My coworkers recently introduced me to a new meaning for the word さくら. The way I understand it is that it can mean insiders posing as legit reviewers or participants to help boost appearance.
Context: We ran a poetry contest at one of our parks, but not many people submitted anything so our office was asked to write up a bunch of fake submissions, referring to us as Sakura. (kind of jokingly)
Does anyone have a jisho link they can share with this meaning? I’d like to look it up but can’t find this usage.
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Ah, I found an answer to those interested [here](https://www.event-partners.net/trivia/sakura/#:~:text=%E3%82%B5%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AF%EF%BC%9F,%E3%82%82%E3%81%82%E3%81%A3%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8A%E3%81%97%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99%E3%80%82). It’s written as 偽客 and it’s meaning is what I thought but can also be an in person event where staff pose are regular customers to make the event bigger. Reminds me of a campaign rally lol.
From 明鏡: さくら
［名］講演会などで、他の聴衆に共鳴を起こさせるために聴衆にまじって講演者に賛同の声などをかける人。また、露店などで、客の買い気をそそるために、客のふりをして品物をほめたり買ったりする仲間の人。
［参考］「花はただで見る」意から、芝居を無料で見物する代わりになれ合いで役者に声をかける者をいい、そこから生じたという。
Yes I was taught this too when I first studied in Japan 10 years ago. I also worked at a restaurant in a hotel/onsen place, and one of my coworkers once changed to his casual clothes mid-shift. I asked him if he was going home early, and he said the manager asked him and another coworker to be さくら for a bit.
My dictionary app Takoboto has this definition as well.
https://www.weblio.jp/content/さくら
See the last definition at the bottom. As a general tip it is helpful to google さくら 意味. This will being up results including various JP-JP dictionary definitions.
Interestingly this is known as a “plant” in English. 🙂
> Does anyone have a jisho link
what dictionary do you usually use?
it’s the second definition on jisho.org
> fake buyer; paid audience; shill; seat filler
[link](https://jisho.org/word/%E6%A1%9C)
Something vaguely similar to this that surprised me a few months ago is that 山 can mean winging it on a test by filling in answers randomly. This apparently comes from the prospecting rush era where picking the correct mountain to invest in depended on luck.