Thursday, December 14, 2006

Japanese Culture Lesson 2 - What Year is it???

I noticed this right away but didn't question it until a few days ago. Instead of putting 06 for the year, people have been putting 18 for the year and the reason is, it's the 18th year of reign for the current emperor, His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Akihito. If you want to see a picture of the Emperor, go to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_Japan. People sometimes still use 2006 for the year, but if you're in Japan and someone writes down a different year, don't question them, they're most likely right.

Also, I didn't realize that there was an emperor in Japan. I knew they existed before, but the thought never occured to me that there would be one in power today. Plus, according to Wikipedia, he's the only reigning emperor in the world. Ignorance is not always a bad thing, I'm learning so many interesting things which is very stimilating for my curiosity! If I had known all this, I wouldn't have an embarassing story to tell...

1 Comments:

At 9:24 PM, Blogger cyclich said...

yup, now try to translate ur bday into 'emperor years' hehe

 

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