North Korea strikes blow to Imperialism by changing time zone!

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33815049

North Korea's new time zone to break from 'imperialism'

North Korea is to switch to a new time zone to mark its liberation from the Japanese at the end of World War Two, says state media.

North Korea is currently in the same time zone as South Korea and Japan, which are nine hours ahead of GMT.

But Pyongyang Time will see the clocks put back by 30 minutes on 15 August.

State news agency KCNA said "wicked Japanese imperialists" had "deprived Korea of even its standard time" by changing the clocks during occupation.

The entire Korean peninsula - then one country - was 8.5 hours ahead of GMT until Japan colonised it in 1910.

KCNA quoted officials as saying the decision to adopt Pyongyang Time reflected "the unshakeable faith and will of the service personnel and people on the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation".

South Korea said the move could cause some short-term inconvenience at the Kaesong industrial plant in North Korea, jointly run by the two Koreas.

"And in the longer term, there may be some fallout for efforts to unify standards and reduce differences between the two sides," Unification Ministry official Jeong Joon-Hee said.

'Fair share of sunshine'

There is no international body that approves a country's change of time zone as countries decide for themselves.

In 2011, Samoa changed its time zone to the other side of the international dateline, losing one day, so as to make communication easier with neighbours Australia and New Zealand.

And North Korea is not the only country that has created its own unique time zone.

In 2007, Venezuela decided to turn its clocks back by half an hour as President Hugo Chavez wanted to have a "more fair distribution of the sunrise" to residents.
Venezuela is now the only country with a time zone 4.5 hours behind GMT.

[celedhring]

I love the fact they're turning the clocks only 30 minutes so it will be a timezone just for them that they will share with nobody else 

Such precious snowflakes.

[Monoriu]

My first thought as a civil servant is, how do they justify only changing the clocks 70 years after the end of the occupation?  What prevented them from changing the clocks during those 70 years?

[Archy]

Over here the Germans changed our timezone which was GMT during WWI (1914-1918) it than was changed back to GMT and was changed again in 1940 and never changed back to GMT. Normally I would been living on London Time. It's the only way in which Germany succeeded to form Mitteleuropa (apparently France & The netherlands neither did change back after the war and Franco also changed during the war)

[Liep]

My first thought as a civil servant is, how do they justify only changing the clocks 70 years after the end of the occupation?  What prevented them from changing the clocks during those 70 years?

:ARGHHH:

I thought the same.

[The Larch]

Over here the Germans changed our timezone which was GMT during WWI (1914-1918) it than was changed back to GMT and was changed again in 1940 and never changed back to GMT. Normally I would been living on London Time. It's the only way in which Germany succeeded to form Mitteleuropa (apparently France & The netherlands neither did change back after the war and Franco also changed during the war)

Over here there have been plenty of calls in the last few years for Spain to go back to its previous timezone, as it wreaks havoc with daily routines and is a big contributor to our rather crazy work schedules. Apparently Spaniards are the more sleep deprived Europeans because of this.

[Norgy]

But do they have DST?

[Duque de Bragança]

Over here the Germans changed our timezone which was GMT during WWI (1914-1918) it than was changed back to GMT and was changed again in 1940 and never changed back to GMT. Normally I would been living on London Time. It's the only way in which Germany succeeded to form Mitteleuropa (apparently France & The netherlands neither did change back after the war and Franco also changed during the war)

Over here there have been plenty of calls in the last few years for Spain to go back to its previous timezone, as it wreaks havoc with daily routines and is a big contributor to our rather crazy work schedules. Apparently Spaniards are the more sleep deprived Europeans because of this.

Yep, that's true for France as well. That's when the saying "à l'heure (de)" started to mean "under occcupation" cf. Mon village à l'heure allemande.
France was supposed to switch back in 1945 in two phases from German summer time (GMT/UTC + 2) to the previous French winter time (UTC + 0) but stopped at UTC + 1
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heure_allemande
Then came Summer time in the '70s, but that's another story...
There was talk and eventually a weird attempt  in Portugal to switch to CET, using winter or summer time, in the '90s (from '92 to '96) but it caused too many problems and complaints and now it's back to UTC/GMT for good.

[Caliga]

*shrug* Louisville is in Eastern Time cause General Electric wanted it that way, even though geographically it makes very little sense.  At the summer solstice, the sun doesn't go down here until 10:00 PM despite us only being at 38 N. 

[Tonitrus]

Time is an asterisk.

[Josquius]

My first thought as a civil servant is, how do they justify only changing the clocks 70 years after the end of the occupation?  What prevented them from changing the clocks during those 70 years?

My first thought as a civil servant is, how do they justify only changing the clocks 70 years after the end of the occupation?  What prevented them from changing the clocks during those 70 years?

They had plenty of other things to blame japan and the west for. Now they're scraping the bottom of the barrel and They've only just thought of this one.

[Duque de Bragança]

I read somewhere that South Korea actually did it first.  So much for resistance to imperialism, Juche Korea   
Between 1954 and 1961 that is, but that was reversed with Park Chung-Hee's coup.

[The Brain]

katmai is a fat circle.

[Norgy]

I'm surprised so few British guys have jumped in here to defend colonial rule. Surely the Nips did their bit to "civilise" as well.

[Valmy]

I'm surprised so few British guys have jumped in here to defend colonial rule. Surely the Nips did their bit to "civilise" as well.

Unfortunately Korea was cruelly torn from their Japanese shepherd before they could be gifted with tentacle porn.