14 DAY TRIAL // Towards the beginning of the month, North Korea proudly announced that, come August 15, it would set clocks 30 minutes back and institute its own time zone. Why? Well, to stick it to Japan, of course.
In case there was any doubt about it, it turns out that North Korea isn't one to joke about when it comes to teaching wicked Japanese imperialists a lesson in independence and self-reliance.
August 15 has come and gone and, as promised, the country has implemented a new current standard time. GMT +8.30, that is. Previously, the current standard time in North Korea was GMT +9.
The move is, at best, peculiar. Then again, describing it as downright insane wouldn't be so far-fetched either. Not in the slightest. After all, what do time zones have to do with politics?
Quite a lot in North Korea's case, actually
Before getting all subjective and discussing whether North Korea was right to institute a new current standard time or if maybe the switch was one of its gravest mistakes in a while, perhaps some context is in order.
For starters, it's important to note that the former country's current standard time, i.e. the one that was pushed back 30 minutes this past August 15, wasn't always GMT +9.
Au contraire, it was in 1912, under Japanese rule, that the country - well, not North Korea per se, but what was then just one Korea - was forced to adhere to it.
Following World War II, which put an end to Japan's rule over Korea, and the birth of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south in 1948, the formerly occupied territories didn't return to their old time zones, but instead kept the one imposed on them.
Well, at least until this Saturday, August 15, when North Korea made GMT +8.30, a.k.a. Pyongyang time, its official time zone. So, basically, the country didn't institute a new current standard time. It just returned to its current standard time since before the Japanese occupation between 1910 to 1945.
As for why the new-but-not-quite Pyongyang time was implemented, we've already covered this: to stick it to Japan and assert the country's newly found independence.
“The wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time while mercilessly trampling down its land with 5,000-year-long history and culture and pursuing the unheard-of policy of obliterating the Korean nation,” the Korean Central News Agency very eloquently phrased it.
Except it all sounds like a childish thing to do
Japan's rule over what is now North Korea ended well over half a century ago so, if you think about it, the country's move to implement a new current standard time just so it would no longer be in the same time zone as its archenemy is kind of like texting somebody a week after you've had a fight with them to deliver the perfect comeback.
Besides, it's difficult to imagine Japan crying itself to sleep over this supposed act of defiance. In fact, it's safe to assume the country couldn't care less about what time zone North Korea is in.
What's more, not to play the conspiracy theorist or anything of the kind, but this move on behalf of North Korea sounds more like an attempt to bolster the control Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un already holds over the country's population by pushing nationalistic sentiments.
Admittedly, there are still hundreds of thousands of people in North Korea who still hold a grudge against Japan, and understandably so. After all, the Japanese occupation wasn't exactly one fun day after another. Still, the fact of the matter is the country has more pressing matters to tend to than playing mind-games with Japan.
For starters, North Korea has virtually no friends. Sure, it has an amicable relation with China, but even that's been going downhill for a while now. And that's not to say that, what with the new time zone, the gap between this country and neighboring South Korea has grown just a wee deeper.
Now, not having any buddies might not be such a big deal if North Korea were flourishing. Except it isn't. It's an impoverished country and the stage of one of the most horrific personality cults ever known to history. So, in this context, adhering to a new current standard time just to prove a point is, well, puerile.