Japan is currently engaged in a debate about how best to rebuild the country after the massive destruction of the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis, and has budgeted the first $50 billion to start the restoration process. It seems everyone has an idea about how to go about rebuilding the damaged regions, which include whole towns that have been erased. Unfortunately one idea that won’t be considered is daylight savings time (also known as “summer time”), which has been officially discarded for reasons of “cost and complexity.” This comes to a blow to foreigners (like me) who hoped the crisis would spur Japan to join the rest of the world in “springing forward and falling back” so I don’t have to go to bed at 3 am with the sun peeping in through my curtains. A big part of Japan’s reluctance to embrace DST is no doubt due to the high number of elderly (21% of Japan is over the age of 65) who would have trouble adapting to the time changes.
No Daylight Savings Time for Japan. It must be Kyubeh’s doing/
