Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Time Zones

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by podcasters/producers Anna Hossnieh and Shereen Lani Younes (‘Ethnically Ambiguous’ podcast) for a look at why time zones are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Time Zones. Known for being times. Famous for that, that's it. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Time Zones are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Ana Hosnier and Shireen Lani Yunus are my guests today. Ana and Shireen co-host a fantastic podcast. The name of that show is Ethnically Ambiguous. Ethnically Ambiguous is a podcast about being Middle Eastern and about being immigrants in America, and it's got a huge range of voices on that show within that and beyond it. I recommend checking it out. It's very fun and

funny and also very revelatory, you know, all at once, which I think is what you want. Anna and Shireen are many other things too. You can hear Anna as a frequent guest on the Daily Zeitgeist or on Will You Accept This Rose or many, many other podcasts. She's also a super producer of podcasts. And Shireen is a writer and a filmmaker and so many more things. There are links for everything in the show links. I'm just really grateful they are here today to talk time. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Chicory peoples.

Acknowledge Ana recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. Acknowledge Shireen recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash and Fernandinho-Taraviam peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about time zones. I suppose I should also just ground it in I'm in the Eastern time in the United States, in North Carolina. Shireen and Ana are both in the Pacific time of the United States in California. I think time zones is an amazing topic for an episode, so thank you to listener Danny Lawrence for suggesting it, and I'm very

glad that the patrons of this show who get to vote on episode topics selected it as the topic for April. I wanted to make this right away, so here we are. Please sit back or sit in front of one of those math class story problems about a train leaving Chicago and a train leaving New York because you want to think trains for this episode. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Anna Hosnier and Shireen Lani Yunus. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then.

Anna, Shereen, so good to see you. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. How do you two feel about time zones? They're interesting, you know. I actually, surprisingly, I think about them more than I realized when you kind of introduced this topic to us. I was like, it is a it's a fascinating thing because it I mean, I think because, you know, me and Shreen are from the Middle East. It's it's a surreal thing. my whole life in the sense that like, if I wanted to talk to family in Iran, I'd have to wake up very early on Saturday and scream into a phone because I don't know, the connections are always poor to the Middle East. So you have to actually talk very loudly. But, and then every time I've

gone to the Middle East the entire day, it's the opposite. So their night and day is, you know, completely flipped with ours. So it's actually kind of a very strange, like, mental, like, gymnastics that you have to do when you go out there of, like, readjusting your entire system. And it takes about a week. So you have to stay there for at least, like, three weeks for you to have, like, a decent time because your body has to be like, okay, everything you thought you knew, you don't know anymore. So, yeah. I actually have a lot of thoughts now. Now that I've started, but Shireen, please. Yeah, no, I felt the same way. I felt the same way when you introduced the topic.

I was like, I actually have a long-standing relationship with time zones. Because the same thing with Anna. Syria is 10 hours ahead. So their night is our day. We'd have to wake up so early on the weekends to talk to them again, like just like screaming into the phone because all their phones are like landline, literally old school 80s things. And then when we were over there, when we were in Syria,

sometimes my dad wouldn't join us right away. Like if we were talking to him in the States and we would have to use those same phones to talk to him in like the middle of the night and it would be the morning for him. So yeah, I think if you're a kid that grows up that way your whole life, you think about time zones more than the average person maybe, because I'm very invested in like, what time is it in this place? And then now that my family is like all over the place, I have family in Europe, I have family in Canada, just everywhere, because they just kind of scattered. I just have in my phone, if you look at like the world clock, I have so many listed because I just want to know what time it is everywhere. But yeah, I think you chose good

two people for this topic. Oh, good. Yeah, I did. Because I also I, I just like planned us talking. And then later on, patrons picked this and thank you, Danny Lawrence for the suggestion. And I thought like, okay, these are probably good people to talk about it. Because I have not traveled widely time zone wise, I don't think I've been to Western Europe a bit. But otherwise, I haven't really been outside of like the US range. And speaking of LA, my other like my big pandemic experience with podcasting has been like, thank you, Los Angeles guests for doing morning time so I can do afternoon time, but it's pretty good. You know, works out. I guess the silver lining to doing all these zoom recordings is that like our podcast too, we had a guest from Japan for the first time, like they record in Japan. We had a guest, Linda Sansour was recording in Georgia, I believe at the time. And so we were just like, it's been cool that we were able to connect with people that don't necessarily have to be in a

studio with us. And then with the Japan guest, I think she woke up at like 7am just to do our show. It was, it was very nice of her but yeah yeah booking podcasts actually like daily zeitgeist that's been a journey as well of like learning everyone's time zones i've actually recorded a few podcasts with people in the uk and we've had to do like saturday morning which is like their night to um get you know get everyone at a comfortable time i believe 10 a.m is about like 6 p.m in the uk so that's a good that area 10 to 11 is a good time for people to record in the uk so they can like you know it's not too late but it's a little after dinner you know yeah i also think like i'm very conscious when i put the time for a meeting of putting in the time zone because

like low-key if someone doesn't i think it's kind of presumptuous and a little annoying that they assume I'm in their same time zone like your time zone's the only one that exists like it's 3 p.m your time I don't know what your time is especially now because you're booking with so many people it's very essential that you book and you specify the time zone um because I just get I analyze it too much. And I'm like, this person just is in there. Like they just think their time zone is the only one that matters. But that doesn't, you know what I mean? I'm kidding.

But I think it's important to specify because you never know where someone is, especially now, maybe they left where you thought they were for the pandemic or whatever. Yeah. I wonder if that's also either Eastern or Pacific time zone mindset too. I'll bet in Central Time people are like, I'm clearly on Central, okay? Everyone know this. I'm not the one in charge. I'm humble. very specific, like central time, Pacific time. Like he, he just like knew exactly like, like we're going to meet on Monday. This is the time Pacific. Cause I think if you live in the, in an

uncommon, not uncommon, but like an atypical one, as far as the U S is concerned, I think you're conscious of it more. I think that's right. Yeah. And we actually, we have one number about that. So I think from here we can get into our first fascinating thing about the topic. Cause it's a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week that's in a segment called let's hear it for the stats let's get us all some baff wow that was beautiful name was submitted by chrissy thank you chrissy we have a new name every week Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. Because there's a lot of stats and math here with time zones. I promise, folks, this isn't like too mathy of a show. You know, you won't need a whiteboard to get it or anything. But first

number here, that's what we were just talking about. It is less than 7%. And less than 7% is how much of the U.S. population lives in mountain time. Oh. Which is very small for it being one of the four time zones, I think. It's less than 7% of people. Wait, what exactly is mountain time? It's like Montana-ish, right? Yeah, the eastern boundary starts kind of on the edge of Texas and Nebraska and the Dakotas there. And then it goes over towards, I think it stops before Nevada, and it's only part of Idaho's in it. It's a relatively

small time zone too. It's less than what you think. So would it be one hour ahead of Pacific? Yeah, it's between Central and Pacific. Yeah. It's also that stats from the New York Times as of 2020, part of it being less than 7% is that you also have Americans in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, all these other places outside of those four big ones. And also the mountain time zone includes Arizona, but most of Arizona, except for the reservations, does not observe daylight savings time. So for a lot of the year, Arizona is functionally the reservations, does not observe daylight savings time. So for a lot of the year, Arizona is functionally Pacific time too. Like there's very few, if you're listening to

this on mountain time, you're a rare bird, like great. I'm very excited that you're here, you know? Wow. I don't think I know many mountain time folk. Colorado's the big one probably, population wise. That's a key one there. When you bring up like daylight savings and all that stuff i think that's where it gets a little bit or sorry that's where it gets a little bit messed up that's all right that's all right yeah it's a little bit messed up because uh not everyone abides by the same kind of like the same hours or whatever and i don't know i mean i don't i mean i still don't really understand the point i mean i understand technically like someone will explain to me the point of daylight savings time. But at this point, I think it's useless and just confusing. And I don't like someone else telling me how the time works, because I already don't understand how time works. So if someone's telling me that,

it's going to change every couple of months, I'm going to check out and I don't like it. couple of months, I'm going to check out and I don't like it. Yeah, before this, I probably should have set up that in general daylight savings, there's so much there. I think I'm going to do a whole nother episode sometime. But obviously, it's part time zones. If it comes up, it's good. And also, we'll have a lot on this about time zones feeling like, you know, like us being pushed around.

I feel like we're all just told what time zone we're in. And then that's the time no matter what the sun is doing. It's really, really aggravating. I guess I just don't like someone telling me any like what to do or like, I don't like anyone telling me that this is how like giving me a rule to abide by. I hate it so much. Especially US Daylight Saving Time, they do it over the weekend. It's like, come on, I'm even working on the weekend, figuring stuff out. Get out of here. Yeah. Are we getting rid of it, though though i've heard that we're getting rid of it but i don't know for sure i don't know they don't have it in arizona minus the reservations and also

they don't have it in hawaii and a few other parts of the u.s but uh many other states are trying to work on it yeah good for hawaii so we'll see even like clocks are made up. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. This whole thing. That leads well to this next number here. Next number is 1258 p.m. It's obviously a time almost one o'clock p.m. That is when it is solar noon in New York City. And that time's from June 21st.

It varies a little bit as the year goes on. But we'll link a great Scientific American piece about how in the past, large cities would just sort of set their own local time. But then once we started doing time zones, cities switch to a regional time that usually doesn't line up with the actual time in the city. Like theoretically, noon is when the sun is directly above you. But in most places, the sun is above you after 12 p.m. An extreme example is Madrid, Spain. Solar noon is 2.16 p.m.

What? Which is real late in the day. Solar noon. Yeah. Wait, why is it so... See, that's the thing. I don't like it. I don't like it. It's not even accurate to nature.

It makes me mad. Because we should be listening to the solar parts of it. We should like the actual planetary things that are telling us like, yeah, you're right. Noon, 12 PM should be when the sun is directly above us. And then we should, I don't know. I'm just going to stop. This is not the time. I'm like trying to understand science. I don't know anything. That's just like because of where they are on the earth, on the world. They just happen to be in that area. It's like entirely because of where we have put the time zones. Because theoretically, all time zones would line up exactly with longitudes and

like exactly with measuring the earth but instead we mostly do it with national boundaries and with also like some weird historical events that we'll talk about later in the show like it's all constructed and so you get weird mistakes yeah national boundaries. Something else that's made up. And next number here, speaking of subdividing stuff, next number here is 11. 11 is the number of time zones in Russia. What? It is a very, very large country. It's very, very large east to west. And so they have the most time zones of any country.

There are 11 of them. Wow. I mean, it is the biggest country in the world, right? It is, yeah. Isn't that right? So it's valid that they would have the most. But it's also pretty wide, you know, and so they just keep splitting it as you go. So that's how big it is. They could fit 11 time zones? Mm-hmm. I mean, it's most of that continent. Is the majority in a certain time zone?

A lot of people in Russia live what I would call toward Europe, like on the western end. And apparently, when Russia started first having a train system, they tried to set it all on St. Petersburg time. Because they said, okay, this can be the predominant thing. But then just as you go further and further east, even if there's less people out there, it's still like, very frustrating for the people that are there and it didn't work i mean okay i went to moscow a summer a couple uh years ago and in the summers the sun will set at like 11 p.m and it rises at 2 a.m or something wild like that like you get like three actual hours of nighttime and i already thought that was wild to as far as time goes in russia and that was

also like closer to the europe part because it's like moscow and like not that far from st petersburg but yeah that's that's interesting and i thought i mean like that's obviously just because the location is on the globe right like the far north whatever it's confusing it's confusing but that's interesting 11 time zones that's amazing though and and you too many when you visited russia were you in one time zone the whole time i don't know if you noticed or not i actually don't know like i i'm pretty sure we were because i only went maybe like two hours outside of the city at most maybe two and a half and i don't think it would have changed in that time, but I don't know.

All right. I looked up a map to try and understand. It's confusing because it's like some parts are like above each other, but they're like different time zones. Totally. And I always thought. Yeah. It's a lot of national boundary stuff and just sort of decisions by governments, almost more than based on geography or where the sun is. Fascinating. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, St. Petersburg and Moscow are the same. So I definitely was in the same thing.

But okay, this is what trips me up. And the same thing happened in that image you sent us about Canada. Like there's a section of it where like the top is one and the bottom is something else. Yeah. It doesn't change east to west. It changes north to east. And I don't know if i don't

i don't know that cheers me up wow we'll keep running into the idea that time zones are politics or or else just organizational decisions by by a country and then that's just how it is it's very strange and and with that map there i think we can do the last number here the last number is 10 and 10 is my count of the number of countries in the world that are at least partly on an offset time zone. And an offset time zone, that just means it's one where the time zone is not a block of hours different than the rest of the world. It's hours and also a set of minutes, usually 30 minutes different. To some listeners, this will be, yeah, right, it's a fact of life. I am in that or near that. But to me, it was shocking. One example is Iran. Iran is on,

right now it's Iran daylight time, which is GMT plus four hours, 30 minutes. So it's a half hour different than some other time zones near it. I didn't know that. Yeah, they don't really make sense. It's kind of random offset because like there's Iran, India, and like literally the middle section of Australia. That must be so confusing. Yeah, that's in Australia. And I'm sure listeners there know this, but a bunch of the states in the center of the country and then also a place called Lord Howe Island are on a 30 minute different offset time zone. Canadians probably know that the island of Newfoundland and then a little place called Lord Howe Island are on a 30-minute different offset time zone.

Canadians probably know that the island of Newfoundland and then a little bit of Labrador is on an offset. And then you have entire countries of Afghanistan, all of India, all of Sri Lanka, all of Myanmar, also French Polynesia. So that's a part of France that is on an offset. And then you have a part of New Zealand called the Chatham Islands that is 45 minutes offset. And then also the entire country of Nepal is on a 45 minutes and some hours offset from the other countries around it. So you can break time zones down that minutely. It can be little bits different.

Why are they offset? We'll talk about it. In general, I think it's like an effort to make it more accurate to the sun. Like, theoretically, we could have, you know, like eight US time zones all a half hour apart, you know, and then it's... And I'm talking about the lower 48 states. But in some of these cases, they're trying to make it more accurate to where the sun is in their country at the time, which is cool. I can dig it.

As long as they're happy. Yeah. I can accept that. I did make an argument about we have to abide by the planetary things earlier. So I can accept that they're trying to be closer to this new term that you've introduced to us, solar noon, which I really like. Cool. Yeah, solar noon feels very pleasant. Like, ah, we did it. Yeah. I'm in tune with the sun. The noon of solar. Yes, exactly. Well, and from here, there's three big takeaways for the episode. Let's get into them. Starting

with takeaway number one. Trains created time zones. This is the history of where they come from. It's mainly trains, also a little bit boats. But train travel was the reason that a time zone system developed. Okay. Like, just because for the first time they were traveling faster than they used to, and they were like... Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. I had never thought of this but it feels like it just makes sense now that i know that basically before railway travel people didn't move fast enough to need different time zones like you wouldn't go far enough in a day where it matters you would just adjust to the where the sun is tomorrow when you got somewhere and it was also a world where just sort of each big city would keep local time and then areas around that would try to keep up with that. And so in the UK, before there were time zones, Oxford time was five minutes behind London time.

Five minutes? Yeah. So they just ran five minutes different. Because by the time you got there, it didn't really matter. Like, great, now I'm on this one. I'll just change it a little bit. Oh, that seems unnecessary, uh it's not enough time i think like five minutes is how how ahead i set my car exactly to make sure i get somewhere on time literally my clock next to my bed is five minutes ahead just so i could like always have some like urgency to get up but like i think minimum 30 minutes should be the rule that's as low as you can go for a time zone change exactly i agree i hadn't even thought of that the self

motivational shift of your own clock yeah totally yeah it's always at least four to five minutes ahead for me like my microwave my car the one next to my bed so My mom does a full 15. Her house for her bedroom are all 15 minutes ahead because she just always wants that jump ahead. 15's a lot. You gotta. When you got places to be, you gotta. We really recommend it. It's a good motivator because you

think you don't have the time and then it's always a nice surprise when you're like, oh yeah, right, that's right, the clock was ahead. Every time it makes me feel good. It's like the only self-induced anxiety, but then it's like a self-induced payoff. So it's like you're just in this cycle with yourself. I like that the trick always works. Why does it always?

It should wear off, but it just keeps being effective. I always forget. Honestly, it's really sad. There are days where I'm like, I know this is ahead. I'm just going to ignore this. I have five more minutes now. Sometimes it goes against my brain because I just know. But yeah.

I don't know. My mom is kind of the same way. She'll set stuff ahead. I don't know. Maybe it's like a Middle Eastern thing. Maybe. Not 15 minutes. That's a lot.

Yeah, my mom is on top of it. I don't know. I don't know what she's even doing. She sounds like a lot. Yeah, my mom is on top of it. I don't know. I don't know what she's even doing. She sounds like a winner. It's like somebody to write a business book or something. You know how I win? 15 minutes ahead. And I'm like, well, that sounds pretty good. Her secret 15 tips and tricks for being an on-time Persian woman.

That's her book. Long time Persian woman. That's her book. And so with train travel, like we were saying, people just did not move all that fast before trains. Apparently before trains getting from New York City to Chicago took one month. But by the 1850s, the trains were good enough to get you there in two days. And so from there, not only are they fast, but the schedules start to interlock across long spaces of land. And eventually they said, we need to figure out a way to work this. And so from there, a few British and American and have heard of called Greenwich Mean Time. It's spelled like Greenwich, but it's a place in the London area in England. And there was a British naval observatory there, which you can visit. I've been to it, and there's a prime meridian line you can stand on. It's kind of fun. But they published a British nautical almanac in 1767. And the upshot is a lot of British shipping and then world shipping started operating on that time. They were like, oh, we can unify boat time with this like naval observatory in the UK.

And until railways started popping up, life was kind of the same on land. But then in 1840, the Great Western Railway in the UK needed a time standard. They said, we got to line this up between Oxford and London and everywhere. And so they picked the available time standard of this Greenwich Naval Observatory. And so that was how the British time zone started. With all of these time zone lines and meridian lines, I like that they're both real and made up. There is a real measurable Earth, but I think we mostly drew the line there because the British Empire was really powerful and there happened to be a naval timekeeping facility in a spot. That's how all of the world's time zones ended up being

lined up, which is bonkers. Why are they in charge? Silly. I mean, yeah. Especially when you think about the impact of colonization and everything. They were just ruling the world for a little bit. They were just like, we're the center of this universe. Everything revolves around us.

Yeah. Oh, heck yeah. That actually makes me think, maybe my mom is creating her own time zone. I was just like, while you guys were talking, I was like. The key to success. Realizing this in real time. Like, wait a second. She created her own time zone.

I mean, if they could do a five minute one, they could do a 15 minute one. Which goes against my rule. She broke my rule. 30, minimum 30 minutes. I'll have to have a talk with her later. That's her actual key to success, making your own time zone. Don't tell anyone, though. I love that. But yeah, and as far as the UK starting a lot of the seed of this, they

made that Greenwich time the official time for the island of Great Britain in 1880. And then also nearby countries either started adopting it or rejected it on purpose. There's a funny story in The Atlantic about France adopting a national time zone in 1891. And they just specifically chose Paris time, which is only a few minutes different because they didn't want to be on British time. They were like, no, we're the French and we don't like the British and we we're not doing it it's very french yeah that's petty i like it yeah now that you mentioned that i think france was one of two nations that didn't want like when they vote they had a vote in washington dc about where the the meridian should go in the eight in the 1880s

or something yeah that's right yeah i don't's right. Not a lot of countries showed up, but representatives of different countries showed up, and the majority was for the Greenwich thing. So they ended up doing the Greenwich Meridian there, but France was one of two that was like, I don't want this. So that's really funny that they decided three minutes for Paris time later on,

because that's them furthering being like, nope. I love that, yeah. And another thing with the origin of time zones is British Isles are not that wide. So they that one time zone was pretty good for especially England, Scotland, Wales there. The other big seed of this is railway standard time, which was adopted in the US. Main source for this part of the show is NPR's Planet Money. They did a great episode called The Day of Two Noons, because in the early U.S. railway system, time on a train was based on the railway company.

Just each railway company picked a clock and said, this is the time on the New York Central or whatever other railroad you're on. And then they decided that's terrible for customers. They can't figure out when anything is going or coming or anything. And so thanks to mainly a bureaucrat named William F. Allen, on Sunday, November 18th, 1883, the U.S. adopted railway standard time for the railway system and also a lot of cities from there too, because they were interconnected that way. And so on that day, New York had local time noon.

And then four minutes later new york city had railway noon and they were like okay it's noon twice today and now that's noon here we go we got it it's noon twice today yeah yeah that's a great i don't love that but okay yeah weird day yeah yeah but again like this is like us being like a little bit ahead like five minutes four minutes you know it's like is it really that big of a difference it's interesting though we should i mean i guess now because we've lived our whole lives on earth it's common sense like of time zones but sometimes i feel like we need a like a little everyone when you're born you're issued or maybe whatever you're seven you're issued a little tiny book that you

keep on you at all times that tells you every time zone ever because this everything you've told me i i can only process it like five minutes at a time. So once you've already moved on, I'm still like thinking like, wait, what? We need a little like a little guidebook that's issued to us in our youth. So we have it and we just always know what time zone we're in, especially because they're now there's just so much going on, especially when we go to Russia. Honestly, I like this idea because that idea makes it obvious to the kid that they're not the center of the universe. There's more out there than them. Their time isn't the prime time or whatever, you know? Prime time.

But yeah, I agree with that. It'll reinforce that the world is bigger than just your little time. Yeah. And as far as the world goes, the other seed here, so we've got that conference that Shireen, you were talking about. It's called the International Prime Meridian Conference. It was in Washington, DC in 1884. The main person pushing for it was a Canadian railway engineer named Sir Sandford Fleming,

who wanted the American and Canadian railway type time zones to be worldwide. And this conference had no legal force, but the British and American systems sort of both adopted what they came up with, and then the world started matching after a while. So it's basically a lot of train guys from the UK and the US, and a little bit bit Canada set up time zones around the world. They ended up having a lot of power. Train guys. Train guys. Yeah.

Train guys did this. Okay. Train guys. I'll accept it, but train guys? Okay. I mean, they really changed the world. These train guys. Not just with the trains. They trained the world. These train guys. Not just with the trains.

They train the world. They trained us. They altered time entirely. I guess I feel better about train guys doing it versus some business suit guys doing it. You know? It's true. It's more... It's better than plane guys guys yes plain guys you know

those are like billionaire types we don't want them in charge train guys i'm not saying train guys can't be billionaire types i'm just saying they seem more of the people yes they're down to earth down with us on the ground yeah they're on the ground floor that's where the term down to earth comes from because they're on the earth. They're the train guys. They were very humble. Their influence ripples out. Amazing.

The train starts going over a bridge. It's like, hey, get back down here. Too big to show it off up there. Too big for your bridges, Kent. Yeah, yeah. At least bridges guys didn't go, you know, train guns. Bridge guys have no say, okay? Yeah, no Bridge guys.

Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience,

one you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. From here, I think we can get into the second takeaway of the show takeaway number two

both of the most populous countries in the world each only have one time zone whoa those countries are china and india china and india each only run on one time zone even though they are huge and have a lot of people in them. I need to see China compared to Russia. Yeah, I mean, because there's parts of China that are... Hold on. Because they're number one and two in population, but also India is the seventh largest country in the world by land area. And depending on your measurement, China is either two or three in terms of just size.

It's a very large country. But ever since the 40s, it has been running on one time zone. That's all. I mean, yeah, because both China and India are like south of Russia, right? So north of them, there's probably a different time zone than India or China. And China is huge. You're right. Like, it's almost comparable, if not bigger, I'm not sure, than the US, right? So if the US has all these time zones. It is bigger than the US. I'm looking at a grid. It goes Russia's the biggest, then Canada, then China, then US, then Brazil, then Australia, India, Argentina, and onward.

Yeah. Huh. Those are the biggies. And India is also one of the ones with the offset time zone. So that's double interesting. Yeah. And there's sort of interesting roots to each one. Let's maybe start with India because we talked about it being an offset time zone.

All of India is on Indian standard time, which is GMT plus five hours, 30 minutes. Well over one billion people live in this one time zone in this one country. And it's sort of a combination of the British and independence from the British caused this single time zone. Because under British rule, they tried to implement one time zone. And there's a historian at UC Berkeley called Vanessa Ogle. She's written an amazing book about the riots that happened when Britain tried to implement this. In 1906, Bombay factory workers revolted. It spread to the middle of the city. More than 15,000 citizens demonstrated and signed a petition. But in 1950, after independence, a single time zone was implemented for like new country unity. And

ever since then, India has always been on one time zone. But I think it's ultimately the British's fault. I blame them. Oh, always. Yeah. Oh, well, they can take it. Colonizers, classic plane people trying to tell you what time you need to be in. Get out of here. Exactly. Yeah. But you mentioned this a little bit ago but yeah you're right it's all politics it's all politics and a little bit of spite and a little bit of like freedom and everything it's yeah it's not necessarily abiding by a solar system or planetary system or anything it's just kind of about about very man-made human things. Exactly. Yeah.

Interesting. Other than Vanessa Ogle, our two sources here, BBC News and The Atlantic, the BBC talks about how the width of India is similar to from New York to Utah. If you know the United States, New York to Utah, all of that under one time zone. That's what we're talking about. That's a lot. And there are places in the east of India where the sun rises nearly two hours earlier. There are a lot of tea gardens and other businesses in northeast India that just set their own clocks

an hour different and their own way because just the time works different. It doesn't make sense. And there are a lot of proposals to split the country in two time zones, in particular because it's already offset, so you could just shift each side 30 minutes, and then you have two good time zones for the country. It would work a lot better. That's a good idea. So it doesn't even, like the sun rising is not a factor in it?

Not really. That's wild. So some people it's like my mornings at noon. Whatever. I don't know. I think you probably have to adjust to like in one part of India, the sun rises at 530. In another part, it's yeah, like the sun rises at. Two hours different. Like nine or something.

It's just so, like the sun rises at... Two hours different. Like nine or something. It's just, it's so strange. Yeah. Because, yeah, if you think about Utah and New York, they're, yeah, that's, yeah. But the fact that it's offset and it can like maybe solve itself, I think it's a good call if it makes their lives easier. Yeah, it seems like it wouldn't be that disruptive to just fix it. And it's also the effect is extreme enough that there's a 2019 study from Cornell University economist Malik Jagnani, who studied the effect on sleep quality, and he found that it impacts people's sleep,

the effects are worse for poorer people, because they can afford less like, you know, control over their own home and blackout curtains and all the other things that would just help you manage the sun. And it also impacts children's educational outcomes because they have like a clock that doesn't necessarily match their bodies or the sun. Wow. I'd love to see a study that kind of analyzes that because I think long term that really must mess with brain stuff and just like, everything, because sleep is so essential. And if you, when a time zone is influencing that deeply, and in a negative way, I don't, that's just kind of wild. Yeah, and that leads to the next thing, but I'm just thinking Western China would be a perfect

place to study it. Because this other case here, in China, and our main source is The Atlantic, it's an article by Matt Chiavenza. Since 1949, which is since Mao Zedong and the Communist Party has been in power, China has been on one single time zone, and it is Beijing time. And if people know China, Beijing is pretty far east in the country. And so not only are they putting a country that's more than 3,000 miles wide, which is more than 5,000 kilometers, that's wider than the US 48 states. Not only is that on one time zone, but it's on sort of the eastern end, relatively. And so in western China, the clock drastically does not match the sun or life. China, the clock like drastically does not match the sun or life.

And so there's a common practice of people adopting what they call Uyghur time, which is two hours different than Beijing time, because it's just closer to reality. It just makes more sense. Is that because the Uyghur population is like there? And that, yes. Yeah. And it's just a lot of Uyghur people there. I guess the only comparable thing, if you're in the U.S., to wrap your mind around that is like, if everyone went by New York time, right? If everyone went by, like, if it's 6 a.m. there, it's 9 a.m. here, but the day looks drastically different.

That's right, yeah. But it's even more because China's bigger, you know? So that's interesting. But it's even more because China's bigger, you know? So that's interesting. Another thing I don't think everybody knows about China is that the majority of the population is toward that eastern coast, toward the ocean. And so it's like if both our coasts were in New York and then they just told the rest of the country what to do. That's sort of the power dynamic there.

Yeah. I don't like that. I wouldn't be opposed to everyone being on New York time. My dad wouldn't call me at like 7 a.m. being like, have you looked at the stock market? And I'm like, what? It's always like all his texts come at literally like 7.01, 7.02. He's like, good morning. Right when it opens or something.

He's like, have you seen what's going on? Every time. All his texts come in at exactly like like have you seen what's going on every time all his texts coming out exactly like 701 it's hilarious he's always like no wow did you see this and i'm like no because i'm not an old persian man who gets up at 5 a.m because you just can't sleep like i actually have to rest a little does he sleep really early at like 9 p.m of course you know he's in his early 70s he's out for the cow by like 8 p.m and then he gets up at like 9 p.m of course you know he's in his early 70s he's out for the cow by like 8 p.m and then he gets up at like between four to five every morning my mom complains that he's always just like up and being like are you awake she's like no go away your dad your dad i would argue is a very human way To sleep and wake up

Because he's sleeping Close to when the sun sets Waking up when the sun rises So You know Yeah No he's Pretty good

Yeah And then he goes on like A walk And probably like Annoys all the neighbors Like good morning They're like Go home sir

Have you seen the stock market He's like everyone's like Rooster You know Like that's how they know It's the morning time He's definitely When I'm at home He's like everyone's like rooster you know like that's how they know it's when i'm at home he's like the house rooster like immediately you hear him talking at like four in the morning like yes you know like and he'll be like downstairs but it's like their house has those like high ceilings it's very persian so they can have chandeliers um very persian and so so but like all everything rises in houses with high ceilings so like immediately like i can hear everything and anything he has a thought about like i like starting i think when i lived at home i had trained myself to block it out but when i go home for you know whatever holidays or if i just

happen to be home immediately i can sense my father is awake it's like my body is like god what is he talking about now you can just hear it he's just talking is it a combination of sensing your father is awake and the day is starting like that's true but it's like i don't do that here in my own bed like i don't go at 4 a.m like he's awake you know it's truly like an at-home thing my body becomes super aware that my dad is like talking about something downstairs that's really funny i'll tell you like the reverberations of like you know the high ceilings it's just like you know what his every thought and you just know he's awake because he's also loud that's another problem is he just doesn't care so yeah when he whispers it's like normal talking yeah when he

whispers he's like so i was thinking you're like okay you're screaming but it is he really yeah that's that's his internal clock and it's it's tough when you don't have the same you know you just kind of deal with it of like 7 7 a.m text being like can you believe this stock is doing this way and you're like, you know what? I don't really look at the stock market like you. That's the other thing. I don't really care. It's like him trying to bond with you in his own way.

He's like, you're the first person you probably text being like, look, the stock market. And you're like, dead asleep. He does it to my brother, too, who lives with him and is asleep. He texts him. And it's like like he's upstairs asleep my dad's like can you believe this he just that's my dad is very he he's just like at that point where he's like retired so like self-awareness like he's just beyond like he doesn't care like he's like yeah i know you were asleep but like get up what else are you doing he's just beyond

you know when they hate a certain age and it's just like look i've been on this earth for a long time i don't care and you gotta respect that why should he care i respect you know he's retired he's taking walks he doesn't need to it doesn't i mean look whatever what are you gonna do about it one day that's us so right yeah you're right one day we'll all be the rooster of the neighborhood you know i feel like that's like the older person's singularity is like i know the sun and the markets and i'm just up like i've just achieved a different level of sentience you know yes yeah you know what just up and at it yeah i mean now that i'm thinking about it it's kind of remarkable that when we get older

we revert back to the most human way of like operating internally like i feel like every if not most old people go to sleep very early wake up very early yeah so yeah it's almost like your body reverts back to the most human thing it can do which like, have its eternal clock match the clock of the planet, you know, or like how the sun operates. I think it's kind of, I mean, maybe I'm just romanticizing this, but I think it's kind of cool. It does feel very universal, like connecting with the universe kind of thing. Yeah. There's also just extreme differences from how the universe kind of thing. Yeah. There's also just extreme differences from how the universe is going and in Western China. It also wasn't always that way when the Republic

of China started in 1912. That's when they did the first time zones for China. And they had five time zones because that it makes sense. That's a good idea. But according to the Atlantic, the city of Kashgar is 3000 miles west of Beijing, because that's how big China is. And in Xinjiang province, which is the westernmost province, it's not uncommon for people to be enjoying a beautiful sunset in the summer at midnight on the clock. It's just how different it is. Or in the winter, the sun will rise around 10am on the clock. So that's when dawn will be. Solar peak is usually around 3 p.m. It's all just completely set up in a way that's on Beijing time for theoretically for national unity.

But a lot of people believe it's because China does not prioritize, especially it's like majority Muslim, majority non-Han population out west. Yeah. I hate how political it is, but you're right. Yeah, it's become so political that according to Human Rights Watch, in 2018, a Chinese citizen was traveling in Beijing. They were detained by the police on terrorism charges. And the evidence was that they were a Uyghur person and their watch was on, quote unquote, Uyghur time. That was the evidence that they were like, this person is probably here to be a separatist. Because it's that much of a thing.

Wow. It's an issue. That's disgraceful. Yeah. I hate that. And definitely not funny. But from here, straight into takeaway number three, I think. Takeaway number three, final one for the show.

three i think uh takeaway number three final one for the show many past and present power struggles resulted in changes to a country's time zone and this is a set of things we're mainly sourcing lapham's quarterly they have a great article by elena kugassian about wars and new leaders being the reasons that individual countries change their time zones in surprising ways which i know is more politics i mean beijing is a great example of that yeah it's all i don't like being controlled by these plain people plain people plain people always comes back to plain people because it's also just like plain people yeah what did you say colonialist plain people it's also just like another way to control the population, in my opinion. Like, it's not about, it's really just about control and power. And that's just unsettling to me.

Yeah, it's just humans, man. We ought to go back to our primitive ways, I think. We were better people back then. Yeah, it is. There's something to be said for just a community going by the sun, because the opposite is a story like this here where in Venezuela, they've changed it back since, but Venezuela was on an offset time zone because in 2007, Hugo Chavez just declared that the country would be 30 minutes different than it was before. And according to John Polga-Hasimovic, who's a professor of political science at the U.S. Naval Academy, this announcement came right after the Venezuelan public voted against a referendum that Chavez wanted to pass. He says, quote, Chavez changed the time zone to show his power.

A shift of 30 minutes is very political, a way of thumbing his nose at the world. Yeah, completely. It's like the biggest flex you can do. I'm changing time. It's like a God complex. That's so annoying. Yeah. I'm changing time. Wow. There's also, there's a similar one in 2015 in In North Korea, Kim Jong Un declared a half hour change of the clocks as a rejection of quote, wicked Japanese imperialists. And then they did that in 2015. And then they flipped it back in 2018. Because relations were improving with South Korea. And so they wanted North Korea to line back up with it. It's just all people pushing people around. It's just all people pushing people around. You know, power corrupts, we all know this, power corrupts humans. When you get to a certain point where you can have the power to change time, to control time, that's too much power. That's too much power. And again, God complex. Like that's the whole, it's political, it's controlling, it's strange, but no one, not one, one person shouldn't be allowed to be like, I will change the time for these entire, this entire population only because I want to for spiteful reasons and political reasons.

It's so backwards. That's what it is. Power corrupts time. Power corrupts time. There you go. Yeah. Trust trust no one that's the takeaway but buy my book uh 15 tips and tricks to be in places early you gotta commodify you gotta commodify time if possible yeah yeah because there's one more kind here, which is invasions. For one thing, there's a modern one where in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea. And when they did, they had a ceremony at the Simferopol

train station to mark changing the clocks in Crimea to a Russian time zone rather than one in Ukraine. And then also there's throughout World War II, basically Germany or Japan would conquer a place and switch the time zone. That's how Holland and France ended up on their current time zone is a German change when they invaded. And then the strangest one is probably Spain because in World War II, Spain was run by an authoritarian government under Francisco Franco. It didn't get invaded by the Germans. It was supporting them. But part of Franco supporting the Germans was to change Spain to Germany's time zone. And it is still on that time. They're not even close together. yeah it's sort of under england but it's on a different time zone because they according to

david messenger chair of the history department at the university of south alabama quote for francisco franco it was a clear political move to indicate spain's alliance with germany and then after germany was defeated why go back and admit the mistake so to this day spain is on kind of the wrong time zone that was why they had that weird solar noon in madrid before because they that's the pettiest i've ever heard sorry i said i said it's appropriate that's the pettiest thing i've ever heard that's what it is yeah damn yeah there's so much like petty time drama. I wasn't aware of, honestly. Same.

News to me. Yeah, the Real Housewives of Time. I like it. Good. The Real Housewives of Time. It's all these just like dumb men that are just like in too much power. Just like a bunch of dictators. The Real Housewives of Time.

I mean, I didn't watch that show. Actually, we're all watching it in real time, to be honest. Yeah, Housewives was a bad touchstone, because I think every story here has been a man making the decision. Laying out time zones and changing them and everything. Yeah. They're still housewives to me.

They don't get... Oh, house husbands. Who cares? You know, they the real the house husbands of time folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to to Anna Hosnier and Shereen Lonnie Yunus for, among other things, making a three-hour time difference work because of the tyranny of time zones. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you in any time zone right now.

If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is two totally different time systems that millions of people have lived under. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of three dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring time zones with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, trains created time zones. Takeaway number two, both of the most populous countries in the world each only have one time zone. And takeaway number three, I had a longer way of saying it, but I really like what Anna and Shereen came up with.

Power corrupts time. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Ethnically Ambiguous is a fantastic podcast co-hosted by my guests, Ana Hosnier, Shireen Lani-Yudis. It's on the iHeartRadio network. It's new every week.

Amazing conversations and a lot of fun. Also linking many other podcast appearances and writing and so much more from Ana and from Shireen. They're just great. Also very busy. Really glad they came and did this. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones.

There's a great article in The Atlantic. It's called China Only Has One Time Zone, and that's a problem. And it's by Matt Schiavenza. Another article. This one's from BBC News. It's called How India's Single Time Zone Is Hurting Its People,

and that is by Sutik Biswas. Then there's a great piece in Lapham's Quarterly. It's called Time Lords, A History of Authoritarian Time Changes. That is by Elena Gukasian. Also, just linking a lot of maps and a lot of just exciting visual ways to understand what we're talking about. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven

by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating.

So how about that? Talk to you then.