'Let's go cherry-blossom viewing' (anti-war league leaflet to Japanese troops)
A small Japanese-language leaflet on brown paper, framed in red, with red cherry blossoms at the top right, the title 'Let's go cherry-blossom viewing' in large characters and a red drawing of a woman in kimono at the lower left. The vertical text describes spring blossoms at home, says soldiers can only see them in dreams, calls war the cause of all misfortune and urges 'dear brothers' to stop the war and go home. The tell is a beloved seasonal ritual attached to the request to quit fighting.
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Su-Zhong branch, Anti-War League of the Japanese People in China (as attributed on Wikimedia Commons)
- Region
- East Asia
- Country
- China
- Medium
- Leaflet
- Issuer type
- Movement
- Regime
- Nanjing Nationalist Government
- Leader
- Chiang Kai Shek
- Audience
- Enemy forces
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- War and the military, Home front
- Event
- Second Sino Japanese War
- Techniques
- Transfer
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 4.0 (photograph by 三猎 on Commons; 1943 wartime leaflet)
Photo: 三猎, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; object in the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Text on the object
櫻見に行かう 暖かい春は我の身邊に訪れて來た、内地の櫻は美しく華かに咲き爛れた、丁度エンゼルの樣な美しい笑顔をして我等を手招きして居る、青年男女の血沸き胸躍く花見の季節はやつて來たのだ。紅男綠女手に手を携へ、或は一家揃ひで日本全國を擧げて咲き爛れた櫻の下で歌つたり踊つたり飲んだりして歡樂の幸福に恵れたのはもう昔話しとなり、我等戰友に取つて櫻見はもう夢にしか出來なくなつた、そればかりか銃后の家族さへも日夜に繼げての戰時勤務で櫻見どころの騷ぎではなくなつた。 惜しいかな虛しく咲く彼の美しい櫻、櫻は何が爲誰が爲に咲いたやら、そして我等戰友は一体何が爲誰が爲に千辛萬苦を重ねなければならないのか、その結果何等得る所ないばかりかロハで出來る櫻見にさへ行けないのだ。 一切の不幸は皆戰爭の賜物なのだ、戰爭は我等から一切の幸福を奪ひ盡して仕舞つたのだ！ 親愛なる兄弟、忌はしい戰爭を止めて懷しい古里に歸らうよ、櫻見に行かうよ 君の同情者より 中華民國卅二 [a few small marginal marks near the text block, illegible]
Let's go cherry-blossom viewing Warm spring has come to our side. The cherry blossoms of the homeland are in glorious bloom, beckoning to us with smiles as beautiful as an angel's. The blood-stirring, heart-leaping cherry-blossom season has come for young men and women. Couples hand in hand, or whole families, all over Japan, singing, dancing and drinking beneath the blossoms in happy revelry: that is already a tale of the past. For us comrades, blossom viewing can only be seen in dreams now, and even our families in the rear, working wartime duties day and night, have no time for blossom viewing. Alas, those beautiful cherries that bloom in vain: for what, for whom did the blossoms bloom? And for what and for whom must we comrades endure a thousand hardships? Not only do we gain nothing from it, we cannot even go to see the blossoms, which are free. All misfortune is the product of war; war has robbed us of all happiness! Dear brothers, let us stop the hateful war, return to our dear old home, and go to see the cherry blossoms. From your sympathiser Republic of China, year 32
