One of the first things we did the day after we arrived in Hiroshima, was to open up bank accounts. But when we were filling out the form, I thought Pastor Kitano made a mistake when he wrote down the date for us as he wrote 22 11 5. Huh???
He explained to us that in Japan, you sometimes have to write down the year using the old system which is counted by emperor. As it's currently the 22nd year of the current emperor, he wrote 22 for the year instead of 2010. Interesting, right? :)When we had to write our birth dates down on the forms, he had to calculate for a while. Poor Pastor Kitano... Apparently Peter was born in the 46th year of the previous Emperor's reign so he had to circle the Chinese character for the previous emperor and then write 46 for the year.
I recently made a 'point card' at our local supermarket and I was supposed to give my birth date using this old system. I wrote down 1979 for the customer services lady and she had to calculate for me. I should try to remember it for next time. :)
doesn't korea have the same thing? chinese calandar is also different. you go to taiwan the year is different too. miss you guys...
ReplyDeleteben lee @ lifehouse sf
we do have a different year but no one uses it. it's more of just a text book thing. we do use different dates though, the lunar calendar dates, so we celebrate new years twice and our harvest festival is always on a different date in august/september time, etc. birthdays used to be done by the lunar calendar too but that stopped being common practice back in the 50's or so i think. miss you guys too!
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