Punctuality, of course, is a modern phenomenon in Japan, just as it is anywhere. Clockwork was introduced to Japan by early European visitors, perhaps in 1551. Some think that Portuguese sailors arriving at Tanegashima on Kyushu in 1542 were responsible, we cannot be certain. All we know is that at some time all the evocatively-named components of European clockwork: foliots, pirouette escapements, pendulums, hairsprings, crown wheels, contrate wheels, wheel arbours, counterweights, striking trains and going trains, circular balances, pillars, bridges, verges, and plates, were forced into marriage with an altogether incompatible partner: arcane Japanese horology.

Since at least the 10th Century, and perhaps even as far back as the 7th, the Japanese, following the Chinese way, had used the twelve terrestrial branches, familiar to us from Chinese astrology, to divide the times of day. Noon was given the sign of the horse, after which followed the sheep, monkey, cock, dog, boar. At midnight came the rat, then the ox, tiger, hare, dragon, and the snake, each marking a Japanese ‘hour’ or ‘watch’ of roughly two hours. Temple attendants marked the hours by beating drums or clapping sticks. There were nine beats for the horse, eight for the sheep, and so on to the boar, which received four beats. The number of beats then started again at nine for the rat, descending to four for the snake. We have only one dubious explanation of this peculiar beat sequence in Japanese clocks written in 1932 by one N H N Mody. I am more attracted to the idea that the downward counting is a way of seeming to approach zero, or nothingness, but never actually getting there.

What complicated the union of clockwork and Japanese time was the unequal and constantly changing lengths of Japanese hours. The six hours of daylight were lengthened and shortened during the year so that they always coincided with the period from sunrise to sunset. Consequently, daylight hours stretched long in summer and grew short in winter, and night hours were compensatingly short and long. The sun always rose, by definition, in the hour of the hare and always set in the hour of the cock.

European clock mechanisms had to be substantially modified to fit the Japanese horology. This was done in two ways: either the hand (there was often only one) was made to turn at different speeds during the day, or the hour markers on the dial were moved. The first Japanese clocks, yagura-dokei, required their owners to alter the speed of the hand twice a day, at dawn and at dusk, by moving weights suspended on a foliot. Later, the shaku-dokei appeared. This was the more unusual of the two clock designs, since the time was given by the position of a pointer attached to a weight, which slowly fell on a chain. The pointer passed down a vertical scale on which the unequal hours were marked, and was rewound to the top each day. Every fortnight a different scale was used to ensure that the position of the hour markers properly agreed with the seasonally changing times of dawn and dusk. Thirteen such scales were necessary to cover the year, each being employed twice. On some clocks all thirteen scales were permanently present, but other designs necessitated a fortnightly visit from the clockmaker to change the scale.

Japanese clock-making eventually became so sophisticated that the original cumbersome timekeeping systems were replaced by mechanisms that could be accommodated in watches small enough to be hung from an obi, an affectation probably more cosmetic that useful. Orreries were also produced. Later clock designs incorporated small automata: a little hand that turned, or a butterfly that moved in a circle against a floral background, items serving no purpose other than to delight.

In time, all such horological whimsy had to yield to greater pragmatism. In 1873, soon after the Meiji Restoration, western timekeeping practices were decreed. There was dissent and remonstration, and so the original hour system was allowed to persist alongside the occidental invader until 1910. Special clocks were produced during this time, showing both Japanese temporal hours and western equinoctial hours. Not for the first time, attempts to simplify things had made them more complicated, but eventually the western system prevailed.

It is tempting to read into the temporal Japanese horology a more naturalistic, or relativistic approach to time than that of Europeans. However, this would be a mistake, for the first Europeans to arrive in Japan would not have been surprised to find a temporal system, one had also been in use in Europe. The temporal system had originated in the Middle East and spread both east and west, wherever it suited the agrarian societies it met. It was the demands of science, particularly astronomy, and hence the art of navigation, that had forced Europe to change to an equinoctial system, and later it was for essentially the same reason that Japan changed too.

The Japanese did take a relativistic approach to time on a larger scale, numbering their years according to three separate systems. Under one system, years were counted from 660 BC, the start of the reign of Jimmu, the semi-mythological first Emperor. Under the second system, years followed a sexagenary cycle developed in China, using the twelve terrestrial branches and the ten celestial stems. The stems were the five elements, namely wood, fire, earth, metal and water, each of which came in two forms, younger brother and elder brother. But it is the third system, still in common use, which is the least systematic. Under this, the number of the year is reset to one on the occasion of a nengo, some noteworthy event, usually but not necessarily the enthronement of a new Emperor. The last such nengo occurred in 1989, when Emperor Akihito ascended to the throne, and the Heisei era began. The year, which had started out as Showa 63, instantly became Heisei 1 instead.

Like most calendars, the original Japanese calendar was often revised – in 1684, 1754, 1798, and again in 1843, when the principles of western astronomy were adopted. In 1873 the Gregorian calendar, a fourth system, was introduced alongside the nengo system. It is the Gregorian calendar that is now used to determine New Year’s Day, instead of the first dawn of the second new moon after the winter solstice. The old oriental New Year was placed exactly halfway between the winter solstice (22 December) and the vernal equinox (23 March), which is how it comes to fall in February. So, for the sake of metrical precision, a solid grounding in astronomical events that any peasant could easily observe was forsaken.

In English the months have names, and the days of the months are given ordinal numbers. In modern Japanese, it is the months that are numbered and the days of the month that have special terms. These terms are better thought of as day counters, functioning like the other special-purpose Japanese counter terms for people, thin things, and so on, but ordinal as well as cardinal in use. The first ten days are tsuitachi, futsuka, mikka, yokka, itsuka, muika, nanoka, youka, kokonoka, touka. After the tenth, the numbering system is conventional, except for the fourteenth, juyokka, and twenty-fourth, nijuyokka (analogously, in the European names of months there is also a veiled Latin numbering system from September to December).

The numbering of months in Japanese is a 19th Century innovation. In the venerable lunar system, months were given names evocatively descriptive of the seasons. For example, the first month, which roughly coincided with February, was mutsuki, meaning harmony or happy month. this was followed by seasonal change of dress, grass grows dense, plant rice, rice sprouts, watering month, month of letters, month of leaves, long month, month of gods, month of falling frost, and poor-looking – for January.

Months were also divided into thirds, jun, of ten days each: shojun, chuujun, and nenjun. The twenty-six fortnights of the year had names inherited from China: spring begins, rain water, excited insects, vernal equinox, clear and bright, grain rains, summer begins, grain fills, grain in ear, summer solstice, slight heat, great heat, autumn begins, limit of heat, white dew, autumnal equinox, cold dew, hoar frost descends, winter begins, little snow, heavy snow, winter solstice, little cold, and severe cold.

What wonderful arcana!