How time changed in Japan

We tend to take it for granted that there is just one way to tell the time – the western system of 24 hours in the day all divided equally into periods of 60 minutes etc. but different cultures have had different ways of marking the passing of day and night. In fact our own system dates back to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. which was later refined by Hellenistic astronomers. In the 19th and 20th centuries time was standardised further to aid industrialisation. 

But in Japan for centuries they used Futeijihō (不定時法), the “variable-hour method”, which saw the day split into 2 periods, day & night, and each period divided into 6 parts, each named after animals of the zodiac: 

• Hare (卯 — sunrise)
• Dragon (辰)
• Snake (巳)
• Horse (午 — midday)
• Sheep (未)
• Monkey (申)
• Rooster (酉 — sunset)
• Dog (戌)
• Boar (亥)
• Rat (子 — midnight)
• Ox (丑)
• Tiger (寅)

The problem with this is that the length of the day and night change quite a lot if you don’t live on the equator and this means that the 12 “hours” also have to grow and shrink. This isn’t a problem in a mainly agrarian society where accuracy isn’t so important but it would be a nightmare to devise a mechanical clock to reproduce this cycle. In ancient Japan most people would have told the time from a bell sounded by their local temple or village town hall and the monks would have burned incense or used water clocks to judge the passing of time. 

Moving into the modern era…

When, in 1868, the country transitioned from the traditionalist Edo period into the modernising Meiji period, the push was for industrialisation and the adoption of western ways. They had seen the power of the American “black ships” in the 1850s and were very keen to match them in both innovation and production.

This would have to involve the adoption of Teijihō (定時法), “fixed-hour method”, in 1872, but Japan didn’t even have portable watches, let alone clocks that would tell western time. This proved to be a wonderful opportunity for western companies who rushed to open import businesses in trading ports like Yokohama and Kobe. Swiss companies like Fr. Retz & Co. and Bruhl Freres imported watches made in the villages around Le Locle in Switzerland and sold them to Japanese businessmen, officials and military. 

The modern era…

It didn’t take long though before ambitious Japanese businessmen realised that they could produce watches of their own and cut out the Swiss entirely. One of the first was Kintarō Hattori who had started as an apprentice to a clock retailer and then in 1877 opened his own shop selling clocks. By 1881 he had started his own watch and clock making business which started by importing Swiss timepieces but eventually established his own watchmaking factory which he called Seikōsha (精工舎 or “House of Exquisite Craftsmanship”). This later became the world-leading watch maker Seikō.