Samoa to go Back to the Future, shifting Date Line

Found this to be intriguing. Interestingly enough, it seems to be about economics.

Many times, I have woken up to forget what day it is but this is going to play with the psyche for awhile I believe. Re-setting inner clocks will take some time to adjust.

Can you imagine this?

"You can have two birthdays, two weddings and two wedding anniversaries on the same date - on separate days - in less than an hour's flight across (the ocean), without leaving the Samoan chain," Tuilaepa said.

"In doing business with New Zealand and Australia we're losing out on two working days a week," Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said in a statement. "While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand and when we're at church on Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane."

apnews.myway.com...

APIA, Samoa (AP) - Samoa plans to leap 24 hours into the future, erasing a day and putting a new kink in the Pacific's jagged international date line so that it can be on the same weekday as Australia, New Zealand and eastern Asia.

It'll be Back to the Future for the island nation, offsetting a decision it made 119 years ago to stay behind a day and align itself with U.S. traders based in California.

That has meant that when it's dawn Sunday in Samoa, it's already dawn Monday in adjacent Tonga and shortly before dawn Monday in nearby New Zealand, Australia and increasingly prominent eastern Asia trade partners such as China.

So this is all due to the fact that they are doing less, and less business with the United States and more business within the Oceania region of the world? More power to them.

Originally posted by dwmjr1985
So this is all due to the fact that they are doing less, and less business with the United States and more business within the Oceania region of the world? More power to them.

Oh I agree with that. Just wondering how it will effect the mind and body clock tho. It's as natural to us as magnetic North is to birds.

Probably won't last long on some but will take longer for others I believe.

reply to post by jude11


I think it's far easier than say jumping 6 hours and trying to keep on the same scheduled.. Just change your calender up one day..lol Saturday comes a day sooner..lol

Very interesting. A practical reason for time travel is leaving American Samoa behind.

American Samoa and Samoa are two different islands in one Pacific Island group. Samoa is planning on time-traveling in December. This time travel, however, won't apply to American Samoa. The small island nation hopes that changing the date could have big effects on its economy. Thus, Samoa jumps forward in time in December. Samoa will do this by switching to the west side of the international date line, which it says will make it easier for it to do business with Australia and New Zealand.