<story><title>The Japanese Calendar’s Y2K Moment</title><url>https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/shawnste/2018/04/12/the-japanese-calendars-y2k-moment/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>euske</author><text>As a taxpayer in Japan, I want the government to stop worrying about this inefficient calendar system and fully adopt the Western calendar everywhere.&lt;p&gt;That said, I read the people&amp;#x27;s justifications are similar to those who favor the Fahrenheit system in the US. They say the scale is close to their everyday feel (under the current system, each era is roughly equivalent to one&amp;#x27;s lifespan) than 4-digit numbers, and therefore more &amp;quot;human&amp;quot;. Their emotional attachment defies rationality.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Japanese Calendar’s Y2K Moment</title><url>https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/shawnste/2018/04/12/the-japanese-calendars-y2k-moment/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nandemo</author><text>Two things that are missing from the article:&lt;p&gt;1) because of this problem, the government is considering keeping Heisei for a while after the emperor steps down &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;minhan.jp&amp;#x2F;4599&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;minhan.jp&amp;#x2F;4599&lt;/a&gt; (in Japanese)&lt;p&gt;2) the Japanese calendar (specifically the year) is used in some official documents and formalities, but in daily life people mostly use the Gregorian calendar. If you ask a bunch of Japanese people what Heisei year is now, I bet a significant percentage of them won&amp;#x27;t remember. I&amp;#x27;ve worked as a software engineer in Japan for over 10 years and I&amp;#x27;ve never had to deal with Japanese calendar years.</text></comment>