The Attitude of The Time, Why is It Different?

[Picture Source: evolving wisdom]

Two days ago, Moslems in Sapporo prayed together to celebrate Eid Adha. A special day where Moslem always celebrate it by slaughtering cows, sheep, buffaloes, and other appropriate animals. After that, all Moslems family will cook the meat and have meals together.

Eid Adha became an important day to commemorate a moment when Prophet Ibrahim was asked to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God's command. Seeing their sincerity (both Prophet Ibrahim and his son), God replaced his son with a lamb. Therefore, to commemorate this, Moslem family slaughter an animal and the meat will be divided and given to the poor, the needy, relatives, neighbors, and the remaining for the family. 

By the way, I am not going to talk longer about Eid Adha because what I want to emphasize is how I was coming late to pray together because I was overslept. So, I am going to talk about the time. I am in Japan now where most of the people know how punctual Japanese people are. I am Indonesian and I am used to be flexible at the time. Usually, we have 15 minutes for tolerances or it can be more than 15 minutes. 

A day before the praying together, we were informed that the praying would be started at 8 a.m. I noticed it and I have set the alarm to alert me. Nevertheless, I was overslept, I woke up exactly at 8 a.m. I was so panic and messaging all my friends asking whether it has already started or not. No one replied, then I was about to give up until a friend replied and told me that she was also on the way to the mosque. I hastily prepared myself and left my home. I arrived in front of the mosque and I saw some people were about to go home. The praying had finished and I was missing the moment. I felt sad. It was my first time having Eid Adha in a different place far from my hometown, and I was ruining it just because I was late. 

I thought, they will give more minutes and give tolerances to those people who were failed to meet the time like me haha. Yet, they didn't. Even though they are coming from various countries, I forgot that we are in Japan, when everyone no matter from what countries are you, everyone must respect Japanese people on punctuality. 

If I were in Indonesia, I believe, it would not start until most of the people came because Indonesian appreciates number more than punctuality. In another example, when you are about to gather with your friends to celebrate your friend's birthday at 10 am, it will be not started until all of friends invited came. Because we want everyone to feel the moment so it is not a big deal if someone will come late, we will feel just fine to wait because we value more the attendance rather than the time. So, time, in this case, is flexible. Usually, we can tolerate up to 1 hour. Yet, in a formal meeting like attending the class, the time tolerance is only given up to 15 minutes.

I am wondering how and why the view towards the time is different between different countries or different cultures. I came to this site and I found the explanation behind it. Basically, there are 3 types of the attitude of the people towards the time based on chronemics. Chronemics is a term for the study of the use of the time. There are monochronic, polychronic, and variably monochronic. Monochronic is where the things are done one after another. Monochronic people like to have scheduled and well-organized plan. They don't like wasting time. They really hate the people who are not punctual at the time because it will mess the plan and waste the time. Time is perceived as money, so if they waste the time it means that they waste the money. So, don't bother to mess their time, if you do, they will hate you. United States, Germany, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey are the example of the countries whose people are Monochronic.

While Polychronic is where several things can be done at one time. The people are very flexible with the time. They like to dealing more with the people by negotiating, talking, discussing regardless of the time decided. If the time is decided to be finished at 10 am, they can keep talking until they feel enough. They value more togetherness rather than the time. So, polychronic people are having a less formal perception of the time and not so strict to the schedule. Many Latin American, African, Arab, Asian including Indonesian are falling into this category.

The last, variably monochronic is a group of people who are in between of those categories mentioned before. For example, some people in Russia, Southern Europe, and much of East-Central Europe.

So, what is the point of knowing this?
This is what I want to say, by knowing this, we can understand why the attitude of the time is different from different cultures. Because they have different value towards the time. Knowing this will be useful when you are in a place where so many people from different countries and cultures stay so you can understand and respect their attitudes. You can accept why some people are coming really early or coming so late.

However, as foreign people, we also have to adapt to their rules. They may understand why we act differently, but if we do it several times, it may annoy them. In this case, if we do arbitrarily towards the time, it is not a good attitude seen by the local people. We are in the different place where we do not belong to originally. This place is not our home. The analogy is like when you are coming to someone house, you can not arbitrarily do as you want. You have to respect the owner of the house. If you like to wear your shoes inside your house, you have to obey the house owner where you visit when they are not allowing you to wear and ask you to take it off. Simply, this is just because it is not your house, you have to obey the owner rules.

Therefore, when you are living as a foreign person in a country, you have to obey their rule. If they ask you to come early, you really have to do it. One or two times coming late may be okay since they understand you. However, if you do it several times, it may annoy them. In my case, yes I am from different attitudes of the time, I belong to Polychronic people. So, at this time when I am living in Monochronic people place, I have to adapt their rules. I feel difficult sometimes, yet I am still struggling now.

In conclusion, it is true that every people in the world have their own cultures which turn also their attitude of the time. Regardless of the different attitude of the time, besides understanding and respecting it, when we are in a different area where we do not belong to, we also have to adapt with the local culture, including adapting to the attitude of the time. Even though it is difficult somehow, if we try our best, they will appreciate and support you. So, keep trying your best! Nothing is impossible, we know, it can be turned into I'm possible.