Some question about Japanese Calendar.

[cuonglhvt]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

You`ll find discrepancies between the dates of different celebrations based on the region, etc. Festivals that have traditionally been held on the lunar calendar are still mostly set by the lunar cycle. Changing the way of saying the date doesn`t actually change the time of the festival.

Thank you for your reply.
No! I don't think so.
May be that I am wrong. But as I know, Japanese converted the festival very simply, plainly and naively. I think that is the simple way of Japanese thinking and the "academic" Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese never understand it.
I can show up some expamples:

1. Kodomo no hi (boys' day May 5th):
Kodomo no hi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Although it is not known precisely when this day started to be celebrated, it was probably during the reign of the Empress Suiko (593–628 A.D.). In Japan, Tango no Sekku was assigned to the fifth day of the fifth month (of course Lunar Calendar) after the Nara period.
And you know there is 1 month from "the fifth day of the fifth month" (5/5) in Lunar Calendar to May 5th (5/5 of Western Calendar).

2. Hana-matsuri:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha's_Birthday
As a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist, Buddha's Birthday (Kanbutsu) occur on "the eighth days of the forth month" of the Lunar Calendar (8/4). The Japanese converted very plainly to 8/4 Western Calendar (April 8th). Everybody knows that from 8/4 Lunar Calendar to 8/4 Western Calendar, there are more than 1 month long.

But who said Hana-matsuri is "not traditional"?

So you can keep on trying on the wikipedia for Hinamatsuri, Tanabata...

Hope you and your family lot of happiness.
Thank you again for your reply.

[cuonglhvt]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

And from my husband, who is Japanese;
I don`t know what you mean by "warm", but it is the time for the family to gather.

That is what I mean "warm". So that means that your husband's family doesn't feel "western" when they use western calendar?

Originally Posted by Nyororin

To an unfortunate level.

I think this is the same in Korean, China and Vietnam. Althought they use Lunar Calendar for their "traditional" New year. Do you think so?

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Other countries also use two calendar systems for festival dates. Normal dating is done by the western calendar, so if no one bothered to tell everyone what date lunar festivals fell on with the western calendar it would be a great pain. Tanabata is set locally, some places use the July date, some places celebrate in August.
Two calendars are a pain to remember. What is the problem with setting them on the one calendar that is relatively universal?

I guess you mean "complicated" for the word "pain". So I agree with you. In my country, there are lots of local festivals and it make us crazy to remember the exactly date while we use Western Calendar for our daily life, but the Lunar Calendar move every year.

[cuonglhvt]

I got one answer from

More Questions about Japanese Calendar.? - Yahoo! Answers

So I want to discuss about that.

Do you know why only Japan takes different attitude from Vietnamese and Koreans toward Luna calender?

As I said, Luna calender and Chinese calendar (Chinese Luna calender) are different.

Most Asian countries followed Chinese Luna calender called 時憲暦 in Chinese characters (Idk how to write this in English). China, Korea and Vietnam followed this calender.
However, Japanese Luna calender which were used until 1872 was called 天保暦 (Ten po reki). This was Japanese-made old Luna calender, and Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese don't know this calender.　

That means Japan had been using her own old (luna) calender even before Japan adopted Western calender. The old new year (Japan's new year on Luna calender) and Chinese new year (Chinese new year on Chinese Luna calender) were also different.
That is why Japanese don't feel weirdness even after they shifted some festivals and holidays.

There are several versions of Luna calenders in Asia. However, they are usually written in Chinese characters, and unfortunately, Wikipedia and western web sites do NOT have enough information regarding those Asian Luna calenders.

[cuonglhvt]

Most Asian countries followed Chinese Luna calender called 時憲暦 in Chinese characters (Idk how to write this in English). China, Korea and Vietnam followed this calender.

That’s wrong! Before 1813, Vietnam (At that tine call Dai Nam) used 大統暦 法(in Vietnamese: Đại Thống lịch pháp - Lịch=reki=calendar) which is different from 時憲暦.

After 1813, Dai Nam used “Lịch Hiệp Kỷ” (I’m sorry, I don’t know how it is written in Chinese. Because Vietnam doesn’t use Chinese character for a long period).

Vietnamese modern lunar calendar is different from Chinese one. One evidence: The Vietnamese Tết 2007 is February 17, but the Chinese New Year 2007 is February 18. In 1984, the difference between Vietnamese and Chinese Lunar Calendar was up to 1 month.

時憲暦 was introduced in China in Quing Dynasty by Adam Schall (a westerner) in 1644 and still being used in China now. What make different from 時憲暦 to other Lunar Calendar is the distribution of Solar Terms (二十四節気). Before 1644, the Solar Terms was distributed regularly along year.


I believe that the Tenpo reki used the same method of 時憲暦. Because in Japanese modern Calendar, the Solar Terms (Ushui, Kanro, Geishi, Kokku, Shimofuri, Shuubun…) is not different to Chinese ones. I would be wrong if the Solar Terms in Modern Japanese Calendar use Chinese Solar Terms instead of inheriting Tenpo reki.

Do you know why only Japan takes different attitude from Vietnamese and Koreans toward Luna calender?
As I said, Luna calender and Chinese calendar (Chinese Luna calender) are different.

If Japanese have their own Lunar Calendar (not Chinese) why didn’t they continue using it for their traditional festivals. When I told Vietnamese “Don’t use Lunar Calendar for our festival. Because it is from China”, people said “No! Our Lunar Calendar is not Chinese one. The Lunar Calendar originated in South, and Chinese inherited it.

What is different from Japanese thinking and Vietnamese thinking here?
Vietnamese: Don’t throw it (Lunar Calendar) away! It is very Vietnamese. It is not Chinese.
Japanese: Throw it (Tenpo reki) away! It is very Japanese. It is not Chinese.

[cuonglhvt]

I get one answer from answers.yahoo.com

The reason is simple. Japan's national policy was modernization then (at Meiji era). Japan had learnt and imported many things from Europe around 1960's-80's. Calender was one of them.
Japan accepted the new rule and system nation widely. That's all.

But I still have some questions:

- In the Meji Era, Western Calendar was one of goals for modernization or it was a "vehicle" (media)?

- If it was a goal: What benefit Japanese could earn from that (not using Lunar Calendar)?

- If it was a "vehicle": What was the negative impact of Lunar Calendar on modernization? Not only Japan adopted Western Calendar, the whole world did (including China, Korean, Vietnam...) Why didn't Japanese use both kinds of Calendar (Lunar for traditional festivals, Western for administration and business) as China, Korean and Vietnam did?

- Do you (or did Japanese people, government... on Meji Era) think that Kanji (Chinese Character) impacted negatively on modernization? Why didn't Japan use Romaji instead of Kanji?

Let me explain: Japanese! I didn't mean "Japanese should...". I only want to know the reason .

Please help me Japanese Friends!

Upto now, I still expect to the answers of the initial questions.

[cuonglhvt]

I got an answer from:
Lunar Calendar, Kanji and the impact to modernization of Japan.? - Yahoo! Answers

Calendar won't be a goal in any countries. This is "if" story, but if China had the world in the future like the Yuan, China would shift the calender to their local calender.
Calender is just a medium or measure. In the post war time, the calender in Japan have been modified several times. Japanese government have changed some celebration days, like Coming-of-Age Day, Sport day, The day of sea, Emperor's birthday, etc. The last revision was in 2005 (if I am right).

Think about the time of 150 years ago. When ppl in the world trade or do business together, calculating the gap between Lunar Calendars in Asia and Solar calenders was not that easy. I guess the calculation even between Japanese Luna calender and Gregorian calendar was not easy. (Don't mix Japanese Luna calender and Chinese Luna calender. Chinese Luna calender followed agricultural seasons and the the New Year day shifted every year, eg. CNY in 2008 was Feb 7, Feb 18 in 2007 and Jan 29 in 2006 in modern calender. Japanese Luna calender was Lunisolar calendar and divided a year in 24. New year day didn't shift basically.)

The mixture of Kanji (ideogram+sound) and Kana (Hiragana and Katakana, phonograms) had worked very well in the Meiji era (the mixture didn't always happen through out the history). Chinese character (Traditional one) is great invention, we can get both meaning and the sound from each character. This is better than Roman alphabet (phonogram).
However, unfortunately, Mao's China changed the characters to Simple Chinese after 1950's. Many characters lost its original meanings. eg. Love 愛 lost heart 心 (now it is 爱 in China), we can't open 開 the gate cos there is no gate (it is 开 in China), when ppl shop 買 or 賣, nobody pays money 貝, shell was a money in ancient time ( it is 买 in China), etc.
Tough to explain this in English. Kanji or Chinese characters hold many meanings in it, but there are not the same meanings in English words. If you could read Japanese or Chinese documents, a lot of your questions would be solved.

This is my answer:
I admire Japanese culture but I couldn’t agree with Joriental’s answer. It too sentimental.
Are you sure that before Meji Era, New year day didn't shift basically? I checked on the website “Nengo calculation”:
http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/geschichte-j...
and found:
New year day of the first year of Keio (1865) is Jan 27.
New year day of the second year of Keio (1866) is Feb 15.
New year day of the third year of Keio (1867) is Feb 5.
New year day of the fourth year of Keio (1868) is Jan 25.
And I also found that there was no different between Japanese and Vietnamese Lunar New Year at that time. You said the Traditional Japanese year are divided into 24. That is the same in Vietnamese "Tiết khí" (二十四節気
) and I know it is "sekki" in Japanese and "solar terms" in English.
But from the date of the in invasion of French upon Vietnam (1858) upto now, Vietnam use both Calendars, and nobody complained about the complicated of calendars (except me). No body found it difficult to go on business with Westerner.
I agree that the simplified Chinese Character looks very ugly. But I think Japanese Shinjitai Kanji is somewhere between Traditional and Simplified Chinese. What do you think of 体體 , 来 來, 学 學 in Japanese? Any way I think Japanese Kanji is OK (as I said that I accept all the differencies in culture), although sometimes I could not find some Japanese Characters in my Dictionary.
For example: The Kanji 縄 for Jomon culture. It makes me difficult to find that it is 繩 in traditional Chinese and understand what Jomon means.
On the other hand, a lot of Chinese (such as 味 清) are not idiogram. They are installed from other characters with similar sounds (of course in Chinese, not Japanese). And you can not explain it if you use Kun Yomi. That means those characters have no relation with Japanese culture but Chinese culture.
And I don't think that when you know there area shell in the character "buy" and "sell", it will help you in moderinization.
As for most Vietnamese (for example), Chinese Characters mean nothing. Latin alphabet is OK, we only write down what we want to say. We can understand what they say. That means we can understand what theyt write. It takes Vietnamese only 3 to 6 months to learn to read and write. We don’t have to learn Chinese Characters. We only learn Chinese when we like to. When we learn English, it makes us very easy to write. I can write as fast as I think. Maybe I have some mistakes but the writing doesn’t obstruct my thinking.
I wonder why Meji didn’t use Romaji for Japanese at that time. It would cut down the burden on Education and it makes people easy to learn Western languages very easy for Japanese modernization. And Japanese didn’t need to use English instead of Japanese as recommendation of Arinori Mori.

[jene]

look i know that im new but i do realy love enything japanes so i just wants to know what a hell are japanese litters

[cuonglhvt]

Another answer:

I think Japan just wanted to be more in line with the West, so they adopted the same calendar. No big deal.
As for kanji, it's almost impossible to use straight romaji (the alphabet) for writing Japanese because there are so many homonyms. Even just writing in kana points out the same thing, that kanji is necessary to distinguish word from word.
If you can understand Japanese, then just try it. Write a bunch of sentences out in romaji and see how easy/difficult it is to read it. Not only does it become confusing, but it takes up more space. In the space that you could normally write one kanji, you might have to write 5 letters.
And why would you give up such a beautiful writing system anyway, as if the impracticalities of doing so are not enough?

I saw that the dificulty Japan have to use Romaji is the same difficulty Vietnam have. When I writhe "lý", nobody know thatI refer to 里, 理 or 李 etc... (RI in Japanese). But as I said. When I say, the context makes us understand, so it will be similar when I write. And Vietnamese Latin at the begining was not similar to it is now. They have to improve. I think Japanese Romaji will be similar if it is used widely. (I don't mean Japanese should learn Vietnamese).

And also, why are you talking about things that happened so long ago?

The only thing I want here is to learn Japanese History and compare with Vietnamese. And the only thing to find out the truth is argument.
So don't assume that "what I say is what I think"! Don't think that I hate Japanese!
Don't you find it interesting in studying history of your country? I do!

[cuonglhvt]

I got an answer from other forum. So I have somethingmore to ask.

Originally Posted by Mars Man

Regarding 2.a.--A child born on January 1st, or anyday after that, up until just a second before midnight on December 31st of that same year, will be designatied as having been born in that year, therefore, a child born on January 1st of this year will be considered to have been born in the year of the mouse.

Thank you. That is very important to me.
Because I tried to look for it on the internet, but the answer is very unspecific: "2008 is a year of Rat in Japan". That is true!
Now there is enough detail for me.
That means:
- The "Year of Rat" in Japan fixed completely to 2008. And 2010 will be fixed to the whole "Year of Tiger". There are no difference between official calendar (western one) and the "animal designation"(地支).
- In Vietnam, "The year of Tiger" is from Feb 14 of 2010 to Feb 3 of 2011. That is very important for Vietnamese. Because they avoid not to have a girl baby born in that year.

I think that as other countries, some Japanese people are superstitious, some are not (somebody said that Japanese are very suppositious. That is their opinion, I don't care). I want to as about superstitious ones.
- Do they believe that the "animal designation" (which fixed to western calendar) has effect on their lives? Such as personal characters of people who were born in a specific year. Or do they believe that some years are lucky or unlucky for some body because of "animal designations" (of course the "western one")?
- If not, do they believe that the "animal designation" (which fixed to Chinese calendar) has effect on their lives?
- If both above answes are not true, do people think that the "animal designation" (for western calendar) just for kidding? They have another system of superstitious (a western one? Another Japanese one? Or they have multiform kinds of superstitious).
- Do Japanese superstitious people strongly believe that their belief bases on a "scientific fundamental"?

The above questions are to compare with Vietnam. In Vietnam, the superstitious base on the system of "Lunar Calendar", "animal designation", "five elements", "eight trigrams"…
- People who are not superstitious strongly oppose the above system.
- People who are superstitious strongly believe that the above system bases on "scientific fundamental". Their argument is "A lot of sciences such as traditional medical (I know it is called Kampo, Shiatsu… in Japanese) bases on this system".
- Some people is not so superstitious, but on some important dates and times (wedding, buried death people…) they take the advice from this system to keep themselves not so "strange" to "everybody".
- The Western superstitious (unlucky day of 13th Friday, western zodiac, blood type…) in Vietnam just for kidding of teens.

[cuonglhvt]

An another answer. I think it is very useful.

Originally Posted by caster51

quote----
c. Did Nagasane Motoda (or other traditional trainers in Japan) oppose the policy of using Western Calendar for traditional Festival? How was the Japanese people's attitude at that time (Meji Era) about the changing of calendar
------
I think there were many complaint.
in 1889. most of Japanese still celebrated chinese new year except big cities like tokyo.
according to some survey at that time
in 1946, 43.6% of Japanese celebrated today's new year
41.3 was chinese one
15% was both new year
National Foundation Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
quote-----
In the Meiji period, when Japan switched from its lunisolar calendar to the Gregorian calendar, the new "official" holiday was proclaimed. Japanese scholars used the Nihonshoki (日本書紀), to derive the exact date, February 11, 660 BC. However, historians have yet to find evidence of either the significance of this date or even the existence of Emperor Jimmu outside of the Nihonshoki.
-----
Meiji government made 11th FEB approximate as chinese new year as last resort .