Unlocking the Secrets of Time Perception:
A Fascinating Journey Through Cultural Etiquette and Punctuality Around the World
After working in aviation and international etiquette for over 17 years and traveling to over 90 countries worldwide, I can assure you that the biggest hurdle one faces in traveling will not be the language barrier. Of all the cultural differences in manners and etiquette, none is as challenging and tension-provoking as people’s varied perceptions and attitudes toward time.
I remember the first time in my life when I was faced with this massive shift in what punctuality means when I was 21 years old on my first time visiting Ethiopia. We were invited to a very important graduation ceremony at one of the top international venues in Addis Ababa, the capital city. I will never forget that one invitation time…which said 7:30 pm, when I was supposed to join the family I was hosted by to this very important official event.
In preparation of this, the family planned a beautiful Spa day for us to get ready. And here is where my “if you are 15 minutes early, you are late” mentality ( I did not even realize how ingrained it was in me) started to show up... At 7 pm, we were just coming out of a sauna and half of the family had a planned massage.
I felt my anxiety rise to levels I never suspected concept of “time” was even putting on me since in my circle back home, at that age, I was never the one to be bothered by time…
When I shared my confusion… genuinely wondering or rather hoping that the event got delayed or canceled... I was looked at with amusement and told that if we would show up at 7:30 we would not only be the first ones there but even the staff would be shocked and rushed as they would probably not even have finished setting up the room… and that I should relax and maybe throw away that watch while I am in Africa.
Tough lesson; I admit I took it very skeptical, so I remained concerned when at around 22:30 (yes you read that correctly,) we were leaving the house and reached the venue…and I was told I will see how everyone is just starting to arrive.
And…to my disbelief …that could not have been more accurate.
Guests were just starting to arrive as if somehow through magic everyone seemed to have an unwritten sense of understanding that we will all be a minimum of 3 hours late as a sign of courtesy not of rudeness!
Big lesson to learn so young. And in this particular circumstance my manner of showing up on time, 15 min earlier, as my dad always said –“to plan for unexpected delays”- would have made me the rude one, the one that rushed the staff and stressed the hosts. Was it that my dad was wrong? Was one culture , one etiquette better than the other as most elegance influencers would have you believe? Not at all...There is no culture, no etiquette better or worse. Our way of doing things is not the right way of doing things nor the only way of doing things.
That is why, real awareness and real knowledge is so humbling, because the more you learn to more you realize how much you are yet to learn. That is why learning etiquette should always offer you the freedom of choice, the foundation towards a very healthy social intelligence and empathy. What does one do when they are outside their culture? They impose their own rules in arrogance that we are always in the right or we give way to showing respect and curiosity towards the other and making sure people feel comfortable in our presence.
The assumption that we know it all is so dangerous in today’s increasingly global environments. That is why judging the world through the lenses of our own culture can create such a distorted perception of reality and such a challenge in our growth, our success, our relationships. To live is to learn.
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There are so many cultures that have completely different perspectives of time . Meeting at 5 pm in Mexico could mean people are actually starting to arrive at 7 pm and you might find yourself seating alone and confused if you show up “on time”. Expecting an email back or an answer to your calls on a Friday from a partner living in an Islamic country like Qatar or Saudi Arabia (or UAE until 2024 when they shifted their weekend for improving international relations) would be rude as Friday and Saturdays are considered the weekend while Sunday is the first working day of the week.
| Expecting an email back or an answer to your calls on a Friday from a partner living in an Islamic country like Qatar or Saudi Arabia (or UAE until 2024 when they shifted their weekend for improving international relations) would be rude as Friday and Saturdays are considered the weekend while Sunday is the first working day of the week. |
So, what makes us so different when it comes to perceiving time? Don’t we “share” time?
TIME ORIENTATION
First factor is time orientation , which is the way we look towards past, present, or the future. And that affects how we value time and how we believe we can control time.
Future-orientated cultures tend to run their lives by the clock. An example of that is the United States of America, one of the fastest paced countries in the world, perhaps partly due to the fact that many Americans are always looking towards the future, striving for the “American Dream”.
An example of a present oriented culture is Spain or Italy or France…where the present moment matters and is appreciated; time with the family , having lunch or siesta are essential.
When it comes to past-orientated cultures, like India, for example, people tend to have a slightly more laid backperception of time. Unlike in Japan, it is not unusual for trains in India to be several hours, or even a full day, late,without creating undue stress and turmoil. Studies have brought up the theory that such cultures, with thousands of years of history behind them, have such a long point of view that time at the scale of minutes, or even hours, becomes insignificant and inconsequential.
Certain social studies on cultures and time have shown that time is not as linear as we perceive it. While for most of the Western cultures the past is behind us and gone and the future is ahead of us and can be predicted, planned, strategized.. in Madagascar the opposite is the case, where the past is in front of our eyes because it is visible, known and it influences us.
That is why the Malagasy people spend an extensive amount of time consulting their ancestors, learning from their past and they consider the future unknowable and behind their head where they do not have eyes to see….As a result….Buses in Madagascar leave…not according to a predetermined schedule but.. when the bus is full.
And before you allow your own filter of perception to cringe at the idea, To them this makes perfect reasoning and economic sense…the passengers have control and dictate when the bus leaves so it builds a sense of community... and let's face facts, it is more considerate towards the environment which for most of us is still a far fetched objective of modern manners.
Also, it is quite sustainable as stocks are not replenished until shelves are empty.
If you start thinking this is interesting, let me tell you, there are cultures that have been found to have no time orientation, and no attitude at all as they only perceive the present moment. Some tribes of the Amazon rainforest are often mentioned in this context. Not only because they appear to have no concept of time but also their language has… no past tense, and everything exists for them as mentioned... only in the present moment. When something can no longer be perceived, it effectively ceases to exist for them.
Some Native American tribes, also have a language that lacks verb tenses, and their language avoids all linear constructions in time. The closest the Hopi language comes to a sense of time are one word meaning “sooner” and another meaning “later”.
TIME USE:
Second factor is the use of time , the way cultures act in regards to punctuality, to time pressure or deadlines, willingness to wait or be late.
Different cultures may be considered to be:
- Monochronic – where things are typically done one at a time, tend to be more task oriented, tardiness is not tolerated, there is more pressure to finalize things until a deadline, individuals value planning and schedule. This objective view of time use is favorable to everything connected with industrialized organizations and economies and is considered to be rooted in the Industrial Revolution. Some examples are the United States of America, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Turkey or the Scandinavian countries.
- Polychronic – where several things can be done at once, and a more fluid approach is taken to scheduling time. To this cultures simple arbitrary divisions of clock time and calendars have less importance than the relationships. That is why in most Arab cultures, you can and should never set more than one meeting in a day especially if the aim to have a successful outcome. Eastern people always start their business meetings by getting to know their partners more and they would not even start talking business until a relationship is built which causes a lot of frustration to an individual not used to dealing with a polychronic culture. Many Latin American, African, Asian, and Arab cultures fall into this category.
So let me paint you a clear picture: If you write down the details of a meeting, a monochronic culture would first note the hour of the meeting – what time they have to be there…while a polychronic culture would most probably first check and note whom the meeting is with rather than the time.
Some cultures also end up adapting their time and is not uncommon for Mexicans living abroad to voice the question Hora Ingles (the actual time on the clock) or “hora Mexicana” which is considerably more casual and potentially 2 hours or more later .
Misunderstandings of people’s concept of time can easily lead to a failure to understand intentions and as a result ruin both personal and professional relations.
If you're interested in learning about more about manners to help overcome these challenges, I invite you to read the article"Mastering the Art of Polite Meetings Across Time Zones: 7 Essential Manners."
🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia
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