It wasn’t until around 1872 that Japan adopted the western method of measuring time (seconds, minutes, hours).

Prior to that they divided their time into two halves.
- A daylight period
- And a night time period.

(a thread 1 of 9)

These 2 sections were again divided into 6 subsections each (think hours).

However, because the length of day and night vary throughout the year, so did these “hours”.

This required some ingenuity when it came to creating mechanical clocks that would use their system, known as 和時計 or wadokei in Japanese.

Eventually they developed 2 basic methods.

First, they created a clock that speed up and slowed down based off of whether it was day/night.
(The clock would tick faster/slower)

However, this required someone to adjust the weights of the clock twice a day.

This was rather tedious and difficult which lead to method #2.

This new method was so simple and yet rather ingenious (as most great inventions are in retrospect.)

Instead of adjusting the speed of the clock, they adjusted the "hour" locations while keeping the speed of the clock constant.

Something like this but bigger.

This era of Japanese clockmaking culminated with the creation of the Myriad Year Clock in 1851.
(万年自鳴鐘 or Mannen Jimeishou)

*Two years before Japan would open its gates again to the West
*21 years before Japan would officially adopt the Western way of measuring time.

Created by Tanaka Hisashige, the founder of what became the Toshiba Corporation and whom many have deemed the Thomas Edison of Japan.

The clock has 6 faces, telling time in 7 different ways and only needs to be wound once a year.