The Essentials of Bonsai

A bon is a tray or salver, sai is a dependent noun meaning "grow" and the word bonsai means something growing in a shallow container, a tree in a pot. The emphasis, it will be noted is upon living and growing, the nuance is that the bonsai is entirely natural. When the West speaks of bonsai it uses the term "dwarfed tree," and at once a difference in attitude between East and West becomes apparent. The nuance is that something has been made less than normal, perhaps even less than natural. We assume that the bonsai is stunted, made other than it might have been. They, the Japanese, assume that the small size of the tree increases rather than decreases our appreciation of the nature inherent in it.