明けましておめでとうございます！ (“Happy New Year!“)
It’s now 2010. The second decade of the 21st century!
2010 is the "Year Of The Tiger".
If you go to the Tokyo Tower by 2010 Jan 17 (8:00-10:00PM), you can see it lit up with "2010"
Every year on New Year’s Eve in Japan, many people watch 「紅白歌合戦」 (“Red And White Song Battle“) on TV.
It’s a music show with two teams of musicians (a “red” team and a “white” team…red and white are the colors or celebration) competing for points based on their live song performance.
Just before midnight, they countdown to the new year.
This show has been a New Year tradition in Japan for many years.
Last night we watched the show…as we usually do every year.
Here’s a clip of the show from yesterday.
And as I mentioned in an earlier post, Susan Boyle came to Japan to perform on this show last night. It was an excellent performance.
Here it is:
America also has a musical New Year countdown show that has been aired for many years. I used to watch it when I was a kid.
On this show, they show a illuminated ball descend a tower in New York City…the ball is timed to reach the bottom of the tower precisely at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
I haven’t seen this show since the mid-1980s…but I’m sure it’s still on the air every year.
As today is the start of a new decade, let’s look at Japan’s 「紅白歌合戦」 (“Red And White Song Battle“) from New Years Eve four decades ago (the year I was born)…
Here’s a clip from Japan’s 「紅白歌合戦」 (“Red And White Song Battle“) from New Year’s Eve 1969 → 1970:
I couldn’t find a clip from America’s “New Years Eve At Times Square” from the same time but here’s one from three decades ago (New Year’s Eve 1979 → 1980):
Time flies. TV and music (and life in general) is so different now!
How about ten years ago?
New Years Eve 1999 ushered in the year 2000 (the start of the 21st century). Remember the “Y2K scare” at that time?
Well here’s a clip that shows highlights of the New Years celebrations from that evening (1999 → 2000) from around the world:
Tokyo Five 
Who can forget about the Y2K bug or should I say bluff?
LikeLike
Yeah, on New Years 1999 I was really wondering what was gonna happen the next day. Turns out…nothing. 😉
LikeLike
Exactly ..i was anticipating with what would have happened at that time ….
LikeLike
They said that when computers were originally programmed in the ’70s, that they just used the last two digits of the year…they didn’t plan for the year 2000 which would look like ’00 to computers and could be mistaken for 1900.
Seems they should’ve anticipated that when they originally programmed them.
Luckily nothing became of it.
LikeLike
Today is the first of only two times a year that the public is permitted inside the Imperial Palace’s inner grounds to hear a message from the Emperor of Japan.
The other time is on the Emperor’s birthday (I wrote a post about that here.)
LikeLike