
New emperor, new era: How a single word defines Japan - rwmj
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47729398
======
Danieru
In the article they mention the "leaked" era name "ankyu". This leak I expect
was more of a political joke and never a true candidate.

Ankyu would be 安久 and thus mean "peace forever". Except the current prime
minister Shinzo Abe's Abe is 安倍, notice the same first charcter. Thus the
double meaning of Ankyu would be "Abe Forever".

~~~
Barrin92
strongmen stubbornly refusing to abdicate their office would however be very
much in the spirit of modern times.

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JetSpiegel
So that's why there was this Java update a few weeks ago...

    
    
        --------------------- java-8-openjdk/calendars.properties ---------------------
        index 49f68ac..8ffee4c 100644
        @@ -29,12 +29,14 @@
         #   Taisho since 1912-07-30 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
         #   Showa  since 1926-12-25 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
         #   Heisei since 1989-01-08 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
        +#   NewEra since 2019-05-01 00:00:00 local time (Gregorian)
         calendar.japanese.type: LocalGregorianCalendar
         calendar.japanese.eras: \
          name=Meiji,abbr=M,since=-3218832000000;  \
          name=Taisho,abbr=T,since=-1812153600000; \
          name=Showa,abbr=S,since=-1357603200000;  \
        - name=Heisei,abbr=H,since=600220800000
        + name=Heisei,abbr=H,since=600220800000;   \
        + name=NewEra,abbr=N,since=1556668800000

------
warabe
Disclaimer: I am a Japanese national who was born and raised in this country.

For god sake, I really hope fellow Japanese people stop using this inefficient
and confusing year counting system.

Every time I’m asked what Heisei this year is, I don’t remember, so I have to
open safari! It is really annoying.

Besides, who cares about who will become next emeperor of Japan. I would not
care if current emperor suddenly die tomorrow. This might sound very
disgraceful, but I rather hope the royal family of Japan vanish along with
old-fashioned tradition.

~~~
kazinator
It's just "subtract 1988".

~~~
mamon
Which makes it very easy for all people who were born in 1988, but
inconvenient for everyone else :)

~~~
sombremesa
Makes it easier for people born in 1987.

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_old_dude_
One issue is that most programming languages links their version to a
particular unicode version, by example, .NET 4 supports Unicode 5.1 while .NET
4.5 supports Unicode 6, etc.

The new Era will be soon supported by Unicode 12.1 [1]. For older version of
.Net (or Java) you also need to support the new Era without supporting the
whole Unicode 12.1 spec, introducing a non backward compatibility behavior
because the new code point U+32FF has now a different meaning.

Currently we have already added tests for the new code point in all our
supported applications and are ready to update them using the same channel as
a security issue.

[1] [http://blog.unicode.org/2018/09/new-japanese-
era.html](http://blog.unicode.org/2018/09/new-japanese-era.html)

~~~
tecleandor
Oh, interesting, didn't know that they "create" a new Kanji with the sum of
all the possible kanjis in the Era name. Two questions:

\- Should I be safe in the way that, even in my software doesn't support that
unicode version, or my font doesn't have that symbol, I'll at least get a
"notdef" or whatever symbol and not break everything? \- what if the new name
is composed by just one Kanji? Is it getting an unicode symbol anyway? Is it
considered a different Kanji?

~~~
Freak_NL
> what if the new name is composed by just one Kanji?

It will be two existing kanji. That's pretty much a given.

Don't worry about it. These compound characters are compatibility characters
for older software, and for use as a compact notation in print (i.e., it is
mostly a display issue). Any new code point assigned will not be in use now
(U+32FF), so you won't break anything. Your software may display a box with
the code point address in it, or just an empty box, instead of a glyph from
one of the installed fonts.

If you deal with years written with the era name, you tend to get them written
as two characters. This year (until the abdication) is 平成３１年 (year 31 of
Heisei).

Abbreviations do occur; you will then get only the first character of the name
era, so 平３１. This is why the new name will not start with 平, 昭, 大, or 明 (the
first characters of the past four era names).

~~~
eloisant
I believe newspapers are the most likely to use compounds, like they do for
katakana, e.g. ㌔ for キロ.

~~~
Freak_NL
The compound characters are also very useful for compact typography in tables,
including public transport timetables.

------
LeonidasXIV
Fun fact: Taiwan (ROC) also has an unusual year counting scheme, where they
count from the founding of the Republic of China.

I once bought a Japanese product in Taiwan which had an expiration date using
Japanese years, included a ROC year translation of said date and the receipt
was printed with the gregorian year. Three different counting schemes in just
one transaction, quite amusing.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (aka North Korea) uses what is
basically the same scheme, and calls it the Juche calendar. That it counts
from the same year is coincidental.

~~~
sanxiyn
Even more coincidence: Japanese era Taisho also counts from the same year
(1912).

------
rwmj
I wonder if anyone here will be working hard in April to implement the new era
in software?

~~~
ken
Shouldn't be much work at all to add another name and offset. This isn't the
first era change in my lifetime, and date libraries should already support the
basic concept, e.g.,
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsdatec...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsdatecomponents/1416364-era)

~~~
eloisant
Well this is the first era change in the life on many software and libraries,
so while everyone knew it was coming sooner or later most software have never
been tested in "real life".

I just hope no Japanese developer stored dates as "era+month+day" instead of
Gregorian or epoch (or relying on a library that does).

~~~
innocenat
You bet there are. Many old Japanese system still store 2019 as Showa 94.

------
B-Con
> Era names typically come from Chinese classical texts, and are usually only
> revealed when one emperor has died and another has taken the Chrysanthemum
> Throne.

Chinese? I'm guessing that's a typo. Not only would Japanese obviously fit
better, but considering the bad blood between Japan and China I think they'd
sooner not choose a word than choose one from China.

~~~
krapp
All kanji were originally Chinese, and still have an original Chinese reading
along with Japanese.

~~~
B-Con
Oh, they're reading _very_ old texts then. That wasn't the time frame I
thought of when it said "classic".

------
sonnyblarney
"According to news outlet Nikkei, the name-picking process has been rehearsed
at least once a year for over 30 years, so officials are always primed for
"The Day"."

I don't even care how inefficient this seems to Western sensibilities ... I
love this.

~~~
hudibras
[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-
happens...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-
queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge)

~~~
sonnyblarney
My undergraduate school that I won't name was located on a 'land locked ship'
in Canada. It was literally land, but commissioned and christened in the Royal
Navy as a ship in the 19th century.

When they closed it, they had no idea what to do, and the Canadian Navy had to
call up the Royal Navy to figure out the protocol.

They didn't know either.

So they had to dig through their own records to figure out the right protocol.

And then we did it: a 'ship decomisioning ceremony' for a land-locked ship,
which I don't think has been done in a very long time in the UK/Empire, and
probably never in Canada.

Pretty much the entire W. Coast Canadian Navy 'paraded by' ship by ship, and a
few other neat things. A sight to behold.

Someone, somewhere is keeping track of all that.

The interesting paradox is how from one perspective, it makes no sense, and
yet from another, it makes perfect sense.

~~~
stan_rogers
That sounds odd to me - more than one stone frigate in the RCN has been paid
off in living memory, more than one during the unification process (which is
within _my_ memory). Yes, it's a bit of a ceremony, and necessarily a
kerfuffle, but there is no reason why the protocol should have been a mystery.

~~~
coldacid
My guess is that with the restoration of name and insignia of the Royal
Canadian Navy, various traditions that had been dropped or elided from
unification onwards were also brought back. Paying off of stone frigates
probably changed in ceremony like so many other things did with unification of
the forces, and so the modern RCN had to look up the traditional ways again.

