You're listening to season nine of Mobile Suit Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of Sci-fi mega franchise Mobile Suit Gundam, researching its influences, examining its themes, and discussing how each piece of the Gundam canon fits within the changing context in Japan and the world from 1979 to today. You.
This is Episode 9.5, the Hour of the Hippo alternative timekeeping schemes, and we are your hosts. I'm Tom, a Gundam fan and currently up to my eyeballs in patches and posters and pin proofs because we are putting together some very cool sets of gifts for our patrons.
And I'm Nina, trying not to get hopelessly sidetracked in the middle of my own research. It's a losing battle. Mobile Suit Breakdown is made possible by 723 paying subscribers. Thank you all for keeping us genki. We have no new patrons to thank this week, which is unusual, and also, I hate it. September 1 marks five years since the release of our first episode. In that time, we've covered two ovas, two movies, three series, and a bunch of SD Gundam. We've made original translations, brought on guests, written and performed an audio drama, and tackled topics from silly to serious. We've traversed Gundam from 1979 to 1993. This podcast is entirely listener supported. If you enjoy our work and want to hear what we think of the Gundam of the 2000s onward. Subscribe today@gundampodcast.com, Patreon.
But now it's time for Nina's research about traditional Japanese timekeeping.
I've had a screenshot on my computer desktop for months. It's from SD Gundam's Counterattack Part Two, the one where SD Mobile Suit Samurai fight to control the mysterious fortress of Abawaku, a fortress which only appears once every 300 years at the hour of the hippo. As the time approaches, one of the SD mobile Suits looks at his wristwatch. And it is that wristwatch that I screenshotted. It's gold, with a matching band and a simple white face. As I mentioned when we covered the episode the first time, some of the kanji on the face can be read as seiko, like the watch manufacturer. But on that face, where we would expect to see numbers or generic tick marks, are the heads of animals from the twelve position. And clockwise around there's a hippo, a cow, a rabbit, a dragon, a panda, a monkey or sloth, a koala, and a cat. It's a fun, silly gag on a couple of levels. For one thing, with the cow, rabbit and dragon, we expect all of the animals to be from the Twelve Earthly Branches the animals of the Chinese zodiac, as we term them. But of course, pandas, koalas, cats and hippos are unexpected substitutions, plus hippos are just funny. There is also the humorous juxtaposition of the modern wristwatch, with Sengokuyera setting the wristwatch modified slightly to be more era appropriate, because for much of its history, Japanese hours were named for the Twelve Earthly Branches. I remembered this because of references to the hour of the rat and so on from things I've read about Japanese astrology and almanacs books which identified auspicious and inauspicious times, dates and even directions for particular activities, depending on the birth date and time of the reader. But when was the current style of timekeeping introduced? How did the previous method actually work? Were there wristwatches for it? In 1873, the Meiji government officially switched the country from a lunar calendar to the Gregorian calendar and timekeeping to the current 24 hours per day, 60 minutes per hour, 60 seconds/minute system. But this system had been known in Japan and had coexisted with its own for centuries. Japan's colonical system came from China, adopted around 660 Ad. And Japan didn't have its first native calendar revision until 1684. The Chinese colonical system uses two different cycles for days and for years. The twelve earthly branches or twelve animals of the zodiac and the ten heavenly stems which are the yin and yang expressions of each of the five elements. These two cycles combine into a cycle of 60 which is used for both years and days. There are some much longer cycles used for years as well, but I'm not going to get into those. Chinese astronomers knew from fairly early on that a tropical year, that is, the time it takes for the sun to return to the same position in our sky averaged 365 and one quarter days. A single lunation, or lunar month averaged 29.53 days. And a solar month, or one twelveTH of the year, averaged 30.44 days. Within a single year, there would be approximately twelve lunations or lunar cycles with a 13th month inserted from time to time to keep terrestrial timekeeping closer to astronomical reality. In fact, they inserted a 13th month whenever there was what we would call a blue moon, a second full Moon in a single solar month. This worked out to about seven months added in every 19 years a system which was also used in India and in Babylon. And it's unclear whether China developed this system independently, learned of it from one of these other cultures, or even whether India got it from China instead of from Babylon. The Chinese year was broken into four seasons and 24 microseasons, each microseason 15 days long. At some point in Japan, these were further divided for a total of 72 seasons, each five days long and named for seasonal changes and activities like the rice ripens, the swallows leave, or the first frost falls.
You know, that makes sense. There's probably about five days in the year when it's actually perfect light jacket weather.
I tried to find more information on when the 72 season system came about and how it was used, but no luck. Months in the Chinese calendar were 29 or 30 days subdivided into 310 day periods or weeks. 29 day months just had an incomplete third week. There is evidence of this ten day week going back to at least the first century BC. There is also evidence that months were sometimes divided into quarters, leading to an approximately seven day week. But this was less common. A single day was broken into 12 hours, 6 hours of daylight and six of night, each corresponding to one of the twelve earthly branches. Dawn was the hour of the rabbit, followed by dragon and snake. Noon was the hour of the horse, followed by goat and monkey. Dusk was the hour of the rooster, followed by dog and pig and midnight was the hour of the rat followed by ox and tiger. Each hour also has a number, and these count down from noon to midnight and then midnight to noon 987654. These numbers also indicate how many times bells would strike to indicate the hour. One, two and three were not used because those numbers of bell tolls were used by Buddhist temples in calls to prayer. One theory a source presents as to why the numbers counted it down rather than up, is that this corresponds to one old timekeeping method where specially made incense sticks were burnt down to measure the time, as has probably occurred to you now that you've had a few moments to think about it. This system would result in hours of varying lengths on the equinoxes. Each of the old Chinese or Japanese hours would equal two of our current hours, day or night. But then they would fluctuate as daylight hours lengthened and shortened. An hour could be as long as 156 modern day minutes, or as short as 77 modern day minutes. Well, one of the primary tasks for astronomers in Japan was to chart the changing hours for the upcoming year. And astronomers used a metric time system. They divided one day into 100 equal units called Koku, which would make one Koku about 14 and a half of our minutes. Koku would be further divided into ten bu or 100 bure. They would then create tables indicating the parameters for each hour of the day in terms of that day's, koku and bu. While astronomical noon and midnight are easy to define, the definitions of dawn and dusk changed over time and could also vary by region, local bells rung in town and by temples timed by consulting those astronomer created charts would indicate the hour to the public. Work contracts might stipulate working hours by season, as well as penalties for tardiness and parameters for overtime pay. So clearly, average workers were presumed to be aware of the time with at least that much precision. And although it may feel unintuitive to us having lived with this system all their lives, most people would have had a feel for the hours at least approximately starting in the late 16 hundreds. The Shogunate created an official department of astronomers in Edo called the Tenmongata and would issue each household annually an official calendar with charts of the changing hours one season to the next. But why would households need these charts unless it was to calibrate their own clocks. Water clocks had existed in Japan since the mid 7th century Ad. And are even mentioned in the Nihon shoki, with the earliest example attributed to either the emperor Tenchi in 671 or Prince Nakano OE in 660. Sand clocks, sundials and incense clocks were also widespread and at least early on were not particularly inferior to mechanical clocks. Mechanical clocks were introduced by Europeans, although the specifics who, where, when exactly varied by source. Specific famous examples include a clock given by Spanish missionary Francis Xavier to the Sengoku era Daimyo Oichi Yoshitaka in 1551, clocks given by papal envoys to ODA Nobunaga in 1569 and Toyotomi Hideoshi in 1571, and two clocks given to Tokugawa Iyasu one in 16, six by a missionary and one in 1611 by a Portuguese envoy. The oldest surviving Western clock in Japan was given to the Shogun Iyasu by the viceroy of Mexico in 1611. A gift from King Philip II of Spain. Quick side note, which I hope will be as helpful for some of you as it was for me. Many sources describe the same gifts or envoys, but in some sources they're labeled Spanish and in some Portuguese. Well, from 1581 until 1640, the two kingdoms were governed by the Spanish Habsburg kings Philip II third and fourth in what is called the Iberian Union. So despite the cultural differences, when we're talking about foreign relations, there's no meaningful political distinction to be made between the two countries at this time. But back to Tokugawa Iayasu's clock, because it is special. Built in the late 15 hundreds in the lantern shape that was popular in Europe at that time, iayasu liked to display it as a mechanical oddity, but never used it. It is now a carefully kept national treasure and underwent some repair and restoration work in the 1950s, after which it started running again. In fact, quote NHK broadcast the sound of the clock ticking and striking nationwide on the evening news on April 18, 1953. To quote one source, a 2012 examination by the British Museum concluded that the clock is likely the only clock in the world of its era in which almost all of the internal parts remain as they were originally made. Not long after the introduction of these clocks, japan closed itself off from outside influence and interference, and just as with gun making, local craftspeople began replicating and adapting the previously introduced clock technology. Clockmakers developed ingenious methods to account for Japanese time measuring standards. Some clocks came with different clock faces, which would be changed out monthly. Other clocks were made so that the position of the digits on the clock face could be changed and came with a little table indicating how the digits should be arranged at different times of year. Other clocks had a static face, but their actual mechanism could be adjusted to change the duration of the daylight and evening hours. The earliest clocks used a mechanism called a verge escapement controlled by a folio foliot and were weight driven. But soon, spring driven clocks were also being produced locally. The smallest of these spring driven clocks could be carried in an inro. These were small, hard sided cases that were hung from the obi belt for carrying small personal effects, which would have made these early spring driven clocks about the size of a pocket watch, a lot more portable than I would have thought for that time.
But could they be worn on the wrist?
No indication of wristwatches at this early date in any of my research, clockmaking as an industry spread to Japan's major cities, and by the early 18 hundreds, most urbanites carried some kind of timepiece. What really fascinates me about this period is what one source describes as the necessity of translating the technology, overcoming old habits, and developing new ones. What feel like sensible absolutes to us, that 24 hours represent the lengths of time it takes for the Earth to make one rotation on its axis, regardless of season, was not at all intuitive to Japanese people at that time. After all the sun rising and the sun setting, these are also absolutes. Why, then, should sunrise sometimes be at the fifth hour of the day and sometimes the 6th? And why would a clock present opposite parts of the day, noon and midnight, in exactly the same way? Why would a clock need to cycle twice to show a full day's passage of time? At the dawn of the Meiji period, western timekeeping didn't present any real advantage over the Japanese timekeeping that was already in place. But there were two strains of thought that encouraged the changeover. In one, westernization was a practical and political necessity, crucial to the preservation of national integrity and sovereignty that, fitting in with the west would allow Japan to compete on the world stage. The other, presaged by the 1820s, fashion for carrying unaltered western timepieces considered Westernization a kind of cultural evolution, that it represented modernity efficiency and precision, and that western cultures were productive, rational, and technologically sophisticated, marking anyone who opposed westernization as uneducated or ignorant. Using western timekeeping was just one more way to get into the mind of Westerners and understand their way of thinking. The way in which I got horribly sidetracked, as I mentioned in the intro, was that I looked up the astronomical sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight times for the rest of this month and made a table to convert that information to the old Japanese hours system. Maybe it would be a useful way to organize my time.
Are you going to publish it somewhere so that our listeners can also organize their lives according to the hour of the hippo?
I mean, I could, but I feel like the immediate thing that would happen is somebody with much better either programming or Excel chops than me or both would come up with a much more elegant and efficient way of doing it next time on our as yet untitled Episode 9.6. Well, it will have to remain a mystery because Tom hasn't decided what he wants to research yet.
No, wait. I figured it out. It'll be the Tiger of Solomon Annivel Gato and his sengoku Jidai era inspiration.
Until then, stay genki, folks.
Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is Wasp by Misha Dioxen. The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people and more in the show notes and on our website, Gundampodcast.com. You can get in touch with us on Twitter or Instagram at gundampodcast or by email to hosts@gundampodcast.com. And thank you for listening. I've been podcasting for about five years. I don't write my outros anymore. I just take them from my head. I can do that, you know.
That was very loud.
I wasn't expecting it to be loud. It was so far away from the microphone.
Writing that did make me wonder if there are any hate listeners. I can't imagine taking the time to listen to something that I wasn't enjoying. But there's some weird people out there.
You never know.
Am I boring you? I hear you yawning.
No, you're hearing my computer fan going, okay. I haven't yawned once.
I thought I heard it. I'm enthralled stifled yawn. Oh, well, your computer is bored.