The Sunset Chime in Tokyo

It's More Than a Marker of Time

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Every evening at 5PM a gentle instrumental is broadcast over loud speakers throughout Tokyo. The selected recording and duration of play depends on the neighborhood. Where I live in Minato-ku, the recording lasts for about 30 seconds. In other parts of the country, the music may play for as long as four minutes and begin playing as late as 6PM or as early as four during the winter months when it gets dark earlier, but the music is the same every day. 

When I first moved to Tokyo, I thought it was simply a marker of time, a charming equivalent of the old ”It’s 10p.m. Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” PSAs that used to play before the late night network news in the United States. A more accurate comparison however, would be the old-school warning parents used to give children - back when children had more freedom of independent movement and play without adult supervision: Make sure you’re home before the streetlights come on.  

As it turns out, the 5 o’clock bell, sometimes called the sunset chime, is exactly that, but it is also something entirely different. Yes, it is a reminder for children to come home. And yes it marks the time with reliable accuracy but it’s primary purpose is to serve as a test of the national emergency broadcast system. In the event of an emergency, be it natural or industrial, an earthquake, tsunami or Godzilla, the Municipal Disaster Management Radio Communication Network lulls those living in Japan to attention with a soothing children’s folk song (or auld lang syne in one neighborhood) - and that suits me just fine. 

By contrast, I spent a portion of my childhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and for many years, every Friday in the early evening, an air raid siren would ring out across the neighborhood for several minutes. It was disconcerting and slightly ominous but it did not seem to be tied to any immediate threat. It would be years before I learned that those sirens were Shabbat Sirens, meant to alert the Orthodox Jewish community of the arrival of the Sabbath at sundown. And so it is that the herald for a day of rest is an alarm and the call to disaster begins with a lullaby.

And so it is that the herald for a day of rest is an alarm and the call to disaster begins with a lullaby.

I have lived in cities most of my life and while the incessant honking of horns, the creak and groan of sanitation trucks and car alarms blaring at all hours of the night constitute noise pollution, there is another category of city sounds, sometimes dismissed as noise pollution, that can allow for moments of respite and beauty if you so choose. The peal of church bells, drum circles and musicians practicing in the park, an Imam’s call to prayer, and the laughter of children at play are just some of the sounds that offer such moments. When I became a parent, I took it a step further and told my children that the jingle played by the Mr. Softee Ice Cream Truck was actually emitted from an ambient music truck that served no other purpose than to provide music for little children to enjoy. (As you might imagine, that didn’t last long!) In Tokyo, I have come to love the sound of the cicadas in the summer, the yaki-imo (sweet potato) truck seller’s song in the autumn, and the unique-to-every-station-platform melodies that play every time a train enters or leaves a station.

I feel calmed whenever I hear the sunset chime in my neighborhood. It is for me a chance to be still, take stock and be grateful. I’ve paused mid-conversation, even moved outdoors if I am inside, just to enjoy those 30 seconds. When I miss hearing it, I miss hearing it. But there is a flip side to all of this. First and foremost, the sunset chime is an alarm system and I’ve decided that if there is an extinction level event on the horizon and somehow I have a choice about it, I want to be at the epicenter. Miss me with the post-apocalyptic scenario. I do not want to fight over dwindling resources, repurposing everyday items into weapons and tools for survival. Hard pass on living underground in bunkers dodging airborne diseases, zombies or my fellow humans. I want to go out instantly. Here one moment and gone the very next. And if I am still here in Tokyo, grant me the 30 seconds to listen to the emergency melody and be soothed into oblivion. 

If you are curious, the instrumental that plays at 5PM in Minato-ku is a rendition of Yuyake Koyake (Sunrise, Sunset) composed by Shin Kusakawa (1893-1946) and according to the internet, the lyrics to the song are as follows:

The sunset is the end of the day,

the bell from the mountain temple rings

hand by hand let’s go back home together with the crows.

After the children are back at home

a big and round moon shines,

When the birds dream, the brightness from the stars fills the sky.