Japan is experiencing technical problems due to the emperor's change

Lost data. Emails that disappear. Servers that never connect.

All this thanks to the rise of a new emperor to the throne of chrysanthemum.

Japan does not hesitate to update the software, review formats and print new calendars before May 1, when the world's third economy will enter a new imperial era. For most of the world, it will still be the year 2019, when the clock will ring at midnight. Across Japan, which depends internally on an ancient calendar honoring the reigning emperor, it will be the first day of the first year of the Reiwa era.

The new era, dubbed only a few weeks ago, will force the country's vast bureaucracy to literally return to the first year. Experts compare it to the digital threat that existed before the arrival of the year 2000 (year 2000), but on a much smaller scale and with less consequences.

"The name change of the time will have a significant impact on large companies with complex systems," said Gaku Moriya, deputy director of innovation in information technology at the Ministry of Finance. Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). in English).

Most likely, large companies with relatively modern systems will have to face a radical change. Even then, the consequences are still unclear and for many, the change will not be cheap. All government forms, including tax returns and marriage records, use the imperial calendar. It is therefore impossible for companies and government officials to avoid it.

The city of Nagoya, an industrial center in central Japan, plans to spend about $ 4.3 million to prepare for the new era. In Koga City, officials who committed to the change accidentally erased 1,650 water service receipts. The crooks sent letters to the elderly asking them to send their personal information to make sure their bank accounts are part of the transition, according to NHK, the national broadcaster.

For companies that can not update with their documents on time, METI recommends a clbadic solution: correct the documents with rubber stamps with the Japanese characters of the New Year.

In a small factory on the outskirts of Tokyo, barely three days after the announcement of the name "Reiwa", Osamu Takiguchi and a team of nearly twenty people worked overtime to provide stamp orders, a product clearly Japanese.

"We ran out of rubber during the first three days," said Takiguchi, general manager of Hanko 21, a chain of office supplies to which the factory belongs. He said he was considering hiring temporary employees to help him fulfill the last minute orders he hoped to receive later this month.

The headaches have opened a national dialogue about whether it is finally time for Japan to start using the Gregorian calendar to do everything. The country uses the Gregorian calendar to deal with other countries and coordinates world events, such as the 2020 Olympics. Most people have also adopted in their life.

A lawyer, Jiro Yamane, has even filed a lawsuit against the government, arguing that forcing people to measure their time according to the life of the emperor violates their constitutional right to dignity of the person .

"Why did the Japanese so cling to this system?", He added.

It may be just because Japan is struggling to change. The country still depends on fax machines. It's one of the last places in the world where Tower Records, the once iconic music store, has remained open and continues to sell compact discs.

The Japanese adopted the imperial calendar of Chinese in the seventh century and, since the late seventies, it is imposed on government agencies to use it. Other countries in the region, including China, have advanced and adopted the Gregorian calendar of official affairs.

Japan has not had to deal with a change in the calendar for a whole generation, it was before the era of high-speed computing.

In 1989, when the calendar changed from the Showa era to the Heisei era, the announcement was made the same day as the death of Emperor Hirohito. In twenty-four hours, much of the initial replacement of signage and format update was done by hand.

This time, the transition was more orderly. The date of abdication of the current emperor, Akihito, was announced at the end of 2017. The country therefore had nearly eighteen months to prepare.

Many did not do it. Until March, one-fifth of the more than 2,700 companies surveyed by METI had taken no action to prepare for the change, the agency said. Officials added to the problem by keeping the secret name of the new era until April 1, a month before the transition.

In some cases, system administrators may need to upgrade operating systems almost as old as the Heisei era. Although the change may be cumbersome or expensive, it could also force more companies to upgrade, Moriya said.

"Some Japanese companies have been using the same system for two or three decades," he said. "The interior of the system has become a black box."

Copyright: 2019 New York Times News Service