I've just started my Chinese lessons again, after about a 3 month break. I'm currently visiting my daughter in Quebec, and since she is a student and generally pretty busy, I figured this would give me something to do while she was at class, doing homework, etc.
Well this has lead to an interesting conversation with my teacher about the whole timezone thing.
Did you know that China has only a single timezone? Despite being the 3rd largest country on earth (or 4th on some lists, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and call them 3rd tied with the USA) the entire country runs on a single timezone. Well it turns out that the Chinese think it very strange that other countries contain multiple timezones!
Me: I'm in Quebec right now, so it's 8PM. In Victoria it's only 5PM.
Valarie: That's strange! Why is the time different?
Me: Because Canada is so large. The sun sets later in Victoria, so it's in a different timezone. That way the sunset it at the same time (about 6PM) everywhere.
Valarie: How strange! In China we are all on "Beijing time".
When travelling in Europe, we noticed that Italy and Spain are on the same timezone, resulting in a sunset about an hour later in Spain. Where dinner time is around 8:30PM in Italy, it starts around 10PM in Spain! However the Spaniards are thinking of changing this - see the following article:
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24294157
This is one of the things we really liked about Spain, the relaxed and laidback lifestyle, and late dining habits. (Although for me the 10PM dinner was actually a "second dinner", there's no way I could hold off eating that late!)
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