Page 39 - Tài liệu Ebook cây cảnh Bonsai and Penjing

could be left if alternated. Well that idea did not go over very well with Skip and

he again politely said, “no, Mr. President,” and the president desisted, much to
the relief of the White House Garden staff. Then the president went off to greet
the prime minister, and Skip had the opportunity to watch the ceremony from the
Blue Room.

Saburo Kato (far left) joined Prime Minister Obuchi and Mrs. Obuchi and President and Mrs.
Clinton in admiring the Ezo Spruce at the White House in 1999.
Bonsai were also on view at the White House when Prime Minister Keizō
Obuchi visited President William Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton in
1998. Saburo Kato, Chairman of the Nippon Bonsai Association and a key figure
in the donation of the Bicentennial Gift from Japan, was present, accompanying
the prime minister, his bonsai student. Obuchi’s gift to Clinton in 1998 of an Ezo
Spruce collected by Kato in the 1930s and a tiger-stripe stone given by former
Prime Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka were displayed when Clinton visited Japan.
The stone, honoring 1998 as a Year of the Tiger in Asian calendars, is from the
Setagawa River area in the Shiga and Kyoto prefectures.

Bonsai from the museum again graced the White House when President
George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush hosted a dinner honoring Japan’s
Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi in 2006. A Eurya (Eurya emarginata), in
training since 1970, served as a focal point in the Blue Room, while an Ezo
Spruce (Picea glehnii) and a Japanese White Pine (Pinus parviflora) were placed
elsewhere.
Other nations also use bonsai as the highest level of diplomatic gifts. His
Majesty King Hassan II of Morocco gave President Ronald Reagan and First
Lady Nancy Reagan two Japanese bonsai from his personal collection in 1983.
The king’s Japanese White Pine (Pinus parviflora) survives to this day and has
been in training since 1832.
The United States also uses trees as national gifts. In April 2012, 3,000
dogwoods were given to Japan in honor of the centennial of the gift of flowering