The new time zone will be instituted this coming August 15

Aug 11, 2015 21:02 GMT  ·  By

North Korea is a quirky place, there's no going about it. Be that as it may, its latest display of national pride does come across as a bit extreme, even when compared to its usual practices. 

Not to beat about the bush, it appears that, come August 15, the country will no longer be in the same time zone as South Korea and Japan, as it has for decades.

It will instead have its own current standard time, 30 minutes behind the current standard time in South Korea and in Japan. This means North Korea's time zone will be GMT +8.30 rather than GMT +9.

Why suddenly decide to switch to another time zone?

In all fairness, North Korea didn't choose its current standard time. It was forced to embrace it during the days when Japan ruled over what used to be just one Korea, i.e. between the years 1910 and 1945.

Now that it's no longer under Japan's rule but instead standing on its own, North Korea feels that instituting a new time zone is the right thing to do.

This explains why the new time zone for North Korea, called Pyongyang time, will become official on August 15, a date that marks the 70th anniversary of the country's liberation from Japan at the end of World War II.

“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 said when announcing the move, as cited by Tech Times.

Technically, North Korea is not switching to a new time zone 

It was in 1912 that Japan had present-day North Korea and South Korea switch to the GMT +9 current standard time. When the Japanese rule came to an end in 1945, the two countries stuck to this time zone that was imposed on them.

The thing is that, before the Japanese colonization, the current standard time in what is now North Korea was GMT +8.30. So, technically, the country is not instituting a new time zone but instead merely returning to its time zone before Japan annexed it in 1910.