金正恩为何推出平壤时间 Despotic rulers who display their muscle to turn back time

Kim Jong Un LINKED TO FRIDAY ADVANCE PAGE already rules North Korea like a medieval despot, but his latest eccentricity is actually trying to turn back time. To mark the 70th anniversary of victory over the “wicked Japanese imperialists”, the poobah of Pyongyang has decreed that his country will set its clocks half an hour later to reject the timezone Japan imposed during its occupation of the Korean peninsula.

金正恩(Kim Jong Un)已经像个中世纪专制君主那样统治朝鲜了，但他最近的怪异法令事实上是试图改变时间。为纪念战胜“邪恶的日本帝国主义”70周年，这位朝鲜普巴（poobah，意为至高无上的君主——译者注）颁布法令，规定他的国家将把时区推后半小时，以抵制日本在占领朝鲜半岛时强加于朝鲜的时区。

Eccentric it may be, but there is a history of rulers changing time zones to assert their power. When such decisions institutionalise real authority, they look masterful; when they substitute for it, they range from in to absurd.

这一法令或许怪异，但历史上不乏统治者更改时区以彰显自己权力的先例。当这类决定将真正的权威制度化时，它们显得专横；而当这类决定只不过是假装权威时，它们呈现出从不安到荒谬的各种面貌。

Time zones were forced by new technology but shaped by political whim. They emerged as the agricultural pulse set by the sun was replaced by the grinding rhythm of industry. In the agrarian mid-19th century the US had more than 300 time zones. As railways took over, a private sector solution emerged: in 1883 railroad companies imposed the four time zones that still exist.

推进时区的是新科技，但时区的面貌则是由政治上的心血来潮决定的。当工业的刺耳节奏取代了太阳设定的农业节拍时，时区就诞生了。在农业社会时期的19世纪中叶，美国有300多个时区。随着铁路的发展，一个私营部门解决方案诞生了：几家铁路公司在1883年强制分出四个时区，一直沿用至今。

The world soon organised itself into longitudinal zones anchored on Greenwich Mean Time in London. But symbolic quirks and anomalies persist.

全世界很快理顺了时间——基于伦敦格林尼治标准时间(GMT)划分成数个纵向时区，但具有象征意义的古怪、异常安排依然存在。

Imposing a single timezone on a recalcitrant populace, as did the Japanese in Korea, is a show of power as well as of administrative efficiency. No one can control the sun but rulers can change how much of it their subjects see. Nazi Germany enforced uniform time on its conquered countries in western Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed Moscow time on Crimea after seizing the province last year.

对不顺从的民众强行施加单一时区，就如日本曾经对朝鲜做过的那样，除了可以展示力量，还能提高行政效率。没人能控制太阳，但统治者可以控制臣民能看到多少阳光。纳粹德国在它占领的西欧国家实施统一时间。俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔渠京(Vladimir Putin)去年侵占克里米亚后，在该省强行实行了莫斯科时间。

However, adopting inconvenient time zones for symbolic reasons begins to look like insecurity. After the Communist takeover in China in 1949, Mao Zedong imposed Beijing time nationwide. China now has one timezone covering latitudes where Russia has five. Inhabitants of western China have to get up in darkness for winter months on end. But introducing a new zone might look like a concession to the repressed discontents in the western region of Xinjiang, some of whom have informally adopted their own local time.

但是，出于象征原因而采用不方便时区，就显得缺乏安全感了。1949年共产党接管中国后，毛泽东在全国推行了北京时间。中国现在只有一个时区，而横跨同样纬度范围的俄罗斯有五个时区。每年冬天，中国西部地区居民都有好几个月得在黑暗中起床。但实行新的时区，看起来可能像对新疆西部地区受压抑的不满分子作出让步，其中一些人已经非正式地用起了当地时间。

Similarly, India combined several imperial time zones into one after independence from Britain in 1947, and then underlined the point by setting it an awkward five and a half hours ahead of London time. This wastes electricity, and farmers in Assam in India’s far east have to use an informal “tea garden time” to align the sun and the clock.

同样地，1947年印度脱离英国独立后，也将英帝国统治时期的几个时区合并成一个，然后刻意将这个统一时间奇怪地设定为比伦敦时间早五个半小时。统一时区浪费电力，而且为了让太阳和时间相一致，印度最东边的省份阿萨姆邦的农民不得不使用非正式的“茶园时间”。

And when a timezone is purely symbolic, it really can begin to look odd. President Hugo Chávez set Venezuela’s clocks back half an hour in 2007, putting them out of kilter with its neighbours, for no apparent reason but cussedness.

而当一个时区的设定纯粹出于象征意义，它真的会显得奇怪。2007年委内瑞拉总统乌戈查韦斯(Hugo Chávez)将本国时区调后半小时，让委内瑞拉的钟表与邻国对不上时间，这么做唯一明显的理由就是因为固执。

The most entertaining example is Spain. It should really observe the same time as the UK and Portugal since the vast bulk of it is west of the Greenwich meridian. Instead it keeps central European Time, putting it in the same zone as Poland. A parliamentary commission has concluded that using the wrong clock keeps Spaniards up too late and makes them tired and unproductive.

最有趣的例子莫过于西班牙。西班牙大部分国土都位于格林尼治子午线的西边，其实本应该与英国和葡萄牙遵循同样的时间。可是西班牙全国使用的是欧洲中部时间，与波兰位于同一个时区。西班牙的一个国会委员会已经得出结论，使用错误的时区导致西班牙人起得太晚，容易疲倦，且生产效率低下。

The timezone is the legacy of the deep cunning of Francisco Franco. Knowing a terrible idea when he saw one, the dictator resisted pressure from Adolf Hitler to abandon neutrality and enter the second world war. But, realising the symbolic importance to fascism of uniformity in everything, he made the magnificently pointless gesture of adopting Berlin time. (A reminder: Hitler committed suicide as his Reich imploded in 1945; Franco died peacefully in office 30 years later.)

西班牙现行时区是朗西斯科嬠朗哥(Francisco Franco)留下的一个老谋深算的遗产。当年阿道夫希特勒(Adolf Hitler)要求佛朗哥放弃中立、加入第二次世界大战，因为佛朗哥这个人对坏主意有敏锐的判断力，他抵挡住了希特勒的压力。但他知道一切保持一致对法西斯具有重要的象征意义，于是他作出了一个了不起的、毫无意义的姿态，改用了柏林时间。（提醒一下，1945年希特勒在德意志国(Reich)崩溃后自杀，而佛朗哥则是在30年后安详地死于位上。）

It is not hard to see where on the spectrum of absurdity North Korea’s action lies. Given its shambolic economy, it scarcely matters what timezone Pyong adopts. Japan may have lost the war, but its economic miracle won the peace. Mr Kim may change the clocks, but he cannot put history into reverse.

不难看出朝鲜此次更改时区在“荒谬光谱”上处于何种位置。考虑到朝鲜一团糟的经济情况，平壤方面采取何种时区其实没多大重要性。日本当年输掉了战争，但日本的经济奇迹赢得了和平。金正恩能改变时区，但他无法逆转历史。