Understanding Times and Dimensions
For a long time, I was irritated by my South African friend’s relationship with time. She could be late by 30 minutes, an hour, or even two hours without appearing concerned. While we were both in China, her lateness bothered me less because she usually warned me in advance, and I eventually got used to it. A year ago, I visited her in South Africa and stayed at her family’s house for two weeks, which made her time habits impossible to ignore. Since we stayed in a village, I had to rely on her driving for transportation. Once, we had arranged to leave the house at 10 a.m., and she was ready only at 2 p.m. On the way, she stopped to talk to almost anyone – a person she knew, a cashier, a gas station attendant. I could not understand why she seemed to have no respect for schedules. Only after learning about polychronic and monochronic time cultures (Hall, 1976) did this make sense. My friend was not being disrespectful. She was acting from a different cultural logic. This also connects t...
