Friday Cancelled in Samoa

Friday has been cancelled in Samoa. The small Pacific island nation will be jumping from Thursday straight to Saturday, entirely skipping December 30th, 2011, in order to sync its calendar with trading partners in the region like Australia and New Zealand.

According to the BBC, Samoa is East of the international date line and is currently in sync with the United States. But since Samoa, and its neighbor Tokelau, do more business with Australia and New Zealand, it makes sense for Samoa to jump 24 hours into the future.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said:

“In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we’re losing out on two working days a week. 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.”

American Samoa, which neighbors Samoa, will be keeping its calendar in sync with the United States. This means that people will technically be able to celebrate the same twice in the region.

The Prime Minister added:

“You can have two birthdays, two weddings and two wedding anniversaries on the same date – on separate days – without leaving the Samoan chain.”

The CS Monitor reports that Samoa made a similar, although exact opposite, move in 1892. Samoa switched to the East of the international dateline and celebrated July 4th twice in order to align itself with the United States.

If you could skip any day of the week what day would you skip?