MOVING TIME - LITERALLY AND POLITICALLY

One week from today, the clocks in Europe will be set back by one hour, marking the end of summertime (or daylight saving time, as it is known in some parts of the world).

Meanwhile clocks in Japan will not change, and most Japanese will probably not even notice that the time difference to Western Europe is reverting back to 8 hours, from the 7 hours during summer. Except for the UK, where it's 9 hours instead of 8.

For those doing business with Europe, it does have an impact, however. Working for a European-headquartered company, where global conference calls are often scheduled at 1 p.m. European time, to enable participation from both the Americas as well as the Far East, I feel that the one-hour shift does cut into my private leisure time in the evenings, because instead of 8 p.m., calls in winter will start at 9 p.m.

The only consolation is that I'm still better off than my colleagues sitting in the Sydney office. Because while Western Europe sets its clock back one hour in late October, the Aussies do the exact opposite at the beginning of the month, as their Daylight Savings start. Which increases the gap from 8 hours to 10 during the winter months. And when I mean 'winter', I'm referring to the conventional definition that applies to the Northern Hemisphere, because in Down-Under winter is, of course, during our summer. The world can be a very confusing place sometimes, don't you think?

Of course it's not only conference calls at work that are impacted, but also private phone calls with family members back in Europe. Mind you, some members of my family back in Switzerland have always struggled with the concept of such a large time difference, even without the added complication of changes twice a year. It hasn't been a rare occurrence over the years that my brother, for instance, would call me very late at night, waking me up, unaware of how late it already was in Japan...

And then there are the TV schedules. Because you see, my TV consumption consists almost entirely of British channels. That means that with a twice yearly time change, my favourite news programmes that I generally watch live, suddenly start at a different time. Humans are creatures of habit after all.

There is also a psychological factor: During the summer months I always feel emotionally closer to Europe than I do in winter, just because of the smaller time difference. It would be nice if that were to also translate into shorter flight times, but unfortunately things don't work that way...

I must admit that I miss summertime, and I have done so every single year since arriving in Japan. When living in Switzerland, and ever since the introduction of summertime, I always found the long bright evenings uplifting, thoroughly enjoying the seemingly extended days, spending time outdoors whenever possible. In Switzerland and during the height of summer, the sun sets after 9 p.m., and it's close to 10 p.m. when darkness finally sets in, giving people ample time after work to enjoy the bright evenings, working in the garden or just having dinner on the terrace or balcony, without having to worry about it getting dark too quickly.

In stark contrast to that, the longest bright evenings Tokyo can enjoy around the time of the Summer Solstice extend merely till 7:30 p.m., as the sun sets no later than 7 p.m.

But given Tokyo's geographical position and the lack of Daylight Savings also means that summer days start extremely early. The sun rises as early as 4:30 a.m., providing a lot of daylight that nobody really needs, as most people are still asleep anyway. As I have always been an early riser, I do actually like that aspect of living in Japan. Nothing worse for me than to have to get up when it's still pitch dark outside. The truth is that the sun in the 'Land of the Rising Sun' actually rises much too early. Even for someone like me, during the height of summer there is more daylight in the mornings than I would need, and I think that introducing Daylight Savings here would elegantly shift the excess hour of morning daylight to the evening, when it would be more useful.

Not that it hasn't been tried before.

The American occupation authorities in the 1940s imposed summertime on the country for several years, but it was never popular here. So it was swiftly scrapped the very moment Japan regained full sovereignty.

Multiple administrations since then have debated a re-introduction, for example as a means to conserve energy after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, or then as a temporary measure for the Tokyo Olympics, for the sake of the safety of athletes during the punishing morning temperatures. Bearing in mind that scheduling the Games in a cooler period of the year may have been a more meaningful alternative, but that's a whole different story...

But the discussion has always come and gone, as there seems little appetite in this country of hard workers. One of the arguments made by proponents, which is to give people more daylight in the evening to enjoy their leisure time, was swiftly rebuked by the Ministry of Education, fearing that the long light-filled evenings would entice children to stay outside instead of doing their homework, and by office workers, whose concern was that the longer hours of daylight would simply mean longer working hours because dusk, signalling the end of the workday, would come much later in the evening. And one argument I've heard from opponents is that it would be 'too complicated' to change all the clocks twice a year...

But then, the time changes are now also losing popularity outside of Japan. Several U.S. states have decided to adopt Daylight Savings permanently, in order to end the twice-yearly changing of the clocks, while the European Union, following a public consultation that found overwhelming opposition to the practice, passed legislation in 2019 to abandon it, though member countries are divided over how to actually implement it. Some want permanent summertime, while others favour a return to permanent standard wintertime. Both proposals come with up- and downsides, depending on the location of the country, and depending on whether it's summer or winter.

Permanent summertime would mean even darker mornings during the winter, making it hard for children to wake up to go to school, whereas permanent wintertime would mean losing the long light summer evenings that everyone has become so accustomed to over the past few decades.

It's an emotional as well as political discussion, and with Europe having been grappling with far more pressing issues in the last few years, there seems no urgency to find an agreeable solution to this particular problem. So the practice of twice-yearly changing of clocks continues - for now.

Speaking of politics, today Switzerland is going to the polls to elect new members to both the upper house ('Council of States') and the lower house ('National Council') of Parliament, with a record number of almost 6,000 candidates vying for a mere 200 seats in the lower house alone. Ironically, voter turnout is at the same time widely expected to be at a historic low. More people who are hoping to be elected, and fewer and fewer people who seem to care...

I do care, and the great thing for me is that I can actually take part. A privilege that is - sadly - denied me in my adopted home country, as foreigners are not eligible to vote in Japan.

With more than 10% of people with Swiss citizenship living outside of Switzerland, it is fair to say that their vote does count!

Until a few years ago, I was even able to vote electronically, but that temporarily stopped due to increasing security and privacy issues, which forced me to go back to making my vote known via postal letter. Obviously not as convenient as clicking a few buttons on the computer, but then again, still better than not being able to vote at all.

Eligible voters in Switzerland have been able to vote by postal ballot for decades. In fact, ever since I reached the age that made me eligible, the option has been available, so I've never actually gone to a polling station in my life. I'm told that around 90% of Swiss voters make use of this method, and COVID-19 obviously gave it an additional boost. I was very surprised to realise that while this is in fact the most common way to vote in Switzerland, the option is available only in few countries such as Germany and the UK, as well as some States in the U.S. Japan belongs to the majority of countries where this is not possible, except for citizens living abroad. I find that very puzzling, because what could be more convenient?

Then again, given the low voter turnout in Switzerland DESPITE the option of a postal ballot seems to indicate that if people are simply not interested, the added convenience is not enough to change their behaviour.

And while it remains to be seen whether today's elections in Switzerland will result in a political swing to either side, or whether things will broadly remain the same, what is certain is that most people in Europe will wake up next Sunday morning feeling robbed of an hour, after the clocks were changed back in the wee hours. But they'll most likely get it back next March...