いま北海道に来ている。で、思いがけず、また花見をする事になった。といっても、あいにくの曇り空だったので、弁当は広げずに桜を見ながら歩いただけ。場所は石狩市の厚田にある、とある新興宗教の墓地公園。ワタシも一緒に行った人間もコチラの団体とは関係が一切ないのだけど、サクラの時期は誰でも敷地内に入れる事になっているので行ってみた。花見客に対しての布教活動などは全く何もない。信者の姿さえ見かけなかった。でも、8,000本のソメイヨシノとキレイに手入れされている墓地公園を見せつけられる事自体が、ものすごく上手な勧誘キャンペーンだったりして。
I'm in
Hokaido now, and I had another chance of cherry blossom viewing (the cherry blossom season is over in Tokyo about a month ago). Unfortunately the weather wasn't good, so we didn't take our lunch boxes but we walked around in the park. The strange thing was the park is owned by big
'newly risen religion' group in Japan. We are not interested in their system, but their cemetery and memorial park is open for public every year during the cherry blossom season. There were no recruitment, I didn't even see any members, but I thought opening their huge and well treated park and showing off 8,000 of beautiful cherry blossom trees might be a biggest recruitment campaign...
