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 to the theory of cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980). One dimension in particular – uncertainty avoidance – aligns clearly with time cultures. Monochronic cultures tend to have high uncertainty avoidance: they need schedules, clear plans, and punctuality to reduce anxiety. Polychronic cultures lean toward low uncertainty avoidance: plan changes and delays do not cause stress. That explains why my holiday in South Africa felt like I was in an endless panic mode – my monochronic mind was stuck in a polychronic environment, having to follow their nonexistent schedule.

Even though I personally like schedules and have a low tolerance for uncertainty, I have noticed that this is not always the case. I have a group of friends I like going on holiday with, and we almost never plan anything ahead – we just land in a foreign country with no plans and decide everything spontaneously. But does this lack of planning actually contradict my uncertainty avoidance? Maybe not. With that specific group of friends, we are on the same page when it comes to making decisions. We like the same activities and the same food, and if we need to decide something on the spot, we quickly do it based on our current mood and situation. That is why it does not bother me. I am uncertain about what exactly we will do, but I am certain that whatever we end up doing will be exciting and satisfying for everyone. It doesn't contradict my need for certainty – it just shifts the certainty from the plan to the outcome.

This is just one example out of many that shows putting cultural labels on whole populations does not account for individuals and individual differences. A few years ago, I used to start my conversations with “Where are you from?” – and as soon as I heard the country, I would unconsciously attach assumptions. Now I rarely ask where people are from, not because learning about culture is useless, but because I want to know a person before I overlay a stereotype on them. A person from a polychronic culture can be punctual. A person from an individualistic culture can be deeply community‑oriented. Does that mean we should not use cultural dimensions at all? Labels are important to understand who we are and what we are dealing with, but many people use labels to unite themselves with those who share their values and to separate themselves from those who belong to a different "tribe." Personally, I prefer to see labels as something that can help us understand why we have our differences and become more respectful toward each other. Used that way, labels can unite rather than divide.

To conclude, I will return to the beginning and to my South African friend. We have so many cultural differences, and it is quite a miracle that we have become friends. But it goes to show that focusing only on how different we are would deprive us of making great friends along the way.

 

References:

Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. Anchor Press.

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Sage Publications.

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