Japan’s Y2K problem
July 27, 2018 9:37 AM   Subscribe

On 30 April 2019, Emperor Akihito of Japan is expected to abdicate the chrysanthemum throne. The Japanese calendar counts up from the coronation of a new emperor, using not the name of the emperor, but the name of the era they herald. But that brings problems. For one, Akihito has been on the throne for almost the entirety of the information age, meaning that many systems have never had to deal with a switchover in era. For another, the official name of Naruhito’s era has yet to be announced, causing concern for diary publishers, calendar printers and international standards bodies. Via
posted by infini (29 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
I wish only the best of luck to the innumerable Japanese COBOL programmers who are surely even now coming out of retirement to start getting crusty old systems to be able to understand multiple eras.
posted by egypturnash at 10:10 AM on July 27, 2018 [25 favorites]


I would watch that movie.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:23 AM on July 27, 2018 [11 favorites]


I am a big fan of the emperor and I'm sorry he's retiring. I took a few photos during his visit to Victoria 9 years ago (link)
posted by JamesBay at 10:32 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I would watch that movie.

Starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson.
posted by Etrigan at 10:47 AM on July 27, 2018 [36 favorites]


They only have about 9 months to get everything ready. I hope they can get it done. The research alone is going to be onerous.
posted by corvikate at 10:51 AM on July 27, 2018


getting crusty old systems to be able to understand multiple eras.

If I understand the rules correctly, an era change could have been triggered at any time in the past eighty years by a random event. If your system doesn't completely ignore eras and you haven't built era change support from the start, you had it coming.
posted by each day we work at 11:13 AM on July 27, 2018 [7 favorites]


I was interested in the passing mention that, historically, there could be multiple eras during one emperor's reign. How did that work, exactly?
posted by Chrysostom at 11:23 AM on July 27, 2018


If I understand the rules correctly, an era change could have been triggered at any time in the past eighty years by a random event. If your system doesn't completely ignore eras and you haven't built era change support from the start, you had it coming.
Indeed, there was an era change when Akihito ascended the throne in 1989, which is why we're in Heisei 30, not Heisei 80. And in theory, he could have died between then and now. But era changes only happen when there's a new emperor (according to a law passed, I think, during the Meiji era).
posted by adamrice at 11:27 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I am very proud of the fact that there is a yearname.txt file in the .exe’s directory I created in 1997 for a Hitachi subdivision’s product that is there to handle this very problem.

Just add 2019\t and the replacement yearname and the reporting will be updated.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:44 AM on July 27, 2018 [35 favorites]


On the 8th day God rushed out a patch.
posted by Glomar response at 12:18 PM on July 27, 2018 [22 favorites]


I suspect most internal date representations are Western-calendar based (unix time, etc), so the potential impact is much less than the original Y2K issue. But I can imagine various date-display problems with era conversion, for programs written without much forward thought (all too many, in general).

Printed material is probably worse since the switchover is fairly soon and there is still no name...

I would be extremely shocked to see a massive problem, but date-rendering issues and such will probably happen (in other words, basically the same as Y2K, but I suspect the effort involved to fix will be much less).

Certainly if any large/important systems do fail, it will be a huge indictment of the programmers well beyond the Y2K issue --- since Y2K was known to be X years in the future (hence 70's/80's programmers ignoring it because they assumed software would be replaced / weren't thinking ahead) whereas an era change can happen almost anytime (whenever the emperor happens to die).
posted by thefoxgod at 1:10 PM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


But era changes only happen when there's a new emperor (according to a law passed, I think, during the Meiji era).

Meiji started the practice of "one reign, one era name" but it wasn't actually put into law until 1979. Prior to Meiji, era names changed frequently and an emperor's reign could contain multiple different era names, chosen for the occurrence of notable events, or on certain auspicious years, or for political reasons, etc.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:22 PM on July 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


(unix time, etc)

It didn't occur to me until just now that the creators of Unix arrogated to themselves a power usually reserved for popes and emperors: The creation of a new epoch.
posted by clawsoon at 1:24 PM on July 27, 2018 [13 favorites]


Indeed, the era of Pope Ritchie I has already lasted longer than, say, the Heisei period.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:33 PM on July 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


All the concerns I've heard so far have been with regard to printed matter, calendars and diaries, as stated in the post. I would be very surprised (knock wood) if that many software issues turn up. (On the other hand, I heard our administration ladies laughing their heads off recently over a flyer of some kind that referred to "Heisei 70," a year which would require the current Emperor to live and remain on the throne well into his 120s.)
I am in favor of the abdication, not seeing any merits in compelling a man in his eighties in shaky health to remain at his full-time job. Almost as much a victim of his system as the women of the Imperial family...
posted by huimangm at 3:05 PM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I can definitely relate to everyone over in Japan right now who is expected to have changes ready when the spec isn't even finalized.
posted by ckape at 4:01 PM on July 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


Outside of some official documents, however, it isn't used _that_ widely. Although this varies some by politics, my wife says very right-wing people use emperor era more than most people.

I can remember the era year only because our wedding vows started with the date, and I practiced reading that many many times. So I know Heisei 26 = 2014 and can calculate from there :)

[Well, more like wedding "vow" --- only I actually read anything out loud. And despite practicing I didn't do it very well. But my gaijin privilege meant I still got lots of compliments... :P ]
posted by thefoxgod at 4:26 PM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Heisei + year is used on all official documentation and in virtually every facet of life, though, rather than the western year. Newspapers typically use both, though.
posted by JamesBay at 4:35 PM on July 27, 2018


1989 was Showa 64/Heisei 1; there were plenty of computer systems running in Japan at that time, so I'm utterly unconvinced that this is some new issue that has not been addressed previously. A quick websearch even turns up a Java class for this:

JapaneseImperialCalendar

So if you're a java programmer, get ready to pull down the latest version of JapaneseImperialCalendar, and off you go.
posted by erikred at 4:39 PM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Yeah, official docs usually have it (not passports, but I guess they're internationally-oriented). But most people I know don't use it for personal or business stuff outside of government interaction.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:08 PM on July 27, 2018


Heisei 70 will actually exist alongside the new name(s). I have a 2018 wall calendar with Taisho and Showa years.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:08 PM on July 27, 2018


But most people I know don't use it for personal or business stuff outside of government interaction.

And banks - the Heisei year pops up whenever you fill out any kind of form at the bank.

But I agree that this is not a major problem. I can't imagine that anyone uses Imperial years to do any kind of time-based computer calculations - those would all use International-calendar years or Unix seconds or whatever. So there are a bunch of systems just waiting around for someone to swap in a new text value for a variable once the new Imperial era name is announced.
posted by Umami Dearest at 9:16 PM on July 27, 2018


I would agree that it's not a major problem. It's more that they haven't announced the new era name yet and companies will have to rush around to change everything whenever that happens.

The more important thing (to me, haha) is if they've finally decided whether or not the transition is going to happen with Super Mega Golden Week - ten consecutive holidays between April 27th and May 6th.
posted by LostInUbe at 11:08 PM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


So are we in the UK in Cool Britannia 21, Austerity 8 or Brexit 2? I can't even tell anymore.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 11:43 PM on July 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


I like coming back to this essay written by a Japanese man in 1995, called "The Japanese calendar is a flawed system". The seven flaws he gives, some of which have been mentioned already, are:
1) It can't represent future dates correctly, because we never know what the next eras will be or when they will change over.
2) It also can only represent a fraction of past dates, partly because it's too hard to memorize all the past eras, and partly because no matter how many eras you memorize, you still can't represent dates from before eras existed.
3) Calculating differences between years in different eras is difficult. Quick, how many years were there between Showa 40 and Heisei 5?
4) The era changes in the middle of the year. So some events that occurred in the year 1989 occured during Showa 64, and some occurred during Heisei 1.
5) Forms pre-filled with the old era are wasted when the era changes.
6) The era changes suddenly, so people don't have time to order new forms with the correct date, so all the dates have to be handwritten until new forms arrived.
7) The Japanese calendar is only used in Japan.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:57 PM on July 29, 2018 [5 favorites]


This whole thing is pretty complex, yeah. In Japan, basically, the official year (年度/often translated "fiscal year," separate from 年/calendar "year") effectively begins on April 1, and that's the real new year's day in Japan. Add to that the fact that, officially speaking, the era numbering is basically the "real" year (conversions into CE being used mainly only for convenience), and things can get complicated pretty fast.

Yes, technically, there were computers in use in Japan in 1989 when the switch to Heisei started. On the other hand, Japan has generally been 5–10 years behind the US in computer stuff, and even in the US, computers weren't that much of a thing in 1989. It's entirely valid to say that the entirety of the modern personal computer revolution happened during the Heisei era, and that this transition is largely unprecedented.

It's a messy, sloppy system, but it's basically just a thing you get used to as part of living in the country, akin to using miles and pounds and gallons if you move to the US.

One neat thing you can do, though, is something I saw on a poster for a throwback rockabilly band, advertising a show in the fictional year "Showa 90" (2015), taking advantage of the strong associations people have for what each era broadly represented historically ("Street Fighter is a game for people born in the Showa era" and stuff like that, where "Showa" is used as shorthand for the postwar era through the end of the '80s). It's like a broader version of when people refer to, say, The Seventies.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:05 PM on July 29, 2018 [2 favorites]


I live in Japan and have to say the era calendar is a real pain, unless its been drilled into your head from a young school age.
Forget computer programs, I'm waiting for the fun when all the cars current registration stickers need to be changed over too. My car is current to expire in Heisei 32, so do I get a new sticker for the new era 1, or do we keep all the old ones knowing it will expire in an era year that doesn't exisit. Same with my drivers license, its set to be renewed in Heisei33, but what if that year never comes, do I get a whole new license referring to the new era..
And those are 2 very secific examples, there are thousands more in Japanese live tied to the era year..
posted by Merlin The Happy Pig at 6:05 PM on July 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh jeez. Will you guys just leave it alone, please? We've been doing just fine for hundreds of years, using our own system and not bothering anyone. The fact that we have our own system is a point of pride for many of us, and those who work in mixed environments have been able to adapt and even thrive for the last 80-ish years, thank you very much.

The USA will switch ourselves over to the metric system when we are good and ready, and not any time sooner.

...wait, we're talking about what?
posted by Anoplura at 9:28 PM on July 29, 2018 [3 favorites]


It's entirely valid to say that the entirety of the modern personal computer revolution happened during the Heisei era, and that this transition is largely unprecedented.

Of course, but the emperor was already 55 in 1989. To not consider that the era could change almost anytime would at the very least be a huge design fail.

Now, I'm a programmer, and I'm certainly not arguing that no one ever makes those kinds of mistakes :) But its different than Y2K precisely because there was no way to know when it could happen. Arguing in 1980 that "Y2K is so far away we don't have to worry about it" is different than ignoring era changes in 1989 or 1995. Especially since almost anyone programming would have _lived through an era change_.

So --- I'm sure there are issues, but they are IMO even less forgiveable than Y2K.

But from what I know, the majority of internal date representations are still unix time as you would expect. The issues will come from the UI / display layer (either unable to input New Era 1 as a date, or displaying Heisei 45 or something incorrectly). While thats an issue, its thankfully a generally easier issue than data corruption (which I suppose is still possible if you have really bad code doing the conversion from input...)
posted by thefoxgod at 3:09 PM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]


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