Will Miss #311 - free calendars

A gorgeous sumo calendar I was given for 2011. Best calendar ever.

At the end of every year, you'll see a lot of people walking around with shopping bags full of calendars. It's common in Japan for various companies to give customers a free calendar as they go around visiting them and thanking them for their patronage. Most of the time, these aren't the wimpy little freebies banks give out in America. Many of them are big, colorful, and have beautiful pictures. Companies like Canon, because it is known for its printers, make gorgeous ones with large pictures of beautiful scenes in nature. The pictures are so beautiful that we used to keep the top half (with the picture) and decorate our work cubicles with them for years to come.

I'll miss getting free and often beautiful calendars at the end of the year.

Won't Miss #161 - converting the calendar

That's right. It's March 1, and the year is 22.

The Japanese use both the Gregorian calendar years that Western folks use and their own system based on the number of years that the current emperor has been in power. The current emperor's calendar is referred to with "Heisei". This year is Heisei 22. Any time one does business with the government, and in some cases fills out various forms for other purposes, one has to use the Japanese system. Since it is used so infrequently, it's easy to lose track of the Japanese year and troublesome converting back and forth.

I won't miss having to convert the year to the emperor-based calendar system.