Daylight-Saving Time
By JULIET HINDELL
|
|
夏時間
夏時間
日本での生活が長い筆者が
イギリス生活で懐かしく思うことの一つに
夏時間がある。
会社の仕事が終わってから
屋外でスポーツを楽しんだり
食事をしながら日の入りを見るなど
夏時間の季節には楽しい思い出が多い。
最近は環境保護や経済効果の面での
メリットも注目されていることから、
筆者は日本での夏時間の導入を期待している。
|
One of the very few things I miss about Britain while living in Tokyo is the
long summer evenings. It doesn't get dark until 9 p.m., which means for most
people there are two hours of daylight left after work.
It opens up a whole range of possibilities: evening tennis, games in the
park, sitting outside a pub with a pint of beer watching the sun go down.
There is every reason to be outside, and even if you are inside the sun
comes through the window during dinnertime.
Children complain that it is difficult to go to sleep while it's still light
outside, and farmers moan that they still have to get up in the dark because
they have to milk the cows, who don't understand that the clocks have been
changed. But they are just about the only people who don't like
daylight-saving time.
I am amazed that Japan once had the same system of putting the clocks
forward by an hour so that everyone benefited from long evenings. Japan tried
the idea in 1948, but it was abandoned a few years later.
Now the idea of daylight-saving time is being discussed again. The idea is
being promoted on environmental and economic grounds. It's thought that
longer evenings would save half a million liters of oil a year and reduce
carbon dioxide emissions by 440,000 tons. Longer days would allow consumers to spend more money, adding an estimated 610 billion to the economy.
Those against the idea say that it will be bad for workers who will end up
working longer hours, but this isn't the case in other countries where
daylight-saving has already been introduced.
I think those campaigning for daylight-saving time should concentrate on the improvement in people's lifestyles. In Britain, where the winter seems so
dark and so long, the whole nation seems to have a change of mood when the
clocks change at the end of March. When British Summer Time begins it acts as
a very strong signal that the long winter is finally over.
Plenty of people in Britain suffer from something called seasonal affected
disorder, or SAD, which, like it sounds, is a condition in which you get really depressed by dark winter weather. Japan doesn't have that problem.
Japanese winters, with their high blue skies and crisp air, are a wonderful
treat for people from Britain, who are used to short days, grey skies and a
lot of rain.
But in the summer here I long for summers in Britain where days seem to go
on forever. If daylight-saving time is introduced in Japan it could happen in
the beginning of the next century. Apparently two years are needed to make
the changeover and "educate the public." I hope that in that education the
officials don't forget to tell people how pleasant life can be when it doesn't
get dark until late.
Shukan ST: March 19, 1999
(C) All rights reserved
|