Day Light Savings Time

[Thomas Promise]

"Spring Foward" 1 hour this Sunday we will get and extra hour sunlight starting then.

 

 

[Feathers268]

I know this is trivial, but, the correct term is "Daylight Saving" time. We are "saving" an hour of daylight not putining it into a "savings" account. This concludes the annoying nitt picker section of this thread.

[Fu Lai]

Daylight Saving Time? What is that? Of course there is no such thing in China where changing the clock does not affect the amount of daylight saved or lost. Japan, India, and China are the only major industrialized countries that do not observe some form of daylight saving.

[Randy W]

China time is based on the 120°E meridian, which passes through the west coast of Taiwan, near Hangzhou, and east of Beijing. That is, at 12 Noon China time, the sun is directly over this line. The sun passes directly over the eastern-most point in China about 3 hours later, or at around 3PM.

 

So that's about the same as if the entire continental United States observed Eastern Standard Time the year round.

[Fu Lai]

a little more about China...

 

Having only one official time does cause practical problems, especially for people in the western provinces. Beijing is about 3.5 hours ahead of the far Western provinces, meaning that in some cases, the official time is already 10 AM when the sun rises in places like Xinjiang and Tibet. Since many of the people in those provinces are ethnic minorities, they sometimes feel that the use of BST is oppressive and unnecessary. Additionally, many farming communities throughout the country just use their own time zone, since agricultural work has to be done when the sun is out, regardless of the time

 

Hong Kong and Macau both use their own time, called Hong Kong Time (HKT) and Macau Standard Time (MST), both of which are Coordinated Universal Time, plus 8 hours (UTC+8). Neither region uses daylight savings time. Many areas in Western China, particularly Xinjiang, also work on their own unofficial time zone. Though this sometimes has political implications, it's usually more of a practical move. For instance, stores sometimes work on modified times so that people can conveniently shop in them.

 

Before the establishment of the PRC, China was divided into five time zones. From east to west, they were Changpai Time Zone, Chungyuan Standard Time Zone, Kansu-Szechuan Time Zone, Sinkiang-Tibet Time Zone, and Kunlun Time Zone, ranging from GMT + 8.5 to 5.5 respectively. After the single time zone was introduced, China did use daylight savings time for a while, from 1986 to 1991, but it was considered inconvenient and dropped.

[Randy W]

 

a little more about China...

 

Having only one official time does cause practical problems, especially for people in the western provinces. Beijing is about 3.5 hours ahead of the far Western provinces, meaning that in some cases, the official time is already 10 AM when the sun rises in places like Xinjiang and Tibet. Since many of the people in those provinces are ethnic minorities, they sometimes feel that the use of BST is oppressive and unnecessary. Additionally, many farming communities throughout the country just use their own time zone, since agricultural work has to be done when the sun is out, regardless of the time

 

Hong Kong and Macau both use their own time, called Hong Kong Time (HKT) and Macau Standard Time (MST), both of which are Coordinated Universal Time, plus 8 hours (UTC+8). Neither region uses daylight savings time. Many areas in Western China, particularly Xinjiang, also work on their own unofficial time zone. Though this sometimes has political implications, it's usually more of a practical move. For instance, stores sometimes work on modified times so that people can conveniently shop in them.

 

Before the establishment of the PRC, China was divided into five time zones. From east to west, they were Changpai Time Zone, Chungyuan Standard Time Zone, Kansu-Szechuan Time Zone, Sinkiang-Tibet Time Zone, and Kunlun Time Zone, ranging from GMT + 8.5 to 5.5 respectively. After the single time zone was introduced, China did use daylight savings time for a while, from 1986 to 1991, but it was considered inconvenient and dropped.

 

China time is also UTC+8, so everybody's on the same time.

 

I kind of liked the DST when the clocks would adjust with the sun - so the sun came up around the same time as it did in the winter. Adjusting to DST before the equinox (March 21), though, is just ridiculous in my opinion. Likewise for the 'fall back' occurring AFTER the fall equinox (Sept. 21).

[dnoblett]

http://i.123g.us/c/eapr_daylight/card/104379.gif