Japan's break with tradition doesn't really change anything
It remains a name comprising two Chinese characters conveying auspicious meanings. And it sustains the perpetual hope for blessings. Despite the absence of a precise, official English translation, Reiwa, the name the Japanese government has given to the next imperial era beginning May 1, is as traditional as it could be.
Except that it was chosen by the Shinzo Abe Cabinet from a poem in the Japanese literary classic Manyoshu, which was compiled sometime after 759.
That the naming process has been reported as breaking the 1,300-year tradition of choosing characters from ancient Chinese literary classics has prompted alarmist calls for "vigilance" against what some see as Abe's "de-Sinicizing" of Japanese culture. Yet, as some scholars in this country have pointed out, the two characters appear in almost identical sentences in a piece by Chinese writer Zhang Heng, almost 700 years before the Japanese poem the characters are taken from.