Guest Article by Ryan Phillips

In most, but not all countries the Gregorian calendar, based on 365 days
and 366 days in a leap-year, is used. The year is divided into 12 months,
and into weeks of seven days. Other units of time are expressed in hours,
minutes and seconds. This is not a universal system and many other forms
of calendars are in existence. When other systems are in operation the
figures used to indicate the year are usually sufficiently different for this
to be obvious. In some calendars, a year may also be divided into units
other than 12 months. In Ethiopia the year is divided into 12 months of 30
days each and one month of five days, or six days every fourth (leap) year.
In many countries, including Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Israel, Japan,
Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand a lunar based calendar systems are
used, usually concurrently with the Western culture or Gregorian
calendar. It is important to be aware that this may have a bearing on the
calendar dates when national secular and religious holidays are
celebrated. It may also have an effect on the starting date of the
governmental fiscal or taxation year. The two main international
timekeeping conventions are the 12 hour clock system and 24 hour clock
system. Most countries operate under one of these two systems, there are
also a few that use both systems at the same time. The British am
(morning) and pm (afternoon) convention is not known nor used in many
countries.
Most of those countries using the 12 hour clock system have a turn of
phrase to differentiate between morning hours and afternoon or evening
hours, for example between 6 o’clock in morning and 6 o’clock in the
afternoon. One should also be aware that some countries covering a
huge area of land, for instance Russia and the United States, are divided
into a large number of time zones between their eastern and western
borders. A large number of countries operate daylight savings time
adjustments. Its commencement, duration and ending is usually
determined by national regulations. A few countries permit some of their
states or regions to opt out of national regulations, resulting in more
than one time zone.
What is more confusing is when different systems of time are used;
although in most countries the clock time is used as a means of measuring
time, there are some countries or regions where a system that might be
titled event-time is used to measure time. In an event-time system, time is
related to events. This might be an historic event such as an earthquake
or wedding of the head of state, alternatively a daily routine event like
morning prayers. Even in the clock time method there are different
systems, in country districts in Ethiopia for example, sunrise is always zero
hour and therefore 07.00 hours or 7 am is 1 o’clock. Similarly in Thailand,
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when not using the 24 hour system, Thais divide the day into four sections
of six hours and to meet someone at ‘four in the morning’ is quite likely
to mean at 10.00 hours.
The expression used for a particular point in time varies from country to
country, and it is not uncommon for such indications of time to be
mistranslated or misunderstood, thus noon which means 12 o’clock
midday in some countries may mean 14.00 hours or 2 pm or 2 o’clock in
others. The German expression ‘halb neun’ or ‘half nine’ means 08.30
hours and not 09.30 hours.
In Malaysia, if a guest is invited to a house on Saturday at 19.30 hours, this
really means that one should come on Friday evening at 19.30 hours, since
Malays consider that the new day really starts at about 18.30 hours. One
would therefore be well advised to establish, in good time, with one’s
host the precise date and time of the invitation so as to avoid making a
mistake by arriving on the wrong day. Likewise it is essential to carefully
check date and time with one’s host in Indonesia where the day begins at
sunset and the night of a day precedes the day rather than following it

R. Phillips is the Editor of Schiel & Denver Book Publishers