poetic greeting

In Japan, it is a conventional manner that you write a few lines of greetings before writing the actual message in organizations. A student brought a sheet, showed it to me with admiration. "Mrs. Shiomi, how poetic a Japanese letter is!!" It began with, "Spring has come. The flowers in the yards are blooming beautifully. And the birds are singing happily. Our children spend very nice time with them. By the way, ...." Actually in these kind of letters, all you need to read is after "by the way". But my student spent 2 hours to understand the part of the "poetic" greeting, using a dictionary. He looked happy, but I felt sorry for him.

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