日本改採西洋曆

看這篇才知道日本改採西洋曆是這樣"胡里胡塗"的算計的

Measure quality of 2008 by time on your hands

12/17/2007

The older I get, the faster time seems to fly. It is already the last month of this year--called shiwasu, another way of saying December. The traditional chores done in December include sending seibo year-end gifts, writing New Year's greeting cards and giving one's home a thorough cleaning.

At work, other tasks have to be completed before the year-end, and there are bonenkai year-end parties to attend. Many people also visit their valued clients to thank them for their patronage during the year.

There is no moment to spare during shiwasu. But in 1872, the month had only two days in Japan. That was the year Japan switched from the old lunar calendar to the modern solar calendar, and Dec. 3 became Jan. 1, 1873.

The government announced the switch only 20 days before it took effect. The whole nation was thrown into confusion. The reason for the abrupt transition was almost like a joke befitting a rakugo comic tale.

According to the lunar calendar, 1873 was to have a "leap month," which meant that the year would have 13 months and the government would have to pay civil servants' salaries over 13 months, rather than 12.

This was quite a dilemma for high-ranked bureaucrats because the government was heavily in debt at the time.

But someone apparently came up with the ingenious idea of switching to the solar calendar to get rid of that extra month.

And by hacking the month of December down to only two days, the government got away without paying anything for the month, thereby effectively saving two months' worth of salary payments.

Whoever thought this up must have been the original wily bureaucrat who knew how to serve the government and confound the public.

Japan has stuck with the solar calendar system ever since. New calendars for 2008 now line shelves at bookstores and stationery shops. While nobody can see time with their own eyes, these calendars enable us to envision the "amount" of time the coming year will entail.

However, they do not let us visualize the quality of time. If we aren't careful, we can easily waste our time the same way that we sometimes let money fly out of our wallets. Shiwasu is also a good month to plan the flow of our time next year.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 2(IHT/Asahi: December 17,2007)