Japan does not use daylight saving time. We are stuck with early mornings and early evenings in the summer. At the solstice the sun peeks its head over the mountains at around 4:15 AM, just like it's supposed to and goes down around 7, maybe 7:15. This is not to say that the Japanese haven't heard of the concept of glorious summer evenings, in fact they tried it after World War II, the thing is, it just didn't work for them. Can you guess why? They had to abandon DST when they discovered that workers were doing too much voluntary overtime. People used to going to work after the sun set had to stay at the office an extra hour or two every day just to satisfy their consciences. They just didn't feel like they were working hard enough when they could still see daylight on their way home.

If that isn't screwed up, I don't know what is.

The country is reconsidering the notion starting in 2007 they'll do it on a 2 year test basis, but there are some doubts, the salarymen may just suffer like their fathers did. I say suck it up and take a vacation.