On October 1, 1884 Kikuchi Dairoku attended the International Meridian Conference in Washington DC. The purpose of the conference was "of fixing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time-reckoning throughout the globe." It concluded on November 1. Kikuchi represented Japan, the only Asian place of the twenty-seven participating countries at this conference. The only other non-Western countries to participate were Hawaii, Liberia, and Turkey.

According to the record of the conference, Kikuchi though always in attendance, was silent throughout the proceedings. He (Japan) voted along with Great Britain and the United States to locate the Prime Meridian at Greenwich; supported the proposal to establish the international dateline at 180 longitude, thereby confirming Asia as the East (and Europe and the United States as the West); established the universal day, beginning after midnight; and expressed hope that the studies be resumed to extend the decimal system to space and time.

This conference was a victory of sorts for the United States and Great Britain, who advocated the Observatory at Greenwich over the Paris Observatory.  It set off the unification of the world under one time system.  But even though a uniform system had been established for the world, it did not mean that all regions, countries, towns, etc. followed that time.  Indeed, it is hard for us today to think of times, instead of time.  But a multiplicity of times was the norm throughout most of the nineteenth century.