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zone?</title></head><body>
<div>Dear Paul,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Thanks for your email. The dating of
"Beijing Time" is a little tricky, but thanks to Guo
Qingsheng,<font color="#000000"> a scholar and engineer at the Chinese
Academy of Sciences Shaanxi Observatory, we know that the
implementation of Beijing Time must have come after September 27, 1949
- the date on which the official name of Beiping (Northern Peace) was
changed to Beijing (Northern Capital) - and some time before October 7
- the date of the earliest source which Guo has found containing the
term "Beijing Time."</font></font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>This is a project I started thinking about this past summer - a
fascinating topic, no?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Sincerely,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Tom Mullaney</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>In a book review in today's issue of
_Science_ you reported that the<br>
Chinese government in 1949 opted to observe one time zone.
This<br>
caught my interest because I help maintain the tz database, which<br>
records histories of time zone and daylight saving changes all
over<br>
the world. The tz database is used by computer clocks all over
the<br>
world, including what I expect are millions of clocks in China, so
I'd<br>
like to get the details right.<br>
<br>
Here's the problem: the tz database, following Shanks &
Pottenger<br>
(2003), records that the China switched to a single time zone on
May<br>
1, 1980, not in 1949. Since you are a historian of China I
expect<br>
that you have a lot better sources than we do. Can you please
mention<br>
the sources for the claim that the clocks changed in 1949 rather
than<br>
in 1980?<br>
<br>
Thanks for any info you can provide. I'll CC: this message to
the tz<br>
database mailing list, to give them a heads-up on this query.<br>
<br>
-- Paul Eggert, UCLA Computer Science Dept.<br>
<br>
References:<br>
<br>
Thomas S. Mullaney, Change of time over changing time. Science
319<br>
(5864), 729 (2008-02-08), DOI: 10.1126/science.1152851,<br>
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5864/729a>.<br>
<br>
Paul Eggert & Arthur David Olson, Sources for time zone and
daylight<br>
saving time data <http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm>
(2007-12-31);<br>
also see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoneinfo>.<br>
<br>
Thomas G. Shanks and Rique Pottenger, The International Atlas (6th<br>
edition). San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (2003).</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div><br>
<br>
---<br>
Thomas S. Mullaney<br>
Assistant Professor<br>
Modern Chinese History<br>
<br>
Department of History<br>
Stanford University<br>
450 Serra Mall, Bld 200<br>
Stanford, CA 94305-2024<br>
<br>
T (650) 736-8386<br>
F (650) 725-0597</div>
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