Telling time in Japan, the old way

If you ever watch a samurai movie, or any historical piece, you may notice that in old Japanese society they tell time differently. You hear names like “hour of the rat” or some such. I saw this used for example in my favorite movie, The Twilight Samurai, but I never understood what the times meant.

Finally, I found the answer in the cultural guidebook I bought early this year in Japan. It seems that the old Japanese clock was divided into 12 periods (not 24 like the Western clock), each corresponding to one of the animals of the Japanese/Chinese zodiac. These are the “hours” used in Japanese time back then, and were roughly two hours each, but varied depending on the season. If the daylight hours were longer, then the daylight “hours” would stretch out, or get shorter during winter months. The passage of time was marked by Buddhist temples and military castles by ringing the bell at certain times of day, like sunset or sunrise. That is why the hours varied depending on season.

However, the hours are listed below, and approximately what time of day they covered:

This two-hour period is then divided into four intervals. These intervals, approximately 30 minutes, were just called one, two, three and four, or in Japanese hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu (ひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ、よっつ). From there, you could say what time it was by adding the “hour” to the 30-minute interval and add the work doki (どき, 時) to indicate time.

So, for example, the second period of the hour of the horse (roughly 11:30 am) would be 午二つ時 (うまふたつどき, uma futatsu doki). The third period of the hour of the sheep (roughtly 2:30pm) would be 未三つ時 (ひつじみっつどき, hitsuji mittsu doki). And so on.

Now, this time system is largely deprecated now, except for historical dramas, however, in major news networks, the newscasters will still say at noon: 正午のニュースです (しょうごのニュースです, shōgo no nyūsu desu). This means that it is the top of the hour of the horse, which is of course high-noon.

So, now you know how to tell time the ancient Japanese way.