Big new in Japan today! It's the Reiwa era beginning May 1st!

Er...what?

Hmmm. Ok, let's back up. I'll explain.

Japanese Eras

The traditional dating system in Japan numbers the years according to the emperor in charge, year 1 being the beginning of his reign and going until he dies or quits. Simple enough, eh? Most of us can imagine this. We even informally do the same thing sometimes, referring to year XX of Queen Victoria's reign, for example.

This dating system is used along side the Western one, so you may see, for example, 1953 on something and right next to it 昭和28 (Shōwa 28). Every year more and more businesses are completely dropping the traditional dating system in favor of using the Western one only. Just easier. But about a quarter of companies, according to surveys, still use the traditional one. And the government does too, of course.

Back up... Shōwa? What's that? Oh, that's another wrinkle in the system.

Era Names

When a new emperor comes up, they assign his era a name completely unrelated to him. For example, the current emperor is named Akihito, and his era name is Heisei.

Who's they?

Shinto priests and other experts in feng shui (geomancy) who will pour through ancient Chinese documents searching for auspicious kanji. They will then present several choices to the government and the government will choose the one they like best. Yep, unfortunately the emperor actually has no say in the matter. But that's par the course for Japanese history. (i.e., he is usually ignored and powerless)

The era name plays a double role. It is the name of the era, then after the emperor dies, it becomes his name. For example, that Shōwa I mentioned above? That's Emperor Hirohito's name. In Japan, and increasingly in Western publications as far as I have seen, he is rarely referred to as Hirohito and is instead named Emperor Shōwa or The Shōwa Emperor.

Again, this shouldn't be completely alien to most of us. After all, British monarchs change their name when they ascend the throne. Japanese monarchs just wait until they die to change their name.

Anyway, moving on.

The New Era

If you haven't heard, the current emperor of Japan, Akihito, is retiring soon and his son, Naruhito, is taking over. His son's first day on the job is pretty soon, in fact, on May 1st. That means the Heisei era is coming to a close and a new era name is needed. They've been working behind the scenes for a few months and now today they finally announced the new name. It's....

令和 — Reiwa!

Pronounce that something like ray-wah. The R sound is a bit problematic. The way the Japanese say the sound may sound closer to L to many English speakers. But anyway, say it as ray-wah and at least you'll be close.

The name means something like Joyous Harmony, Orderly Peace, or Orderly Harmony. According to the prime minister, Abe, it means "Culture is born through the beauty of people caring for one another".

It comes from an ancient Japanese poem about plum blossoms from the Man'yōshū, the first Japanese era name to come from a Japanese source instead of a Chinese one, according to Abe.

Problems

The source poem is lovely, I'm told. Maybe I'll look into translating it for you all. And within the poem, it has a nice meaning. But, to many Japanese, the kanji 令 (rei) has a harsher meaning upon first glance. Command or order. This has led some to suggest Abe has darker purposes behind picking the name. Maybe, I suppose. If there really were a right wing conspiracy here I would imagine they'd want to mislead us by emphasizing freedom! instead of picking more overt words, but who knows.

At any rate, in the poem the word takes on a more polite meaning and does not mean command.

There are some that are also suggesting taking the word from a Japanese source instead of a Chinese one is a nationalism move. Again, I'm more dubious about that claim, but it is out there.