Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
4-5-4- Shibaura,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
Regarding the story “Making hay while the sun shines: Should Japan adopt daylight saving time in summer?” (The Japan Times on Sunday, April 24, 2016), I grew up with DST but I never understood the point of it. I still don't. That's not for any lack of patient explanation. I've listened to/read the same explanations again and again, but they seem like the effete reasoning of people educated beyond their intelligence with questionable, negligible or unreal applications in the real world. The explanation of the opportunity to spend more quality time with my family feels like the lamest reason yet. I don't like full daylight at 4:30 a.m. but so what? I live with it - and live fairly nicely. Arriving at a Japanese workplace a couple hours earlier to take advantage of the daylight, with the intention of leaving work a couple hours earlier as compensation probably would not work in this country. Japanese companies would still expect their employees to stay until the usual closing hour, ignoring and abusing the DST goal, and illegally taking advantage of its workforce in the bargain. But I could be wrong. By the way, I rather like dusk at an early hour. Creeping darkness at 3:30 p.m. in the winter time is spooky and neat. As an adult I have to be awake in the daylight to work, make money and live, but the night time hours have always been my favorite. Concealment. Freedom.
Published in The Japan Times on Sunday on Sunday, May 1, 2016 as “Daylight saving time best avoided.”