“The new era challenge in Japan”
“It is a well guarded secret what the next reign in Japan will be called.”
“The new name is printed on coins, in newspapers and official documents. And some computers can encounter problems, when the new era will begin.”
“When the japanese emperor Akihito abdicates on 30 april, it means that an era is over, and with the crown prince Naruhitos access starts a new one.”
“With each emperor will also be a kind of name, a gengo, which is a proverb that is meant to symbolize the time. This name is used in official documents, are printed on the coins and in newspapers, and is also used in practice to say what year it is. Even if gengo lost ground in recent years use about every third japan the primary time in his daily life, and further a third switching between it and the western.”
“Akihitos era is called”
“But what the new gengon is a secret few people know, and in Japan there is speculation too full. It is said that high-ranking officials who know about what the new gengon will be required to submit their mobile phones, in order to avoid leaks.”
“the Change is causing a lot of problems when large parts of our society must set about his reckoning of time.”
“We’ve been working on this change for about a year,” says Tsukasa Shizume in Tokyoförorten Mitaka, where the new name should enter on the 55 different kinds of documents.”
“For some companies there is also a risk of a kind of counterpart to the millennium bug strikes computers and networks, when the new era will begin, even if most of the large corporations run the western world in their system.”
“But gengo also captures the zeitgeist of a period, in the same way as the English”
” It is a way to split up the story. If you just count the years, so it is enough western system probably. But gengo gives a special meaning to a historical period, say the japanese Jun Iijima, a 31-year-old lawyer, who himself uses both ways to count the years.”
“In day to day life are used gengo still often by the japanese, although its significance has declined as the country integrated into the global economy.”
“According to a recent survey in the newspaper Mainichi said the 34 per cent that they are mainly used gengo, 34 per cent the use of both the japanese and the western way, and 25 per cent, mainly the west.”
“in 1975 stated, 82% that they are mainly used by gengo.”