Spaniards Only Eat Dinner After 10 PM: Why They Refuse to Change Their Lifestyle?

In the eyes of Chinese people, dinner time is between 5-9 pm, while many Chinese people who travel to Spain often find that Spaniards usually eat dinner around 10 pm, which is almost Chinese late-night snack time. Some even prepare to sleep.

So why do Spaniards always have dinner after 10 pm? The reason is that they have been living in the wrong time zone for a long time, and it has been 80 years.

If you have traveled to Spain, you must be surprised to see that locals only start eating dinner in the evening around 10 pm, and you might think it's because of the Mediterranean lifestyle. But actually, since 1940, Spaniards have been living in the wrong time zone.

1. Why are Spaniards in the wrong time zone?

In the 1940s, Spanish fascist dictator Franco declared that he would follow Germany's central European time zone (CET) to express solidarity with Nazi Germany. As a result, Spanish time was ahead by an hour.

For the local people, at that time, the country was still suffering from civil war, and they didn't care about the change in time. They still continued to eat at their original times. However, because the way they measured time had changed, lunchtime shifted from 1 pm to 2 pm, and dinner time shifted to around 8 pm to 9 pm. As a result, all social activities in Spain became later, which also affected sleep time, even after the end of World War II, Spain did not return to its original time.

Therefore, Spain has a particularly vibrant nightlife.

In 2016, the Spanish Prime Minister announced a plan to let the government set a new work schedule, moving the end of the workday from 8 pm to 6 pm, in order to bring Spain back to Greenwich Mean Time. However, this also sparked a lot of discussion among the people. Most were opposed, and people didn't want to make too many changes.

Because Spain's current time is 60 minutes later than its original time zone, local people have a longer summer night. Many tourists think that sunshine is a major attraction for tourists, so they strongly oppose restoring the original time and hold large-scale events to keep the year-round daylight saving time, attracting tourists to spend a mild winter. This is also one of the reasons why the time could not be adjusted.

3. Committed to adjusting time

For most people who have lived in the wrong time zone for a long time, it has led to sleep deprivation, reduced work efficiency, and also caused Spain to have a famous 'nap time'. Why don't Spaniards sleep so late if they aren't tired? Spaniards love life more, and they arrange their entertainment programs in the evening, so many people can't change their routines, and it's difficult to return to a normal working life.

According to a survey by a research company, less than 18% of people have a nap habit, and the other 60% never nap, just because they don't want to miss the opportunities for tourist consumption. Or office workers will use their nap time to enjoy coffee.