Lighting the Way

Each year, the National Park Service and the National Council of State Societies conduct the Lantern Lighting Ceremony, for which the Embassy of Japan appoints a Cherry Blossom Princess, and as the audience counts down from five, the lantern is lit in a traditional event that signals the arrival of spring in the Nation’s Capital. Originally offered in 1921 to complement Japan’s 1912 gift of flowering cherry trees, this 20-ton, 17th century stone lantern soon fell victim to deteriorating relations between the United States and Japan. For thirty-two more years it stood next to its twin in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, awaiting developments. Tensions erupted on December 7, 1941 after the Japanese military bombed U.S. naval forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. When cultural ties, peace, amity and commerce reemerged following World War II, Ambassador Sadao Iguchi of Japan presented the lantern to the city of Washington, D.C. Dedicated on March 30, 1954, the lantern celebrates the centennial of the opening of peaceful relations between the two nations. This 1854 event is also honored by a Washington Monument commemorative stone, a United States Navy Memorial bas-relief, and the Japanese pagoda on the opposite side of the Tidal Basin.

Arlington, Virginia · United States