Understanding Timing from a Cultural Perspective
I don't know if you've ever heard anyone say "we are operating on African time today." That basic phrase is uttered thousands of times daily, albeit with various cultures inserted into the sentence. It could be African time, Puerto Rican time, Mexican time, etc. These statements most often made by people who grew up as a minority in America or are visiting/immigrants to America, represent the growing awareness that different cultures operate on a different sense of urgency regarding timing. Minorities recognize it and most Caucasian Americans who are lucky enough to have friends from other cultures recognize it too. Here's the challenge for most people. We typically like to assign a hierarchy or state that one way of doing things is better than the other. This is what anthropologists call, ethnocentrism. It is a $5 word that simply means, the way my culture does things is the best. For the most part, every culture thinks their way of doing things is the best...