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The story
On its September 25, 2026 broadcast, NHK’s morning show “Ohayo Nippon” misspoke during a weather segment about the origins of the Mid-Autumn harvest moon, saying “the Chugoku region” (a region of Japan) when it meant to say “mainland China” — and corrected itself with an on-air apology. The slip-up sent 5ch down a rabbit hole of place-name trivia: why is Japan’s “Chugoku” region, which has nothing to do with China, called “Chugoku” (literally “middle kingdom”) in the first place? Commenters traded competing theories about the origins of the “San’in” and “Sanyo” sub-regions and ancient geographic divisions.
NHK’s “Ohayo Nippon” Apologizes On Air, Corrects Misinformation: Misspoke on “China” Origin, “Our Apologies”
September 25, 2026, 10:16 AM
NHK’s morning news program “Ohayo Nippon” issued a correction on its September 25 broadcast after conveying incorrect information during a weather segment.
Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Guess whatever's on your mind day-to-day just slips right out.
Yeah, probably
They probably think everything originated in Japan
Though "mainland China" doesn't technically exist either
True enough
Very fitting for NHK, mouthpiece of the CCP
The fact that reruns and streaming versions still haven't fixed it is just laziness.
like "Kinki, Chugoku region, Shikoku, Kyushu."
The forecaster says "Chugoku region" all the time normally, so they probably just went on autopilot.
Name the actual country from that era.
Also, if we're being picky, it should've been a slip for "Asian continent," not "mainland China."
Even without saying "mainland China," couldn't they have just gone with "kanji came from China"?
The people in China today are just the ones who happen to live on the mainland now — a different lineage from whoever actually invented kanji.
The San'in and Sanyo sub-regions within Chugoku
Why are they called "San'in" (mountain-shade) and "Sanyo" (mountain-sun) anyway?
This one's easy (´^ω^｀) — for the Chugoku mountain range,
the north side (Tottori~Shimane) gets less sunlight, so it's "San'in" (mountain shade),
the south side (Okayama~Hiroshima) gets more sun, so it's "Sanyo" (mountain sun).
Asked an AI for part of this (´^ω^｀;)
Chinese naming convention:
north of a mountain / south of a river = "yin" (shade),
north of a river / south of a mountain = "yang" (sun).
Basic knowledge if you've studied world history — Chinese city names are full of yin/yang once you count the obscure ones.
North of the Luo River is "Luoyang," south of the Huai River is "Huaiyin."
It's split by the Chugoku mountain range — north side is "yin," south side is "yang."
For some reason the Mid-Autumn harvest moon always lands on a "butsumetsu" day (the unluckiest day on the traditional calendar)
Back in ancient times, Kinki through Kyushu was the whole known world, and that area sat right in the middle of it.
Now that you mention it, yeah lol
By that logic, Japan — surrounded by ocean — would be the "Japan continent" too lol
So why did the Chugoku region end up called "Chugoku" when it has nothing to do with China?
I think "China" only started being called "Chugoku" (in Japanese) after World War II.
It was called "Chugoku" (middle country) because it sat between the Kinai region and the Dazaifu government office out in Kyushu.
Even China's own "Zhongguo" ("middle kingdom") has been in use as a name since ancient times.
By the way, Japan has also long used the term "Chugoku" for something other than this region — ancient Japanese used "Chugoku" to refer to their own country.
It seems like it wasn't so much used as a "country/region name" — more that "Chugoku" was used to mean "within the realm."
Background and Talking Points
The name “Chugoku region” became a topic of discussion thanks to this on-air slip, but even within the thread, no single theory won out. Several explanations circulated side by side: that the area sat midway between the Kinai region and the Dazaifu government office in Kyushu; that it ties into the Chinese “yin-yang” naming convention (which splits place names into “shade” and “sun” based on position relative to mountains and rivers); and that “Chugoku” was originally used in ancient Japan simply to mean “within the realm.” None of these were presented as settled fact — they were just individual opinions posted in the thread. One point readers can easily get wrong is that the name “Chugoku region” has no direct historical connection to the country name of today’s People’s Republic of China, and NHK’s slip-up stems from exactly that kind of confusion. Some commenters in the thread suggested that because weather forecasters routinely say “Chugoku region” on the job, whoever was reading the script simply mixed it up out of habit. Comments touching on political topics — such as opinions of Takaichi, the “Shina” epithet for China, or claims of Korean origin — were excluded from this article.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Breaking News+) thread “NHK’s “Ohayo Nippon” Apologizes On Air, Corrects Misinformation: Misspoke “Mainland China” as “Chugoku Region”.”
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