Daylight Saving Time does not have a translation in Khmer (I already tried Google translate and ការសន្សំពន្លឺថ្ងៃ doesn't seem to be the correct translation). Besides, we don't have it in Cambodia anyway. Cambodian time has always been fixed since the beginning of time. But in some part of the world, Daylight Saving Time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by an hour so that day will be longer than night.
Daylight saving starts on the The second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday in November. This year, it was on the 8th of March. But this is the system used in the United States, in Australia and Europe, they have their own way of picking which day to start and end daylight saving time.
On the day of daylight saving, the clock goes from 1:59am to 3:00am. If you have a computer or a smartphone, you can easily see this transition. But if you have an analog clock, ex. wall clock a watch, you have to manually change the time. And on the day that daylight saving time ends (this year it will be on the November 1st), the clock go from 1:59am to 1:00am (go back to 1am again). So you will have to change the time on your watch and wall clock again. To help you remember what you're supposed to do, here's a phrase, “Fall back, Spring forward”. Fall, we go back 1 hour, Spring we go forward 1 hour
DST is used in most part of North America and Europe, some part of Australia, South Africa and Africa. In America, the state of Arizona and Hawaii do not observe DST. (I don't know why either, feel free to ask Google)
DST is supposed to be used for saving energy and make better use of daylight. In the past daylight saving was used for the purpose of war, especially during world war I and II. According to Buzzfeed, the guy who created DST just want to have a longer day so that he could play with bugs. Some said that DST allows farmer to have more time to work on their field.
But in the reality, there are actually more drawbacks of DST. According to the news, electricity consumption drastically increase. Additionally, there are much more traffic accidents right after DST starts and ends (People are frustrated by the time change, they may be late to work, for instance).
A research on Daylight Saving time proved that it increase the risk of heart attack by 10 percent and double the chance of suicide one week after DST.
Based on my experience, DST also change our sleeping habit twice a year. This may seem like a first world problem: “It's midnight, but I couldn't fall asleep”, “It's 11 pm, but I'm already sleepy”. Waking up is even worse. Imagine you have to get up at 7 to go to school. But after daylight saving, you still have to get up at 7 am, but your brain still feels that it is still 6 am. It also effects our eating habit. Suppose you always have lunch at 1 pm, after DST you will feel hungry since 12 pm. And when DST ends, you may not be hungry yet at 1 pm.
So, DST can be confusing and annoying but after a few day you'll get used to it.
If you move from Cambodia to USA. It's gonna be even harder. The time difference is between 8-12 hours. So if you can survive that, 1 hour difference wouldn't be that difficult for you.
ពុលហើយ 😆
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