| Samurai Movies (27) |
April 6, 2022
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| [Time] In the movie 'Choshu 5', when the five young samurai reached London, there was one technological marvel that surprised them: 'Big Ben', a big clock tower that could be seen from afar. He checked on the internet. Big Ben was completed in 1859. Surprisingly, the margin of error of the time per day was already within a second. In the Edo Period, there were no clocks or watches. They used loose time systems. They divided a day into 12 stations, and named each after the Chinese Zodiac. Midnight was the Rat (the name in their country was 'ne'), then, the Cow (ushi), the Tiger (tora), the Rabbit (u), the Dragon (tatsu), and the Snake (mi); noontime was the Horse (uma), then the Ram (hitsuji), the Monkey (saru), the Rooster (tori), the Dog (inu), and the Boar (i). They set the Rabbit on sunrise and the Rooster on sunset. Then, they divided the rest of the time period equally. So if it was the spring/autumn equinox, each time period was almost the same, about 2 hours. But, if it was summer, the daytime hours, from the Rabbit to the Monkey, was rather longer than the nighttime hours, from the Rooster to the Tiger. In winter, it was the opposite. So, people lived in loose time. The time was different depending on where you lived. They would say the time of the day according to the station, for example: "ushi-no-koku", it's the time of the Cow, which would be around 2 am -4 am. But how could people know the time? Each town would ring a big bell. At midnight (the starting time of the Rat), they rang the bell  9 times; for the next station, it became 8 times, then, 7, 6, 5, 4, and then at noon (the Horse), 9 times again, and after that, the same routine was repeated. Another way people would call the time was with the number, for example 7 rings would be "nanatsu-toki/doki", toki means "time", so "nanatsu-doki" would be the time of the Horse, or noontime. They also used 'han' (half) for about 1 hour, 'shi-han-doki' (quarter) for about 30 minutes. Of course, they didn't use 'minute' or 'second'. The Rabbit was called 'ake mutsu', meaning 'sunrise six', while the Rooster was called 'kure mutsu', meaning 'sunset six'. He had read that they opened the town gates at 'ake mutsu' (about 6 am), and closed the gates at 'kure mutsu' (about 6 pm). Before ringing the bell, they would lightly hit the bell 3 times as a "pre-stroke": one ring, with about one minute interval, then two rings, with about a 1.5 minute interval, then the real ringing would start. A snack eaten between lunch and supper is called 'o-yatsu'. At that time schools finished around 'Yatsu' (around 2 p.m.). Students didn't eat lunch, but would eat something light after getting home. There is a famous rakugo called 'Toki (time) Soba'. In the Edo period, a bowl of soba at a soba-stand normally costed 16 mon. A guy got an idea. After eating a bowl of soba, he started to count out the mon coins for payment, "One, two, three, ... eight, what time is it, by the way?" The shop owner replied, "It's nine, sir." The guy continued again, "ten, eleven, ..." He succeeded in skipping one mon. A friend of his wanted to mimic him and went to a different shop on a different day. After eating, he started to count, "One, two, three, ... eight, what time is it, by the way?" The shop owner replied, "It's four, sir." And the guy started to call, "five, six, ..." Unfortunately for him, he ended up paying more money! How about time frames of "week", "month", and "year"? They used a lunar calendar. The moon becomes full in 29.5 days. In the lunar calendar, a month was switched between 29 days and 30 days, taking turns. But, in this case, the total number of days for 12 months a year becomes 354 days, 11 days shorter than 365 days, one time around of the Sun. So, an extra month was inserted somewhere once every 3 years, thinking to balance the seasons. They didn't have a notion of a week. Maybe the week was made by capitalists who wanted to make their employees work as much as possible, saying, "You can rest on Sunday, so you have to work hard for 6 days." He had read a book that introduced summaries of essays which were written by foreigners who stayed in this country around the end of the Edo Period and at the beginning of the Meiji Era. Almost all of those people were amazed by how happy and cheerful the citizens looked. Maybe they were relaxed and enjoyed their lives without being disturbed by modern time systems. (To be continued ...) |
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No. 473
*marvel :驚き
*Chinese Zodiac :十二支
*spring/autumn equinox :春/秋分の日
*mimic :まねる