“Three Friends of Winter”

The Christmas tree is already standing in the corner, still bare, without baubles or lights, as if it were holding its breath. The apartment is warm; in the air floats a subtle suggestion of resin, and that hard-to-name scent of a winter forest that has suddenly become domestic. I touch the needles and feel their truth: sharpness, spring, stubbornness. In winter, the truth about plants becomes visible — most lose their leaves, their color, their strength; the landscape turns modest, ascetic, ruthless. And yet there are three such “figures” that keep their face: the pine does not stop being green, the bamboo will not break even in a blizzard, and the plum can unfold its flower even when frost still holds the world in an icy grip. In Japan, these three plants — 松竹梅 (shōchikubai) — became one of the most beautiful winter languages of hope: not naïve, but calm, tested by cold.

It’s possible you once encountered them entirely by accident, in a place less “poetic”: on a menu in a Japanese restaurant or on a bento card. Three versions of the same dish labeled matsu / take / ume with little icons of branches of those trees—without the words “premium” and “standard” and “budget,” without embarrassment, without ostentation, and instead with an elegance that puts no one ill at ease. It is a small thing, and yet it says a great deal about a Japanese way of being: language there can work like a soft glove, and tradition can slip into everyday life so discreetly that you don’t even notice it—until you stop for a moment and ask: why exactly these plants? Why exactly these words?

In this text we will try to do something simple, but I hope interesting: to sit beneath a Polish Christmas tree and learn to read its green in another script. We will see how pine, bamboo, and plum became a triad that is not a mere enumeration, but a tension between qualities: hard and soft, stable and moving, austere and fragile—exactly as Japanese art likes it, from ornaments on textiles to patterns on lacquer and ceramics. And perhaps, when at the end you hang the first bauble, you will feel that this tree is no longer standing there only “for the holidays”—it stands also as a quiet sign that both in Yamato and in Slavic lands we have long liked to have a bit of green at home when all around is only white.

The touch of winter and two languages of green

In a Polish December, the Christmas tree always arrives a little earlier than Christmas itself. At first there is only the home: the warmth of radiators, the soft glow of a lamp, the quiet rustle of paper as you secretly wrap presents. Then you carry in the tree—and suddenly the forest appears in the room. Your fingers meet the needles: springy, sharp, real. Resin remains on them, barely perceptible and yet immediate, like a sign that in this apartment there is now something that has not yielded to winter. Through the window you see a dark, early afternoon; outside, the world is spare, almost monochrome, and inside—a new order—a green point of gravity that cannot be mistaken for any other season.

Admiring in our room the newly brought-in tree, still without any ornaments, I find myself wondering: why do we need green so much in winter? Why do we want something to symbolize life when everything in the white around us looks like a rest from life itself?

Japan has, at this time, its own winter language of green—not in the living room, but at the entrance: in New Year decorations that announce the beginning of a cycle, and therefore in a slightly different way. And it is precisely this “different” that is fascinating—we do like, after all, to discover other ways of looking at the world in order to enrich our own.

In Japan, instead of one tree at the center of the room, a triad appears: 松竹梅 (shōchikubai), that is, pine, bamboo, and plum—a set which, in the Japanese sensing of winter, does not so much “decorate” a space as it orders the imagination: durability, elasticity, and the first breath of spring still in frost. In a dictionary shorthand it is simply “an auspicious set”—but in practice it is a whole cultural sentence about how one passes through a time that is difficult, cold, uncertain.

松竹梅 — three kanji and a forest of meanings

In a Polish home, when mandarins, walnuts, and gift-wrapping paper land on the table, it is easy to overlook that language, too, can be festive. Not in the sense of “pretty words,” but in the sense of a quiet ceremony: certain sounds and signs that transport you into a different order of thinking. Shōchikubai is perfect for this, because here language and symbolism are like two sides of the same Christmas wafer—you cannot truly separate them.

In Japanese, these three plants have two basic ways of “sounding.” The first is everyday, domestic, like a conversation in the kitchen: these are the kunyomi readings, the “Japanese” pronunciations of the characters. Pine is 松 read as まつ (matsu), bamboo is 竹 read as たけ (take), and plum is 梅 read as うめ (ume). These forms are soft, natural, as if the plants were standing just beyond the window.

The second register is more ceremonial, a little more “lacquered,” like a plaque at a shrine or an inscription on a gift fan. This is onyomi, the Sino-Japanese readings—sounds that came to Japan along with writing, Buddhism, administration, and the whole package of high culture from China. In this register, pine, bamboo, and plum no longer sound like three little trees from a garden, but like one deep concept: 松竹梅 read as しょうちくばい (shōchikubai, as in the title of our article). This very sound is like a small cultural import: within it you can hear the route of the idea—from China, through the elite circles of scholars and the court, all the way into everyday life, where the motif became a sign of “good fortune,” a New Year decoration, a pattern on fabric, and even a system of quality levels on a restaurant menu.

This duality is not a detail for linguists. It says something essential about Japan: about how, within one society, two styles of sensing the world can coexist. One stays close to nature and daily life; the other carries the taste of the tradition of writing, ceremony, and “things elevated.” And both are true—depending on whether you speak about a branch in your hand or about a symbol that is meant to “set” an entire home into a good rhythm for the New Year.

And now let us look at the characters themselves, because kanji here are like miniature stories. Each of them carries a “micro-symbolism” that works even when you do not analyze it consciously.

松

松 (pine) begins with the radical 木, “tree.” This element is like a trunk—the core of meaning. The second part of the character serves a phonetic function (公 – “public”), helping with the reading. The character is simple, almost ascetic—and perhaps that is why it fits the pine so well, because in Japanese sensibility the pine does not shout with color or flower; it speaks through calm and a long breath.

竹

竹 (bamboo) is even more intriguing: it looks like two stalks, or rather like two “bamboo shoots” with leaves, written quickly, like a brush sketch. It is a character that, in a sense, is itself an image. In Japan, bamboo is a plant of extraordinarily versatile use: from bamboo one makes fences, baskets, spoons, tea utensils, architectural elements, and in earlier times—also various everyday objects meant to be light, strong, and springy. This practicality made bamboo so significant that 竹 also functions as a radical in other characters.

It is worth noting that in the character 竹 (bamboo) we do not have the tree radical 木. And this is for a particular reason: in Japanese tradition bamboo is not regarded as a tree, and its material—as wood. It constitutes a separate, independent category of materials. Something can be made of stone, wood, or precisely bamboo. And we see this in the very absence of the tree radical 木 in the character 竹.

梅

梅 (plum, ume)—here we again have 木, “tree”—and next to it 毎, an element associated with “each, always, regularly.” This too is a phonetic element, but not only that. We can see in it a certain rhythm of return: something that repeats not as a mechanical routine but as a cycle of nature. The plum, in Japanese feeling, is a tree of “beginnings”: it can bloom when winter has not yet let go, and that is why its flower is often understood as subtle courage. Not triumph, not fireworks—just a quiet gesture: “it has already begun.”

And here you can see how beautifully language intertwines with custom. When a Japanese person says “shōchikubai,” they do not think only of three plants. They think of a certain order of the world: that in winter it is not merely about survival, but about preserving form, dignity, and hope—of a kind that is not naïve, because it knows the cold. In Poland, the Christmas tree can be the heart of the home, an indispensable element of late December. And in Japan these three plants return in winter as signs of good fortune and beginnings—especially in the space of the threshold, in New Year decorations. Although each of the trees has its own symbolism, together they form something else as well—Kadomatsu.

Kadomatsu — what exactly is it?

Kadomatsu (門松) is a New Year decoration placed at the entrance to a home, a gate, a shop, or an office—usually in pairs, on both sides of the door. It is set out for shōgatsu, the Japanese New Year: traditionally at the end of December, and kept through the first days of January (most often until January 7, sometimes longer—depending on region and custom). There is a certain difference from the Polish Christmas tree—kadomatsu is usually not an “indoor decoration,” like our good old holiday tree, but a sign on the threshold: the home communicates to the world and to the deities that it is ready for a new cycle.

It looks like a bundle of plants formed into a vertical composition. The most characteristic elements are three pieces of bamboo of different heights, often cut on a diagonal so that their cross-sections are clearly visible; beside and around them are pine branches and also branches of ume plum. The whole is sometimes tied with rice straw, set into a base of woven material, and sometimes adorned with seasonal additions: fern, yuzu leaves (a citrus), red berries, and in more formal versions also decorative cords or paper elements with a purifying character.

Symbolically, kadomatsu acts like an “address” and an “invitation”: it is a place where luck and goodness are meant to stop—as if you were placing in front of the house a green sign that says: “happiness—here, come here!” When you look at it closely, you can see it is not a random bouquet: the composition is austere, wintry, full of tension between hard bamboo, soft pine, and delicate ume—exactly like the winter time between an ending and a start.

How did it begin?

In China, this story did not begin with decoration, but with a way of seeing. 歳寒三友 (in Japanese read: saikan sanyū) — “The Three Friends of Winter” — is a concept that grew in the world of scholars, poets, and painters. In winter, the truth about plants is visible: most lose their leaves, their color, their strength; the landscape becomes modest and ruthless. And yet there are three such “figures” that keep their face: the pine does not stop being green, the bamboo, despite wind, does not break but bends and returns, and the plum can bloom when frost still holds the whole world in its claws. This was taught as a moral lesson—not in the sense of a school sermon, but in the sense of a discreet ethics: how to keep one’s form when the world wants to take it away. Therefore this motif appeared in poetry and painting not as a “pretty pattern” but as a portrait of a person who keeps their strength in a difficult time. In this symbolism it is not about excessive optimism or a promise that “things will be fine.” It is about something more mature: dignity, resilience without bravado, a quiet strength that does not need applause.

Over time this image became one of the favorite themes of literary and painterly art. In the tradition of the scholar-painter (the one that valued the simplicity of ink, the economy of gesture, and meaning hidden in nature), pine, bamboo, and plum returned like three letters of an alphabet. One could paint only bamboo and speak of sincerity; one could paint a pine in snow and speak of endurance; one could paint a plum branch with a few blossoms and speak of the courage of beginnings. This motif was also convenient in a philosophical sense: it allowed one to speak of virtue without moralizing, because nature “spoke for itself.” This is how a symbol is born that is wise: it does not explain itself by force—it simply offers an image, and a person supplies the rest.

In time, in Japan the emphasis shifted: what in China was primarily the moral ideal of the scholar began to function more and more as a sign of “medetai”—good fortune, celebration, a good beginning. In other words: the spirit does not disappear, but it changes clothes. Instead of meditations on character, practice also appears: decorating, giving, adorning, “setting the world” for the new year.

That is why 松竹梅 appears on objects that accompany transitions—New Year, wedding, birth, ceremonies. That is why we see it in New Year decorations, like kadomatsu, where elements of pine, bamboo, and sometimes ume stand at the threshold of the home like a living sign: “here is the beginning.” That is also why the Japanese can use this triad in everyday life, even on a restaurant menu, as an elegant way of saying: “there are three levels”—without embarrassment, without ostentation, in the language of tradition.

In many Japanese restaurants or on bento menus you will find three versions of the same dish described as matsu / take / ume—this is simply three levels of quality or “richness” of the set (most often matsu is the highest, take in the middle, ume the simplest). Instead of writing outright “premium / standard / budget,” traditional plant names are used, making the choice sound more cultured and less judgmental—no one feels they are ordering “the cheaper version,” only one of three elegantly named options. It is also a clever, very Japanese way of preserving social comfort: language helps avoid ostentation and awkwardness, while remaining clear to everyone.

And yet—and this is the most beautiful and most important thing—and it is to this that we will devote the rest of the article—in this motif of “making auspicious” its original gravity does not vanish. Shōchikubai still speaks of winter that is not decoration. It still speaks of the fact that life has periods of cooling: psychological, social, historical. And that in such periods a person needs not so much loud hope as small, certain signs: something green that endures; something springy that does not crack; and something delicate that nevertheless can be the first to bloom. In this sense shōchikubai is very “holiday-like”—but wisely so: not kitsch, but deep, though simple. Below we will get to know better the symbolism of the individual elements of this triad, in order to understand not only shōchikubai, but in the future also Japanese art—in which these trees often play a very important role.

Pine

松 (matsu)

endurance, memory, keeping watch at the threshold, longevity

In the Japanese imagination, the pine (松・まつ / matsu) is a tree with very strong symbolism, one often reached for by artists and poets. It stays green when the landscape loses color—and this ordinary botanical feature has been read as a sign of longevity, constancy, and fidelity to form. The pine appears not only as a plant but as a symbol of time: something that stands in the background of human changes and, through its very endurance in the face of human mutability, teaches humility.

In kadomatsu, pine branches are a signal that the home is ready for a new cycle, that the entrance has been “set” to receive auspiciousness. But the pine is present elsewhere too: in the tradition of nō theatre, a painted pine often appears on the back wall of the stage—kagami-ita—not as decoration in a European sense, but as a sign of a constant background, an “axis of the world” that does not change with the human drama. In ink painting, the pine can in turn be a subject that trains the hand and the mind: trunk, needles, the rhythm of branches—it teaches discipline of gesture.

Our Christmas tree, too, is essentially the emotion of an evergreen conifer. No one brings a spruce into the home because they “like botany.” They bring it because they need something that looks like life when the world outside grows austere. The Japanese pine speaks in a similar voice, only less “holiday-like.”

Bamboo

竹 (take)

flexibility without capitulation, survival, usefulness

Bamboo (竹・たけ / take / chiku) is one of Japan’s most interesting symbols precisely because its strength is not obvious at first glance. Bamboo is hard, and yet it bends; it grows quickly, but it does not “show off” with flowers; it can survive winter while remaining green. From this arose a symbolism of resilience, resistance, and growth that in Japanese feeling is deeply anti-heroic: to “survive” does not mean to be hard like rock. Bamboo teaches a form that does not crack. And in the character 竹 itself there is something almost drawn: it looks like two stalks, like a quick brush sketch. It is one of those cases where writing not only names the world, but imitates it.

Importantly, bamboo in Japan is at once a symbol and a tool. It is a practical material: fences, baskets, spoons, tubes, architectural elements, implements for the tea ceremony. Through this “tool-ness,” bamboo also became a boundary material—one that orders space. In Shintō, temporary places of the sacred can be marked very simply: with green branches, posts, a rope. Bamboo is perfectly suited to this, because it is straight, clean in line, and it immediately “creates a frame” for the world. In this sense bamboo is a symbol of protection not because it “has magical power,” but because culture has long used it to create order: here is a boundary, here is a threshold.

In art, bamboo is above all a symbol and a school of minimalism. In ink painting, a few brushstrokes can carry an entire story: the thin line of the stalk, short, sharp leaves, the rhythm of the wind. Bamboo is therefore an ideal subject for Zen sensibility: it shows how, with a small number of means, one can draw out a maximum of presence.

Plum

梅 (ume)

the courage of beginnings

Plum (梅・うめ / ume, in Sino-Japanese sound bai) is the most “psychological” within this triad. The pine is long-lived; bamboo is durable. Ume is subtler than both, and Japanese culture returns to it as readily as it does to sakura. It is a symbol of the courage of first steps because it blooms early, when it is still cold. And it is not a triumphant blooming but a discreet one—delicate petals, sometimes against a background of snow, often first a fragrance, and only then color. Therefore ume became in Japan a sign of quiet courage, hope without noise, a beginning that does not wait for ideal conditions.

Ume also has in Japan a very concrete historical-literary biography. Before sakura became an absolute icon, early Japanese poetic sensibility for a long time tasted ume precisely—its scent, its “earliness,” its elegance. And later a layer was added that made ume a symbol of culture and learning: the figure of Sugawara no Michizane—a scholar and poet of the Heian period, after death worshiped as Tenjin, patron of learning and calligraphy (more about him you will read here: Tenjin – Thanks to his talents, he got a high position despite being an outsider. They destroyed him. He avenged himself from beyond the grave.). With ume is connected one of the most human scenes of this tradition: Michizane, exiled from Kyoto, was said to bid farewell to his plum and ask it not to forget spring. That is why to this day at Tenjin shrines you will often see plum trees—not as “pretty little trees,” but as a living reminder that learning and sensitivity are also a form of fidelity: to someone, to something, to what is best in us.

“When the east wind blows,
let your fragrance awaken,
O plum blossoms—
though your master is no longer here,
do not forget the spring.”

東風吹かば　匂ひおこせよ　梅の花
主なしとて　春を忘るな

(Kochi fukaba / nioi okose yo / ume no hana / aruji nashi tote / haru o wasuru na)

- Sugawara no Michizane (菅原道真),

around 901 (the day before exile to Dazaifu) Kyoto,

Michizane’s residence, “Shūi Wakashū” (拾遺和歌集)

The shōchikubai triad

The shōchikubai triad functions in Japan above all as a complete phrase, not as a list of “best–average–worst” (as it nonetheless happens to be in restaurants). Pine, bamboo, and plum are three different answers to the same question: what does life do when it turns cold—in nature and in a person. Pine holds the line, bamboo takes pressure without breaking, and plum gives the first sign of movement toward thaw. Only together do they form a mature image: they do not promise that winter will vanish, but show how one can pass through it without losing dignity, without theatrical toughness, and without naïve hope.

You can see this also in how the triad works in aesthetics. Japanese art likes juxtapositions that are not a “counting rhyme,” but a tension between qualities: hard and soft, stable and moving, austere and fragile. Shōchikubai is exactly such a tension—which is why it entered so naturally into ornamentation on textiles, into lacquer, into ceramics, into small everyday objects that were meant not only to please the eye but also to “tune” the home.

Most telling, however, is where these plants are placed. In a Polish home, the tree usually stands in the middle—it is the center around which the family gathers (okay, perhaps it usually stands in the corner of the room, but it is still strongly displayed). In Japan, shōchikubai in its most classic, New Year form appears on the threshold, in kadomatsu and related entrance decorations. It is the logic of the boundary: the threshold is not only architecture, but a place of passage, where the “outside world” meets the “inside of the home,” and thus its order. In Shintō New Year thinking it is the threshold that must be cleansed, ordered, and prepared, so it can receive what is auspicious.

In the background is a very Japanese concept: yorishiro—a material “point of anchoring” in which the presence of the sacred can manifest. Kadomatsu and other New Year entrance signs thus function as a polite, precise invitation for Toshigami—the deity of the New Year, who brings blessing, abundance, and protection for the coming cycle. And here shōchikubai shows its deepest function: it is not decoration “so that it looks nice,” but a culture of the threshold, a culture of welcome, a culture of order.

Holiday reflections

I touch the needles of our Christmas tree—and in that small sharpness at once a thought appears about the pine: about a green that does not need to be excessively joyful in order to be faithful to life. These symbols are not “Japanese” or “Polish” in the sense of ownership. They are rather ways of reading the same experience: winter, which can be beautiful but can also be heavy; time, which demands patience and character from a person. Shōchikubai does not ask us to pretend to be Japanese, just as the Christmas tree does not ask us to pretend to be ancient Slavs. Both worlds teach something simple and mature: that ritual is not theatre, but a method of ordering the heart—and that nature can be a language, if we know how to listen to it.

It is about widening one’s own vocabulary of feeling. So that in December, here in Poland—amid the warmth of the home, the evening silence, and the scent of resin—we can feel those ancient symbols and what people living centuries ago both in Slavic lands and in Yamato saw in these trees: the pine that endures; the bamboo that returns; the ume that inspires. And that is entirely enough for the Christmas tree to become not only beautiful, but also wise.

>> SEE ALSO SIMILAR ARTICLES:

Christmas in Japan? Sanders-Santa from KFC, German Sausage Markets, and Funny Gifts for 100 Yen

Trees That Survived the Atomic Bomb of Hiroshima: When the First, Delicate Buds of Hibakujumoku Emerge from the Darkness of Despair, Rubble, Radiation, and Death

A Profound Bond Between Humans and Trees in Japanese Culture and Ukiyo-e Art

The Aokigahara Suicide Forest: What Secrets Do the Silent Trees Guard?

Forest Bathing Shinrin-yoku – Breathe Among Japanese Cypress or Polish Beech Trees, and Let the World Wait

"Strong Japanese Women"

see book by the author

of the page

    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

Write us...

Ciechanów, Polska

dr.imyon@gmail.com

___________________

inari.smart

Would you like to share your thoughts or feedback about our website or app? Leave us a message, and we’ll get back to you quickly. We value your perspective!