QI | How Many Time Zones Does China Have?

This clip is from QI Series O, Episode 14, 'Oddballs' with Sandi Toksvig, Alan Davies, Jimmy Carr, Victoria Coren Mitchell and Jason Manford.

[HeapOfBones]

Sandi: "in the summer, there are places where the sun sets in the middle of the night"

me, a Finn: "... is that unusual?"

[itzmeleo]

I like that when someone has the right answer they just look so supprised

[TonyHavenMusic]

I love that people actually reacted late to Jimmys joke, perfect 😂😂

[earthknight]

While there is officially one timezone through the whole country, in practice people often use local times (usually based on Russian time zones). When I worked in China it made it interesting if you were someplace far from Beijing. To schedule something with someone you'd often compare watches to make sure you were both using the same time system.

[alisonpahlkotter]

My favorite quote about 'time zones' is one from Mark Twain. "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always 20 years behind the times."

[criticalevent]

Communist time is best time because communist time is party time.

[lauraketteridge]

Subtitles are great. They enable many more people to enjoy such clips.

[cesariojpn]

I knew the answer already cause Map Men/Jay Foreman covered it in their timezones video.

[TheRealMirCat]

IIRC The U.S. adopted Standard Time for the same reason (trains). Before that, every city had their own time and logistics were a nightmare for travel as well as freight.

[sandradelvoie]

My husband is the pastor of a small church in Austin, Tx, called Dayspring Fellowship.We are CST, but on Sundays we run of Dayspring Time which is about 5 minutes behind CST.

[nyaarla]

Sandi: "in the summer, there are places where the sun sets in the middle of the night".

Yeah, but isn't it true that a Danish winter only has one and a half hour of sunlight?

[axelfoley]

Was kinda hoping they'd mention that China's single timezone results in the biggest timezone jump between neighboring countries, with a 3.5 hour shift as you cross the border to/from Afghanistan.

[Warrigt]

It is called the One China policy afterall.

[_-]

Fucking hell haven’t heard a southern rail joke in years

[davidcoetzee]

Pity Rhod Gilbert was left out of this

[mattiasolsson]

Interesting fact: Denmarks legal time is not in line with the rest of the worlds time.
They have a law from 1893 that declares that Danish time is to follow the mean solar noon 15 degrees east.
As a Swede I've always thought that the Danes are a bit of... 😂

[matthewryan]

Fun fact: Oxford also observes a local time, being 5 minutes behind GMT and in the summer jumps forwards on hour so it is 55 minutes ahead of GMT.

[escapedlunatic]

Disappointed that this failed to mention the unofficial "Xinjiang time". Precisely in order to avoid the problems referred to, China's westernmost province has adopted its own time zone, two hours behind Beijing. Everything official - railway timetables etc. - still has to be in Beijing time, but small shops will give their opening hours in Xinjiang time. This poses a problem in itself - if you want to know when something is going to happen in Kashgar, you have to ask not only what time it is, but also whether that's Beijing or Xinjiang time.

[andyzehner]

The best part of that clip was Victoria Coren Mitchell just sitting there saying nothing and being dignified and cool.

[typacsk]

I got this one right! :D

I figured there was going to be a "Well Actually" situation, where Hong Kong and Macau had their own time zone or something like that.