ミヤガワ　タクヤ   MIYAGAWA Takuya   宮川　卓也    所属   広島修道大学  人間環境学部    職種   准教授
発表年月日	2023/08/22
発表テーマ	Traditional Time with Changing Rulers: Lunisolar Calendar in Modern Okinawa
会議名	16th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia
主催者	International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
学会区分	国際学会
発表形式	口頭（一般）
単独共同区分	単独
開催地名	Goethe University, Frankfurt
概要	This article traces the survival of lunisolar calendar in modern Ryukyu (Okinawa) from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century, the period of two changes of rulers, Japan and the United States. Under the tributary relationship with Qing China since the seventeenth century, the Ryukyu Kingdom (RK) had used lunisolar calendar, Senjitsu tsusho (選日通書). The situation began to change drastically in the late 19th century when the Gregorian calendar system was adopted as the official time frame by East Asian governments, and also when the Japanese Empire began colonial rule over neighboring countries such as Ryukyu (Okinawa), Taiwan, and Korea. Through 1870s, RK became the second colony of the Japanese Empire after Hokkaido. The Meiji government forced the Ryukyuan people to adopt the new calendrical system, despite strong opposition to the calendar reform even on the mainland Japan. The Meiji government, eager for rapid industrialization, suddenly announced at the end of 1872 that it would adopt the Gregorian calendar from the beginning of 1873 and abandon the old (lunisolar) calendar. This policy was strongly opposed by the public, and therefore, the government had to grant a grace period for transition from lunisolar to the Gregorian until 1910. Despite the government’s encouragement to the Okinawans to switch from the old to the new calendar, and despite the efforts of the Okinawan intellectuals to enlighten the public, most Okinawans kept their practice based on the old calendar, which continued under the US rule after the WWII. When Japan annexed the neighboring countries, they used lunisolar calendars as their main dating system both at the official and public spheres. Colonization meant that the colonized had to follow the colonizer’s policy – replacement of time system – but the transition process was not achieved as smooth as the colonizers intended. This article tries to describe the survival of lunisolar calendar in Okinawa, not focusing on the process of ‘modernization of time’ by introduction of the Gregorian dating. Looking at time system in modern times can provide us with another perspective on what ‘modern(ity)’ means. When we say ‘modern society/science’, it sounds as if the traditional has been replaced to something new and (Western) modern. This case study aims at show that the East Asian ‘modern’ era was not constituted only by ‘something modern’.