R.I.P. Scout26
The North had been nine hours ahead of GMT - like South Korea and Japan.But before being colonised by Japan in 1910, the entire Korean peninsula - then one country - was 8.5 hours ahead of GMT.
IT SEEMS appropriate for a nation that venerates its history and is stuck in the past: on August 15th everyone in North Korea will go back in time, as they turn back their clocks by half an hour. The hermit kingdom already has its own calendar, with years counted from 1912, the birth year of its founder and “eternal president”, Kim Il Sung. This week’s change means it will have its own time zone, too. Why is North Korea turning back its clocks?Such time-travelling is the latest example of a long historical tradition of rulers expressing political power by adjusting clocks and calendars. Doing so alters a fundamental aspect of daily life, literally at a stroke. And what better illustration could there be of a ruler’s might than control over time itself? ....In the modern era, control of time provides a way to underline the clout of central government: both India and China, despite their size, have a single time zone, which keeps everyone marching in step with the capital. It also offers an opportunity for emphasising independence and non-conformity. Hugo Chávez turned the clocks back by half an hour in 2007 to move Venezuela into its own time zone—supposedly to allow a “fairer distribution of the sunrise” but also ensuring that the socialist republic did not have to share a time zone with the United States. Perhaps the strangest example is that of Turkmenistan under President Saparmurat Niyazov, who renamed all the months and most of the days of the week in 2002, even renaming April after his mother. For its part, North Korea is shifting its time zone this week to reverse the imposition of Tokyo time by “wicked Japanese imperialists” in 1912. South Korea did the same in 1954, but switched back to Japanese time in 1961. North Korea’s new time zone therefore extends the division of the Korean peninsula into the realm of time as well as space.
I heard they have a better infant mortality rate and better hospitals than the other countries in Asia, doe!
Such time-travelling is the latest example of a long historical tradition of rulers expressing political power by adjusting clocks and calendars. Doing so alters a fundamental aspect of daily life, literally at a stroke. And what better illustration could there be of a ruler’s might than control over time itself?
You mean like capriciously changing the starting and ending dates for Daylight Savings Time?
