Really like living here but one of the most puzzling aspects to me is our time zone. Don’t get me wrong, not having daylight savings time is great and all but it really confuses me. I’m genuinely curious as to why GMT +9 was chosen when +10 would seem more fitting, unless you live in Okinawa I spose. (That being said in looking at maps of this I found out that China is all one time zone? That’s even more crazy)
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Because Japan Standard Time is defined referencing a longitude of 135 degrees East, the standard meridian of Japan. GMT is offset by +1 hour every 15 degrees east so that works out to GMT+9. 135 degrees East passes directly through the city of Akashi in Hyogo Prefecture, so we are not in the “wrong” time zone.
We are absolutely in the wrong time zone, it’s even worse when you look at a map and realize japan should be in three time zones given how far east/west Kyushu and Hokkaido are from the main land.
The whole sun getting up at 4am in summer is absolutely silly. I came from somewhere where it started at 5 and ran till nearly 9pm of sunlight thank you DST.
Problem with Japan, and Serado mentions it, is they’ve fixed it so that noon is noon somewhere, then decided to adopt stupid western time standards and waste most of it by putting the middle of the day in the afternoon.
With reference to solar noon, Japan is [just about centered](https://i.imgur.com/PrN1eAE.png).
Edit: Can anyone identify that UTC+9 box in the UTC+10 on about the same latitude as Taiwan? I don’t see anything shown there on the [Wikipedia UTC+9 page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%2B09:00).
Edit2: It appears to be Minamitorishima.
Oh preach.
The longest day of the year and the sun sets just after 7. What is this? Where are the long evenings spent enjoying the cooler temperatures.
Couldn’t the sun rise at 5 instead of 4? Surely that’s enough for farmers.
Maybe it just a Tokyo problem but I think the time zone should be changed too. 100%
Not sure it’s a factor, but korea is on the same time as japan, and quite a few other nearby countries are only an hour behind–some maybe there’s some business sense to it?
I get up early, and it easy in the summer (winter kinda sucks). Get to work early before the crowds and heat. Office aircon set to 23 degrees, all good!