多维社记者林桂明编译报导/在新疆自治区，信仰穆斯林的维吾尔少数民族刻意遵循着他们自己的时间，而不是当地的汉人时间，通常汉人们都坚持着北京所实行的全中国统一的单一时区制。
来到喀什市的国际酒店大厅里，时钟指示已经是快到夜里11点了，看起来，这个时候供应晚餐是为时太晚了，对刚到达这里的饥肠辘辘的旅客们来说，这似乎是个坏消息。
不过别担心。穿过这座中国最西部的城市主要街道的过街地下通道，转进一条积满尘土的小路，沿着残旧的黄赭色的店铺门面走下去，就来到了一个清真寺后面的充满生气的露天广场。
在这里，一些带子女的家庭聚在一个露天餐厅看电视。空气中飘来烤羊肉串摊子上的孜然香气。隔壁，一位厨师在做拉面条，面团在他手上就像儿童在做翻绳儿游戏一样灵巧。
这里的时间，还不到晚上9点钟。
洛杉矶时报近日刊登驻北京分社首席记者白思卉（Barbara Demick)女士从喀什发出的这篇题为“中国西部边远地区的时区划分”（Clocks square off in China's far west）的报导。该报导说，新疆的喀什市，这座有35万人口的城市，建在古老的丝绸之路上的一个绿洲。这里现在有两个时区，之间相隔两小时。这里的人们如何设置他手表和时钟里的时间，不仅取决于所在地段，而且取决于他的职业和民族，取决于他的宗教和对当局的忠诚度。生活在两个时区的人们，据说双方很少发生混乱，因为他们相互间是尽可能少地发生联系。
当中华人民共和国于1949年成立时，毛泽东发布了命令，要求人们都要遵循一个时区作息，而不管这个国家幅员是相当于一个美国大陆那样辽阔。
但是维吾尔人，在中国西北部新疆占主导地位的这个少数民族，在采用官方定的北京时间方面，却是踌躇不前，因为如果按北京时间作息，那将意味着他们在一片漆黑时起床，太阳还没下山就要就寝了。
“这就像要求洛杉矶按照纽约时间作息一样荒谬，”位于华盛顿的维吾尔美国协会秘书长阿里木•塞依托夫(Alim Seytoff)说，他在1996年离开了新疆。
“这是中国政府的一种极权性质的做法，他们试图将一个时区强加给所有人。”
于是，维吾尔人就按照他们自己的非官方时间来作息，在拨钟表上，这比北京时间要提前[推迟]两个小时。维吾尔人实际上是听从太阳的指令，而不是按照大约2000英里外的北京政府的统一命令来行事。
洛杉矶时报的这篇报导认为，这种不同的时区差别，实际上是隐喻着，维吾尔人和住在新疆邻近的不安地区的汉人之间，有一道鸿沟。自1949年以来，全新疆的汉族人的比例已经从9％增至40％多，维吾尔人还指责中国政府压制了他们的文化和信仰。
维吾尔族属于一种穆斯林人群，他们看起来更像欧洲人种，说突厥语，还带有一些阿拉伯语在里面。
维吾尔人和汉人之间只有最低限度的社会交往。维吾尔人说，他们晚上不会与出门中国汉人同事外出，因为他们之间的饮酒和吸烟习惯不一样。通婚也是罕见的。新疆的汉人往往懒得学习当地的语言，而且他们避免住到维吾尔族聚居区。“不要在晚上到那里吃东西，”一位酒店的中国汉族工作人员警告住客们说，“那里都是穆斯林人群。”
洛杉矶时报的这篇报导还说，这里的学校，政府机构和邮局都采用北京时间。机场和铁路系统也是采用北京时间。而公交线路有一些使用新疆时间，另一些采用北京时间。
而当地居民都能进行这种令外人奇怪的时间差别上的调整。
“混乱？根本不会！您可以问问随便什么人，他们对北京时间和本地时间是多么容易转换，”在喀什市内公共汽车站工作的一位女士坚持这样说。
市内的公共汽车运行在4月1日前采用的是本地时间，4月1日后旧转换成采用北京时间。“我们生活每一个方面都采用北京时间，它与我们相伴。那些少数民族，则采用他们的本地时间。”这位女士如是说。
28岁的导游阿里塔什（Ali Tash）也说，这真的是很简单。他指着酒店大堂里的空沙发，解释说，假如他要约一个中国汉人朋友和一个维吾尔族的朋友一起见面，“那么，我会对这位汉人说，是在4点钟，而对那位维吾尔族朋友说是在2点钟，然后他们各自都将在同一时间来到，这没问题。”
现代的时区划分将地球分为15个时区，每15度（经度）是一个时区，这种划分是一个相对较新的发明，这种设计标明了全球的统一性，也使铁路旅行更为有效。直到19世纪末，每个城镇确定时间标准的做法还是在太阳达到正顶头时，把钟表定为正午时。
中国的幅员跨度足够定为5个时区，但是又是中国是世界上坚持用一个时区标准的最大的国家。相比之下，俄罗斯划分了11个时区。
“中国如此做的原因可以追溯到其长期的帝王传统，中国皇帝控制着时间，”中国是在宇宙的中央，皇帝自认是宇宙万物至高无上的主宰者－天子。乔治城大学的新疆问题学者詹姆斯·米尔沃德（James Millward）说。
米尔沃德呼吁维吾尔人坚持采用他们自己的时间，因为它可以是一种“弱者的古典武器”。
“这类事情，就是人们在专制社会所能做的。就像讲一个隐喻的笑话一样，它是一种表达独立的方式，但是又非常微妙，不会惹出乱子，”米尔沃德说。
洛杉矶时报的这篇报导说，维吾尔人显然对得以维持着“自己的时间”感到自豪。在一个市场上，一名大约8岁的维吾尔族男孩开玩笑地抓住了一名外国游客的手腕，看她的手表。看到了那上面拨到了本地时间，男孩咧嘴笑了。
不过，中国政府并非总是如此宽容地对待当地居民的时区感。
1968年，被命名新疆自治区党委书记的强硬派龙书金，曾经颁布过一项规定，命令维吾尔人停止使用自己的时间。这是据美国美国印第安纳大学的新疆学教授鲍文德(Gardner Bovingdon)说的，他最近完成了一篇有关新疆时区差别问题的论文。
但是，当时的政府却无法执行这种法令，后来到1986年，又发布了一项通知，正式确认可以采用非官方的当地时间。
“如果他们真的强迫人们遵循与北京同步的工作时间，将会引发抗议怒潮，因为人们要在一片漆黑时就起床，”鲍文德说。
确实，在星期一上午北京时间9点钟的时候，当你可能认为这应当是人们一周工作日的开始，街上应当充满熙熙攘攘的紧迫的人群时，这个城市却非如此，它仍然打着睡眼惺松的哈欠。市中心人民广场的毛泽东铜像还笼罩清晨的薄雾中。在主要街道上行驶的汽车，都开着大灯。
喀什几乎是在新德里以北，大约与纽约同一纬度。它在隆冬的计时问题更严重，如果按北京时间，直到上午10点多钟了，太阳都还没有升起来；而在夏至时，太阳下山要到夜里快11点。
洛杉矶时报的这篇报导最后说，据非官方统计，中国汉人们自己也在扭转他们的作息时间，因此大多数学校和许多商家都是到北京时间上午10时才开始上课或开门。
喀什师范学院的学生的林建说：“大多数人采用的是北京时间，只有当地的维吾尔人采用新疆时间。但是，我们开课通常是比平常时间晚两个小时的。我们很容易适应，入乡随俗嘛。”
然而，新疆时间，严格说仍然是属于非官方范畴。在国营的国际大酒店厅堂里，有5个时钟显示着不同时区的时间，它们分别是莫斯科、伦敦、纽约、东京和北京时间。当记者问大厅里的服务人员：为什么没有时钟显示新疆时间？得到的回答是：“没有必要。他们都知道这个时间。”
在喀什的钟表市场，一名叫阿卜杜勒·哈基姆（Abdul Hakim）的维吾尔族钟表匠说，他曾经制作出一种可以同时显示北京和新疆两个不同时间的手表，但无人问津。
“人们总是只采用这一个或那一个时间，而不是同时用两个。中国汉人用北京时间，维族人用我们自己的时间，”他说。“但是，如果有人来买手表的话，我就随他们喜欢，来拨定时间。”
Clocks square off in China's far westIn Xinjiang province, the Muslim Uighur minority makes a point of observing its own time, not that of local Han Chinese, who adhere to Beijing's imposition of a single time for all of China.By Barbara Demick
March 31, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-china-timezone31-2009mar31,0,2547939.storyReporting from Kashgar, China -- The clock in the lobby of the International Hotel shows it is almost 11 p.m., too late for dinner and bad news for two hungry travelers.
Not to worry. Take an underpass to cross the wide main street of China's westernmost city, turn down a dusty alley of crumbling ocher storefronts that opens up into a lively public square behind a mosque. Families with children are watching television at an open-air restaurant. The scent of cumin wafts from a grill where lamb sizzles on skewers. Next door, a chef makes noodles strung between his hands like a game of cat's cradle.
Over here, it's not quite 9 p.m.
Kashgar, a city of 350,000 built around an oasis along the old Silk Road, has two time zones, two hours apart. How you set your watch depends not only on the neighborhood, but on your profession and ethnicity, religion and loyalty. People living on both sides of the time divide say there is little confusion because they have as little to do with each other as possible.
When communist China was formed in 1949, Mao Tse-tung decreed that everybody should follow a single time zone, no matter that the country is as wide as the continental United States.
But Uighurs, the dominant minority in China's northwestern Xinjiang province, balked at running their lives on Beijing time, which would have them getting up in the pitch dark and going to sleep at sunset.
"It is as ridiculous as having Los Angeles following New York time," said Alim Seytoff, who left Xinjiang in 1996 and is now secretary-general of the Uyghur American Assn. in Washington.
"That is the totalitarian nature of the Chinese government that they try to impose one time zone."
So the Uighurs follow their own unofficial time, which is two hours earlier -- in effect following the dictates of the sun rather than of Beijing, about 2,000 miles away.
The separate time zones are in fact a metaphor for the chasm between the Uighurs and Han Chinese living in uneasy proximity in Xinjiang. Since 1949, the ethnic Chinese have grown from 9% to more than 40% of the province's population, and Uighurs accuse the Chinese government of suppressing their culture and faith.
The Uighurs are a Muslim people who look more European than Chinese and use a Turkic language sprinkled with Arabic.
There is only minimal socializing between Uighurs and Chinese. Uighur men say they don't go out at night with Chinese colleagues because they don't share the habits of drinking and smoking. Intermarriage is rare. Few Chinese in Xinjiang bother to learn the local language and they avoid Uighur neighborhoods. ("Don't go eat over there at night!" a Chinese employee at the hotel warns guests. "It's full of Muslim people.")
Schools, government offices, post offices all use Beijing time. So do the airports and railroad stations. Some bus lines use Xinjiang time and others Beijing time.
Local people have strangely adjusted.
"Confusing? Not confusing at all! You can ask anybody how easy it is to convert between Beijing time and the local time," insisted a Chinese woman working at the Kashgar inter-city bus station, which is running on local time until April 1 and then switching over. "We use Beijing time in every aspect of our lives. It is only our comrades, the ethnic minorities, who use their local time."
Ali Tash, a 28-year-old tour guide, said it's really quite simple. Pointing at empty sofas in a hotel lobby, he explained how he would set up a hypothetical meeting with a Chinese friend and a Uighur friend. "So I say to the Chinese guy, come at 4 o'clock, and to the Uighur guy, come at 2 o'clock, and then everybody will be there the same time. No problem."
Modern time zones dividing the world into 15-degree-wide slices of longitude are a relatively recent invention, designed to stamp uniformity on the globe and make railroad travel more efficient. Until the late 19th century, the standard practice had been for each town to set its clocks to noon when the sun reached its zenith.
China is big enough to span five time zones but is the largest country in the world to insist on a single one. In contrast, Russia has 11.
"The reason goes back to a long Chinese imperial tradition in which the emperor is in control of time because it has a cosmological significance," said James Millward, a Xin- jiang scholar at Georgetown University.
Millward calls the Uighurs' insistence on using their own time a "classic weapon of the weak."
"These are the kind of things that people do in authoritarian societies. Like telling a joke with a twist, it is a way of expressing independence that is subtle enough that you don't get into trouble," Millward said.
Uighurs appear proud of keeping their own time. A Uighur boy of about 8 playfully grabbed the wrist of a foreign visitor in the market to look at her watch. Seeing that it was set to local time, he gave a big grin.
The Chinese government has not always been so tolerant of chronological deviation.
In 1968, Long Shujin, a hard-liner who was soon to be named Communist Party secretary for Xinjiang, issued a decree ordering Uighurs to stop using their own time, according to Gardner Bovingdon, a Xinjiang expert at Indiana University who recently completed a paper on the separate time zone.
But the Chinese government was not able to enforce the law and in 1986 published a small notice acknowledging that the unofficial time could be used.
'If they really had forced people to synchronize their workdays with Beijing, it would have produced howls of protest because people would be getting up in the pitch dark," Bovingdon said.
Indeed, at 9 a.m. Beijing time on a Monday morning, when one might expect people to be bustling with the urgency of the week ahead, the city was still yawning itself awake. The statue of Mao looming over People's Square in the center of town was barely visible through a shroud of morning haze. Cars on the main road had their headlights on.
Kashgar is almost due north of New Delhi and about the same latitude as New York. Its problems with timekeeping are worse in midwinter, when the sun doesn't rise according to a Beijing-oriented clock until past 10 a.m., and during the summer solstice, when sunset is close to 11 p.m.
Unofficially, the Chinese themselves have skewed their working hours, so most schools and many businesses don't actually open until 10 a.m. Beijing time.
Jiang Lin, a student at Kashgar Teachers College, said: "Most people are using Beijing time; only local Uighurs use Xinjiang time. But our class starts two hours later than usual time. It's quite easy to adapt to it, just as when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do."
Still, Xinjiang time remains strictly unofficial. In the lobby of the Chinese-run International Hotel there are five clocks showing the time in Moscow, London, New York, Tokyo and Beijing. Asked why there was no clock indicating Xinjiang time, the concierge replied with irritation: "There's no need. They know what time it is."
Abdul Hakim, a Uighur watchmaker in the Kashgar market, said he used to stock a watch that displayed two different times, but nobody bought it.
"People use one time or the other, not both. The Chinese use Beijing time. The Uighurs use our time," he said. "But if somebody buys a watch from me, I'll set it however they like."
barbara.demick@latimes.comNicole Liu and Eliot Gao of The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
