If you’re in North America you probably set your clock an hour ahead on Saturday night. While most people grumble about having to remember to change their clocks, this isn’t a problem in Japan, the only industrialized country that has not adopted the Daylight Savings Time system in one form or another. Instead, we have to deal with the other extreme — the sun goes down at 4:30 in the winter, and if I stay up late watching “just one more episode” of Sakura Trick or Recently My Sister is Unusual in the summer, I’m likely to see the sun come up as I try to sleep. Actually Japan did have a Daylight Savings Time system during the Allied Occupation years, though people of the era didn’t like the confusion caused by moving clocks back and forth, and they repealed it after sovereignty was restored in 1952.
It’s nice not having to reset alarm clocks, but there are downsides.
