“What time is it?” doesn’t seem like a political question. But when North Koreans set their clocks back half an hour on August 15, they were making a political point.
During Japan’s rule a century ago, Japan switched Korea to Japan’s time, setting clocks ahead by half an hour. Changing the time back symbolizes North Korea’s rejection of Japan’s influence.
Time zones are a fairly recent development. As travel and communication between countries grew in the 1800s, people needed to know what time it was in other places. In the early 20th century, most countries began using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the standard. There are 24 time zones. Depending on when the sun rises and sets where you live, for example, your time may be +8 GMT or -5 GMT.
But sometimes, as in the case of North Korea, politics—not the sun—sets the clocks.
China used to have five time zones. But when the Communists took over in 1949, they put the whole country—which spans 3,100 miles from one end to the other—on Beijing time. That means citizens in the far west are out of sync with sunrise and sunset. In Tibet and Xinjiang, people rise two hours earlier than they would observing GMT.
Nepal set its own time in 1956. The country moved the clock 15 minutes to +5:45 GMT to mark the time the sun passes over Gauri Shankar, a mountain near the center of Nepal. It’s one of only three places that are off from GMT by a quarter hour.
Sri Lanka’s government set the time back by 30 minutes in 1996 during a power crisis. But a rebel group called the Tamil Tigers refused to recognize the new time. So the country operated on two times zones at the same time for more than a decade. The Tigers were crushed in 2009. Now all Sri Lankans are on the same time.
Crimea jumped eastward one time zone in March of last year. After Russia took control of this previously Ukrainian province, Crimea’s clocks were moved forward by two hours to match Moscow time. Since Russia doesn’t observe daylight savings time, Crimea no longer observes it either.
The Pacific Island nation of Samoa didn’t simply change times. On December 29, 2011, it jumped across the international dateline. Friday, December 30, was skipped altogether. What was the reason for the change? It puts Samoans on the same date as their most important trading partners, New Zealand and Australia. One additional perk: They went from being the last country in the world to ring in the New Year to being the first!
