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Are you in favor of daylight saving time?

49 Comments
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Not necessarily a supporter of DST in Japan, but I do think they should shift their time zone west an hour. In the warmer months, the sun begins lighting up the sky before 4:00am, and it gets dark too early at the end of the day to really get outside and go for a long bike ride or a hike or whatever after work.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@CH3CHO

And what time does the sun set in London vs. Tokyo on the summer solstice ? Enough said.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

daylight saving is great for families with kids, you can spend the extra hr outdoors while it still light. When youve had dinner shower and ready for bed its just getting dark. While is also dark when you wake up by the time your ready on your way to school/work it just becoming light.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

These's only JST and the center of time is near in Kobe, Akashi Municipal Planetarium, located exactly on 135°E longitude, and known as a symbol of Japan Standard Time. It's got a big Seiko clock. 9 hours ahead of UTC, i.e. it is UTC+09:00.

True, yet for conformity sake alone Japan as a country, as a whole, all are in the same time zone. However there is over an hour time difference from Hokkaido to Okinawa.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

gogogo, the reason we Beikokujins hate it is because we have it! We know what a mess it is. I hate it. Just stop moving the clocks around, dagnabbedit.

I have never met Americans who hate it, but clearly there is at least one.

It is not a mess. No one gets inconvenienced, other that changing old fashioned clocks twice a year. And it suits our body clocks much better.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The clocks need to go forward one hour all year round, and another hour in summer. There is no need for the sun to rise hours before most people are up and about, and a waste of electricity to need the lights on in the early summer evening.

As forwe Beikokujins hate it is because we have it!, we UKians also have it and I see nothing about it to hate. More sunlight to enjoy, less energy wasted - what's not to like?

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Sunrise in London on summer solstice: 4:43 am (after DST)

But also it is light after 10pm, on the solstice. In fact, Britain once had double summer time.

In mid-summer, the average Brit will have 5 hours of daylight after 5pm. How many hours do the Japanese have?

If you take a theoretical 9 to 5 working day, Japan has 4.5 hours of light before 9am and about 2 hours of light after 5pm. What a waste. There are a handful of people who get up at the crack of dawn, but most people's lives are ruled by the clock, not the sun.

I find it hard to understand Japan's preference for artificial Western "time" over the natural day governed by the sun.

Imagine yourself at 5:30 am in mid-summer Edo-period Japan. Think how busy it would have been - shops opening, people going about their jobs. Compare to today - near silence during the morning cool, because a mechanical device has not told its slaves that the day has not begun.

Consider yourself later that day - the equivalent of 9pm. Everyone has gone to bed in Edo Japan - it was a long day and people are tired. In modern Japan, the lights are on, the aircon blasting and people are still only just arriving back from work. The mechanical device had not told them it is bedtime yet.

DST would help address this anomaly. But Japanese people do not recognise that there is.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Just keep it one way, don't change every spring and fall. Move the clock, I don't care, it's the changing twice a year I hate. Sunrise, sunset...sunrise, sunset...

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sorry, I meant in Shetland. Heat not a problem.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@zichi

Aye, that's the way to do it. I've heard about people coating their windows with tinfoil.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Spent my earliest days in Shetland. No memory of it myself, but my folks tell me complainingly that in the middle of summer you couldn't go to bed till 10.30 because of the daylight, then the sun came up at 3.30! Not sure that putting the clocks forward helped much there.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sunrise is absurdly early in summer in Japan - 4:30am. On the other hand, it would throw summer fireworks festivals out of sync. No fireworks till 8:30pm...

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Personally I like early and bright mornings(morning person).

I like to train outdoors(MA, etc) nice, quiet and cool. My Gym too opened at 05:00 great workouts before going to work.

Or hit my local Super(open 24/7) and shop in peace and quiet.

I do like long bright evenings but Tokyo just gets too warm and sticky, plus not enough cafe, restaurants, etc with terraces to enjoy those.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

dcog9065MAR. 21, 2017 - 11:25AM JST

Yes, the 4am sunrise in Summer is absurd

Sunrise in Tokyo on summer solstice: 4:25 am

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/japan/tokyo?month=6&year=2016

Sunrise in London on summer solstice: 4:43 am (after DST)

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/london?month=6&year=2016

Not much difference. Shifting 1 hour to make it 5:25 am in Tokyo is overkill.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

until you elect people who will turn it off it doesn't matter

1 ( +2 / -1 )

The ‘working day’, that very modern partitioning of time is to blame, before electric light, even gas light, we’d sleep in four or so hour stints, get up, do stuff, and then go back to sleep. A move towards that is going to slowly creep back as most all jobs and labor are given over to AI and robots, profits will be paid from their endeavours to populations through the state, and humanity will have a chance to really explore the mind, intellect, art and space. Both outer and inner.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Okay, it's about 5:30 PM aand getting dark. At 5:30 AM the sun was up and chipper. From 5:30 to about 7:00 people slept. Now that they're awake, it's dark and everyone can go home to TV-land or work til 11:00 PM. Set the clock back an hour or two so people can get some sunlight in their leisure lives!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

gogogo, the reason we Beikokujins hate it is because we have it! We know what a mess it is. I hate it. Just stop moving the clocks around, dagnabbedit.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

I think shifting the time all year around should be looked at.. whats the point of blazing sun at 4:30 in the morning..

5 ( +5 / -0 )

DST is the best, it is literally saving daylight that otherwise you would sleep through. I only people that seem to hate it is the Americans.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

A 15 degree difference in Longitude equates to an hour difference.

Bejing is E116.17, Tokyo is located at E139.46, Akashi or Japan Standard Time Meridian is 135°0' 11.1"E which is more than 15 degrees. As for two time zones Naha is E127.42 while Kushiro is located E144.23 neither is 15 degrees away from the JSTM so Japan does not need two.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Let's just learn to live with nature, already

What's nature got to do with deciding JST?

The only reason it exists is because Tokyo doesn't want to on the same time as China.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Yes, the 4am sunrise in Summer is absurd

Actually, not if you are surfer who likes to be in the water before the masses of town-clowns arrive. It's the only time you'll get waves to yourself (just about).

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Anything which will save energy, preserve and be beneficial to the Earth's atmosphere, I am for. Daylight savings time is one.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

I could never get used to evenings falling earlier and earlier in autumn in Tokyo and Yokohama, nor later and later in summer in the west such as in Nagasaki, where daylight savings would make the sun go down in June after 9pm

Or coming home from a summer all-nighter and it is still 4 am.

The problem is that Japan is so far east in its time zone before swinging right to become so far west in its time zone. South Korea, which has daylight saving is less wide and so does not have Japan's problem

I doubt that they will institute different time zones here, and daylight saving is akin to that.

I suppose then that in Japan the times somehow won't change.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Yes, the 4am sunrise in Summer is absurd

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Or we could adopt the time keeping of the past where a day is always twelve hours and the length of an hour varies based on sunrise and sunset in which it was always 6 o'clock at sunrise and always 6 at sunset regardless of the calendar.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Yeah, if we were doing things naturally, we'd rise when the sun does, not when a clock tells us to.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

"No. Let's just learn to live with nature, already"

Clocks are not "nature." Living by a set of digital numbers is not "nature." They are humans' doing. DST is a way of adjusting clocks so the sun's movements are better aligned to human activity. Wake up near or shortly after sun rises, go to bed not long after the sun sets.

How hard is this for people to figure out?

11 ( +12 / -1 )

As others have said, Japan is already in the wrong timezone. It gets dark too early both in the summer and winter. Daylight savings time would somewhat alleviate that. But shifting timezones for the full year without DST would be better.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Guess it depends on what you grew up with.... me, I absolutely loved Daylight Savings Time. The extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day was great.... we could play baseball, basketball and other sports for an extra hour and our parents could watch TV in peace for that extra hour too.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

DST makes no difference to people who start work at 10am. DST is a good thing for early starters as it gives plenty of daylight to do something in the afternoons. It works very well in Australia because most people start work between 7 and 9am. You have time to go for a surf, have a BBQ or even mow the lawn in the evening. However, the lifestyle in japan is very different and there would be little or no advantage to having extra daylight hours in the afternoons.

Also, I think those comments about upsetting the body clock are quite petty. It's one flipping hour, not 6 hours.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I'm not in favor of daylight savings time and the switching of clocks an hour forward and an hour backwards. Always hated it when I was in the states. And with a big country, it's hard to find a good fit where people in most cities are satisfied with the amount of sunlight. Most people here are complaining the sun is up too early for them. Just get some better curtains, lol. But really, daylight savings time isn't the solution to this. It would be changing Japan's time zone. Although I'm not in favor of that either. It is already ridiculously hot here in the summer, and an extra hour of sunlight in the evening isn't going to help anything.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

No unless you are going to keep DST all year around. But switching screws up people's body clocks. Best to leave it as is. The way Japan does it now is fine.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I remember My first summer.I was awaken at 3.45 hours toand it is starting to get light. I up and went for a walk and a swim and back by 5.00am I now have 2 hours to kill. so I when back to bed. Yes daylight saving Yes who need an extra 2 hours in the morning. Even the farmers still start at 7.00. It may be good for golfers to get round in before work.and that about it.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

On June 20th, 2017, in Kyoto, the Sun will rise at 4:43AM. In Tokyo on the same day the Sun will rise at 4:25AM. In Sapporo, same day, 3:55AM. In Boston, MA, with Daylight Savings, the Sun will rise at 5:09AM and Set at 8:14PM.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@simon

Great post. Very funny. Who needs an extra hour of sunlight anyway.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Just tell the companies that it'll allow them to get away with illegal overtime more easily because the sun will be out longer and it won't feel like any should be getting home since it's not dark. Say that and they'll stop the, "Bb-b-b-but it would throw Japan into chaos!" arguments.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

No. Let's just learn to live with nature, already. I love that Japan has not fallen for the false-flag of DST.

-2 ( +8 / -10 )

@simon, quite a surreal post you have here! I hope that's some sort of 'green-sarcasm'!?

Agree with a few posters, I'd rather have daylight till around 10.30pm ish (similar to the west part of Europe which borders the Atlantic ocean) in summer than 5am sunsets/9pm sunrise like we have in Japan or Oz.

@zichi, I think MSD meant 'actual' sunrise/sunset times. There isn't an hour difference between Tokyo and Kyoto though, more like 15-30min as there is roughly 30-45min between Tokyo and West Kyushu.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Of course, having sun already blaring before 5 AM is not fun at all. Could be worse, though, I pity those folks in Sapporo having even earlier sunrise before 4 AM and sunset at around 7 PM. Those glorious evening sun advantage at higher latitude is totally wasted in Hokkaido... https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/japan/sapporo?month=6

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Tokyo is almost an hour behind Kyoto. Move the clock ahead two hours across the country.

And Simond is totally correct. I confided in some cows and they are totally against it.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Not so much in favor of Daylight savings.... but I am a proponent of Japan permanently moving its clocks 1 hour forward. For much of the summer the Sun in Japan rises at 4:30AM. Such a waste. Just move it permanently.

10 ( +11 / -1 )

I'm in favour because Japan's time is already way out of synch. It is the same time in East Russia as it is in Japan. Even before talking about daylight saving it needs adjusting by a least an hour. But it won't happen and here are a few reasons why:

The fear that office workers won't go home if it is still daylight.

The extra daylight upsets the cows

The extra daylight has an adverse effect on plants and makes them sprout and blossom too early. It also makes glaciers melt quicker.

The extra hour of strong daylight fades the curtains and blinds.

We already have global warming. Do we really need to add extra sunshine and heat to the planet?

0 ( +10 / -10 )

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