipoli the citizens of these countries were confident of the superiority of the British Empire and were proud and eager to offer their service. Gallipoli shook that confidence and three years on the Western Front would destroy it utterly.”

This excellent site examines changes in New Zealand’s ANZAC Day observances. “Gradually standardized after (World War I), the ceremony was essentially a re-enactment of a military funeral. It would be conducted around a bier of wreaths and a serviceman’s hat, with a firing party with heads bowed and a chaplain to read the words from the military burial service. Three volleys would be fired by the guard, and The Last Post played, followed by a prayer, hymn, and benediction.”

Wreath laid by New Zealand Sikh Society, Wellington, New Zealand, 2004
Photo: New Zealand Sikh Society, Wellington

After the Armistice, public war memorials were erected throughout Australia and New Zealand, many built in the 1920s, and ANZAC ceremonies shifted to these locations. We find this commentary of special interest: “The move to Anzac Day commemorations at public war memorials rather than in town halls or churches signified an increasing secularization of the ceremony. Despite occasional protests from churches, it was RSA leaders, servicemen, and local politicians who increasingly made the speeches, rather than clergymen. The laying of wreaths became more central to the ceremony, while fewer speeches were made and hymns sung.”

Indeed, the laying of wreaths does seem the principal custom of ANZAC Day now. We found such wreaths laid in Hungary and France, and many examples of wreath ceremonies in Australian schools.

Marching in Sydney’s ANZAC Day parade, April Foster remembers her grandfather Ronald Foster
Photo: Mark Baker, for AP

For decades, parades for ANZAC Day were limited to veterans, but that too has changed. This editorial from The Advertiser (Adelaide) supports the development.

The first marches included only those in active military; then veterans joined the parades. “But now Anzac Day is entering a new phase and with it come new questions. There is pressure to allow the children, grandchildren, great grand children and perhaps other relatives of veterans dead and alive to more actively participate in ANZAC Day marches. Let’s not be precious or equivocal. Of course they should be allowed to.

“Anzac Day is no longer a commemoration confined exclusively to those who served their country. It has evolved as a day of national identity and national pride. When Australian and New Zealand troops stormed ashore at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, Australia broke free from the formal ties and disciplines of Britain and became a free, autonomous and independent nation.”

“Young people, fortunate enough to have avoided the terrors of war, have developed an affinity and affection for Anzac Day which transcends war itself.”

It’s not surprising that mourning—that strange, unbidden activity—would give way to “national identity"… “affinity and affection.” These are more comfortable attitudes, abstract sentiments completely to be expected from those who’ve never (yet) lost a limb or a relative to war. 

RAAF veteran wearing a sprig of rosemary
ANZAC Day 1999, Nowra, Australia
Photo: Australian War Memorial

We find all these changes of rites and their due participants intriguing. In a more diverse and secular society, the hymn is displaced by a non-verbal, non-denominational emblem of unity—the wreath. ANZAC Day arrangements often feature shiny laurel leaves, an honorific symbol since ancient days, though increasingly the red poppy (more closely associated with November 11th, Armistice Day of World War I) predominates. We have seen, though, many varieties of greenery and flowers for ANZAC Day commemorations, including carnations, roses, camellias.

Is “transcendence” the purpose of a war memorial? We don’t believe so. There will be another time for that. On ANZAC Day, one may still see old soldiers and their young relatives who, wearing sprigs of rosemary, choose not to transcend but to remember.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Ligustrum: There Goes the Neighborhood

A fast-growing landscape favorite of the 1960s and ‘70 shows its ugly imperialist face.

Ligustrum ovalifolium (privet) in bloom
Photo: Habitas

Saturday, we thought we were in for a bit of trash collecting along the creek. Instead, the Austin Parks Foundation had tricked us. We’d been drafted into three hours of muscle-to-root combat against ligustrum, an invasive plant that’s overtaken the neighborhood park.

Mind you, we walk every morning for a good half hour through this park and had never taken any note of ligustrum. To be honest, we’d thought the whole “invasive plant” issue was a sham, the cloak for anti-immigration sentiment. Did we care if there were clumps of non-native mustard blooming along the freeway?

But what a difference a morning makes, especially if one is working out with a clunky iron vise. This tool, provided by the Austin Parks Foundation, could grip a three-inch ligustrum at the base of its trunk, and with a little (or a helluva lot) of leverage, pop that baby right out of the creekbank. Call it Horticultural Pilates.

Seeds of ligustrum are spread by berry-eating birds
Photo: BFNS

Ligustrum, we learn, is a problem all over the Southern U.S. It was introduced as a fast-growing evergreen, perfect for impatient suburban landscaping but a fright over time. The Clemson University botanists write, “Common privet (Ligustrum vulgare) has escaped into the wild in South Carolina to become a weedy and invasive pest. Birds eat the small, black fruit and deposit the seeds everywhere.” There are many varieties of privet, some less invasive than others, but all “have abundant, showy clusters of very sweet smelling, white flowers in late spring.”

So what’s the big deal? Why not let this vigorous plant keep on choogling? Here’s why: “Ligustrum japonica competes with natives for light and nutrients. It outcompetes natives by spreading rapidly and completely covering and toppling small trees and shrubs in the process.” In our Saturday battle, we saw this with our own eyes. Ligustrums had shot up tall through the park. We saw ligustrums growing right next to oaks and junipers, actually squeezing them out: “Move over, old timer!” Ligustrums had leafed out high over head, so the ground below was overshaded and bare. Now we learn, too, “The newly opened understory causes L. japonica to spread rapidly and provide habitat to other invasives, such as Hedera helix (English ivy) and Pueraria montana (kudzu).” In other words, ligustrum is a botanical imperialist.

Is there privet in your yard? Consider trying your hand at topiary. Since ligustrum grows fast, some varieties make ideal hedge sculpture, and with constant trimming, the plant won’t produce berries, meaning fewer ligustrums escaping into the wild.

Here’s a primer from The Nature Conservancy about how to contain privet plants, with a good description of many ligustrum varieties. The report notes, “In North America, Ligustrum spp. have no important pests or predators.” Not true! You should have seen us Saturday, grunting and bouncing on those orange levers, and dragging trees by the score to the curb. We barely made a dent in the problem.

Stacy Park volunteer Bill Bishop, post-shower, and Dinah survey
the handiwork of uprooted ligustrums
Photo: Human Flower Project

Congrats to the Austin Parks Foundation (and our gentle neighborhood general, David Todd) for mustering 1000 volunteers across the city Saturday, even if we DID think we’d be picking up paper cups. We find it amusing that the Foundation chose to fight imperialist plants with a privatizing slogan: “It’s My Park.”

No. It’s not my park. But we love it and will gladly pull out ligustrum again. You bring the orange grippers, we’ll bring the elbows and grunts.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

‘Art in Bloom’—Boston Populism

What can flowers do for Cezanne or ancient Greek funerary art? See for yourself.

A docent tours visitors through a gallery of Roman
sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston during
‘Art in Bloom,’ 2002
Photo: Sharon

Thirty years ago, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts tried something fresh: inviting 18 floral designers each to fashion one arrangement to complement a work of art in the collection. ”Art in Bloom” 2006 will include 70 flower designs and will draw some 20,000 visitors to the MFA through April 25. (Monet’s water lilies may endure for centuries but ‘Art in Bloom’ lasts only four days, lest the blossoms start to fade.)

Arrangement of lilies with marble lekythos
(oil flask/funerary monument), Greek, C. 380 B.C.
during ‘Art in Bloom’ at Boston’s MFA, 2002
Photo: Sharon

The mid-1970s, when “Art in Bloom” began, were expansive years in the U.S. arts. The newly formed National Endowment for the Arts was at last throwing public money at something other than the military, and fledgling state arts agencies around the country were nursing young theatre companies, dance troupes and orchestras along. Simultaneously, the grand (and for the U.S.) old institutions like Boston’s MFA were seeking to “be relevant.” “Art in Bloom,” though most definitely the brainchild of affluent Bostonians—the sort who could pay a fortune for flowers—still illustrates an attempt at populism. Putting big bouquets of flowers in a gallery with Roman stone carving and Old Master paintings is a way of domesticating High Art: it says, “You’re invited to the Culture Party.”

These days, seeing busloads of schoolkids seated on the floor of an art museum gallery is no big surprise. There are “Family Days” and a host of other events designed to draw new audiences in to see Etruscan statues and 18th Century landscapes. But it wasn’t always that way. Art museums once were the musty preserves of the superrich. The public wasn’t particularly welcome. All that changed, and quickly, in the mid-1970s, the era when “Art in Bloom” began. An instant success, it’s been copied by many other museums across the U.S. as a springtime custom.

At the MFA, for fun, there are hints of the old exclusivity and grandeur (this is Boston, after all). Check the schedule of events. “Art in Bloom” includes, for example, “Elegant Afternoon Tea.” But you don’t need a personal invitation from Mrs. Winthrop. Just $15, plus the price of museum admission.

Friday, April 21, 2006

Chihuly in the Greenhouse

Glass bulbs and blooms by an art-pioneer come to life in botanical gardens.

Dale Chihuly glass- work with water lily
Atlanta Botanical Garden
Photo: Terry Rishel via Chihuly.com

That’s no lily pad. It’s a Chihuly! Among the ferns at Fairchild Gardens giant red glass tubers stand. At the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the stems of glass blossoms flex and shine, framed by living fronds of palmetto.

Chihuly in a palm tree, Kew Gardens, London
Photo: Chihuly.com

Dale Chihuly (b. 1941) is one of those rare American artists who are both popular and critically “darling.” Over the conceptual barrier between art and decoration, his innovate glass works flap with the confidence of giant stingrays. There is something worldly about them—weird and wild, they belong among us rather than in an antiseptic gallery or museum (though you’ll certainly find them there as well).

Of late, Chihuly has been working with public gardens. Chihuly in the Park came first, an installation at Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory in 2001-02. Collaborations followed in Atlanta (2004) and Kew Gardens (2005). The marvelous show now at Fairchild in Coral Gables, Florida, will be on exhibit through the end of May. And on April 30, the Missouri Botanic Gardens (St. Louis) will open “Glass in the Garden,” through October. Every Thursday night, MOBOT will stay open late for special light shows of the glass pieces, sparking in the shadows of living plants.

Children spot a glass ikebana
Kew Garden, London
Photo: Chihuly.com

Check out Chihuly’s own website, with its delicious galleries of photographs. In a short video piece here, he confesses to know very little about plants but recalls vividly his mother’s garden in Tacoma, Washington. “I think that flowers had a big influence on me.”

We think so too, Dale.

One of a handful of truly popular American artists, Chihuly and his gorgeous works will bring new audiences to the conservatories, quiet spaces that many folks overlook in the all-American mission called “diversion.”

(Many thanks to Mimi Pickering for the tip and the photo—with a Chihuly “Flower” at The Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas.)

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Belated Brides

In Taipei, “comfort women” are honored with white dresses and flowers after 60 years’ disgrace.

Six women, ages 82-90, who’d been forced into
wartime sex labor by Japan’s military during WW II,
were honored as brides in Taipei on Tuesday
Photo: Chiang Ying-ying, for AP

Cheng Chen-tao “was a student at Tainan Girl’s School. One day, as she was passing the police station, Japanese police officers seized her and sent her abroad to serve as a ‘sex slave.’

“After coming back, she didn’t tell anyone about her painful experience. She tried to kill herself twice. Her family members said they couldn’t live with the fact that she had served as a prostitute.”

They were called “comfort women,” the tens of thousands of girls kidnapped and forced into sex slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. The Japanese government rationalized its barbarism as hygienic, sexual containment. Between 80,000 and 200,000 women were subjected to this policy of rape, in Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Dutch East Indies. Some, like Cheng Chen-tao, have only spoken up in recent years.

“Comfort Women” in Korea
Photo: The Seoul Times

Many thousands of these women have died, but some of the survivors are coming forward now, to describe what happened and demand reparations from Japan.

In Taipei, a few former “comfort women” bravely were honored with a special ceremony on Tuesday, April 18: a wedding. “Six women—ranging in age from 82 to 90—came together in Taipei to put on white wedding dresses, hold bouquets and have their pictures taken.” Cheng Chen-tao was among them.

Why flowers and a wedding? “After Japan ended its 50-year occupation of Taiwan in 1945, many of the women were rejected as ‘damaged goods’ by their relatives and never found a spouse.” They bore the past as a shameful, personal secret.

But a bride stands before the public, to be acknowledged for her beauty and worth. She carries flowers as the fragile, glorious emblem of her sexuality. So how fitting that the Women’s Rescue Foundation, which organized Tuesday’s event, had a beautiful bouquet for every “bride.” May these flowers be a small reparation.

Here are more resources on the history of these war crimes and the survivors, as well as a special site created by the Seoul Times.