re: #475 mmmirele

At 11:30 Japan Standard Time Monday (which works out to 10:30 pm EDT/7:30 pm PDT tonight), the Japanese government will announce the name of the new era that will come in after the current emperor, Akihito, abdicates on April 30 and his son Naruhito takes the throne. This is important because a lot of legal documents are still dated in imperial eras even though the Japanese use Western calendars.

The current era is called “Heisei,” which means “peace everywhere.” The era of Hirohito was called “Showa” and, in fact, in Japan, Hirohito is not referred to Hirohito as such, but as Emperor Showa. (Showa means “radiant Japan” and pretty much fit the imperial aspirations of pre-World War II Japan.)

cnn.com

A survey conducted by Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. found that 21 percent of those survey picked “sai” or “disaster” as the kanji to describe the Heisei era. People were thinking of several devastating earthquakes that hit Japan over the last 30 years, as well as the sarin attack in 1995. A runner up was “hen” or “change.” That seems to apply as well.

nippon.com

From a political standpoint, I have to wonder what Abe’s government is going to pick, since Abe is pretty much on record as wanting to pull Japan out from under the treaty that ended World War II and limits the country to a Self-Defense Force. I’m thinking a “peace everywhere” type of era isn’t going to happen. But I could be wrong.

What’s “Meh.” in Japanese?
*walks into corner, puts dunce cap on*