So Exactly When Is It In Japan?

I have an interesting dilemma, though if push ever came to shove, I'm fairly sure the local constabulary probably wouldn't agree with me. The issue is, my driving license, a document that is managed under the Japanese system of defining year by the reign of the Emperor, expires in Heisei 35 as clearly displayed in bold writing on the front. Except today is Reiwa 4, and there never will be a Heisei 35 following the well earned retirement of Emperor Akihito in 2019. And in there, lies the rub. After the ascension of the new Emperor, the prior counting system ceased to continue.

Government related documents tend to (but not always do) apply the Japanese Calendar. To know when to renew my license I have to convert the Heisei date to the Western Calendar, find the year (2023) and then convert back (Reiwa 5) (must remember to renew my license next year...). And sometimes they mix them. Having just completed my annual house insurance I needed to complete the date in two separate sections, one in Japanese format and one in Western. And I'm sure I'll receive said form returned with a correction.

The system commenced in 1868, technically Meiji 1, with the adoption of the new constitution and scant regard for the confusion to follow (my Japanese friends become just as confused if you were wondering). Taisho was next in 1912, though this is the one that seems to be the least remembered. The Showa period commenced in 1926 bringing in the long reign of Emperor Hirohito (the only person to receive "The Stranger Order of the Knight of the Garter" from the Queen, twice, as it got rescinded in 1941 for, ahem, obvious reasons, and then re-awarded in 1971; which apparently made him happy). Rounding things out saw the Heisei Era from 1989 which bings us to today with Reiwa from 2019 (which was both Heisei 31 and simultaneously Reiwa 1). And don't ask, it's really never going to change.

Man or god? And what Hirohito had to say on the subject...

On New Year's Day, 1946, the Emperor Showa, or Hirohito as the man himself was known, issued an official "clarification" of whether he was a divine entity or not. The announcement quite deliberately made reference to the  Five Oath's Charter of 1868 which suggested this issue had already been settled before the Allies arrived, so why all the fuss? The problem was that the later Meiji Constitution of 1889 clearly reflected the Shinto doctrine that the Emperor ruled through his divine power, the roots of which were the belief that the Imperial Family were descendants of the Sun God, Amaterasu. And this was effectively the point; was he a god, beholden to no-one, or not?

Japan is comfortable to live with uncertainty and contradiction and in this instance had elected, post war, to adopt essentially a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, somewhat to the frustration of MacArthur. He was looking for a clear statement in English that the man was simply mortal; none of this confusing god stuff. And that is exactly what he got, a clear statement, in English, with the Emperor renouncing his divinity once and for all. But there was one caveat. Making his announcement, Hirohito had not spoken in English, he'd spoken in Japanese.

The Emperor Showa himself strongly believed that, as a direct heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, he was a physical embodiment of the divine. However, MacArthur wanted to reposition him as a Head of State, a constitutional representation of the nation, rather than a deity, un-answerable to the people. So he needed this statement but the statement had been crafted to be deliberately vague.  Hirohito had clearly said that he was not the incarnation of a god. But in Japanese that didn't mean he couldn't still actually be a living god. And he didn't make any reference to that.