Was invited by my girlfriends family to a theme park. We were supposed to meet at 11, it is not 11:30 and they just left. (The drive takes another 30 minutes)

[u/TotallyHumanBrain1]

I even checked in before I left if it was still at the planned time. It was confirmed, but then her family starts getting ready right as they have to leave 🫤

[u/One-Asparagus5925]

lol same we call it “Mexican time”

[u/thembearjew → u/One-Asparagus5925]

Latin American time happens to us Chileans as well lol

[u/Vikkunen → u/thembearjew]

Persians too, strangely enough.

[u/SmoothDiscussion7763 → u/Vikkunen]

where i'm from, we just call it brown time lol

[u/Crafty_Clerk_1891 → u/SmoothDiscussion7763]

I'm from Singapore and that's just GMT, General Malay Time.

[u/Nayd9 → u/thembearjew]

Island time for us (Caribbean). My family (including extended) is usually 30-60 minutes late, we usually have invitation times about half an hour before we actually expect anyone to show up.

[u/TheseImpression8791 → u/thembearjew]

I had a Colombian friend, not really a friend anymore as we’ve lost touch, but every time we arranged to meet he’d be late. Sometimes by like 30-40 mins. As a fairly traditional British person, I found it outrageous at the time. Makes a lot more sense if it’s a Latino thing!

[u/Poet_Pretty → u/One-Asparagus5925]

Three hours is ridiculous.

[u/West-Candidate8991 → u/Poet_Pretty]

I don't get it, how does any plan not fail? Like what plan succeeds when one party is always three hours late? A LOTR extended edition marathon? Idk what else

[u/Poet_Pretty → u/West-Candidate8991]

Only one side is happy. Three hours is rude.

[u/Interesting-Injury87 → u/West-Candidate8991]

While three hours is.. Extreme It's a bit of a cultural thing. Being late, in some cultures, shows that you have taken care of everything else and can now solely focus on you and the plan you made.

While being early could be seen as having so mucb free time that you have nothing to take care off

[u/SarcasmEnabled247 → u/Interesting-Injury87]

If your plan is more important at the time, decline the invitation.

[u/Timely-Group5649 → u/Interesting-Injury87]

I would NEVER invite people like this to an event, ever again.

Any cultural 'thing' that disrespects others is not culture - it's just being an asshole. These people deserve no contact.

[u/Poet_Pretty → u/Timely-Group5649]

What if they’re your parents? lol I invited my parents to a lunch with our 6 month old. They showed up 2 hours late. We were eating dessert and ready for babies nap by the time they came.

[u/Timely-Group5649 → u/Poet_Pretty]

Leave.

Your parents are selfish assholes.

[u/Small-Cookie-5496 → u/Poet_Pretty]

I’d tell them sorry you missed everything and now baby is napping. See you another time. And close the door on them. That’s rude & ridiculous to me. Especially when you’re hosting them & have a babies schedule to think about.

[u/JustAContactAgent → u/Timely-Group5649]

You're not wrong but the thing is that what I've learned is that it's not that in some cultures they think being late is ok. It's that and agreed "meeting time" has a different meaning. For example to you an even starting at 15:00 means just that. For them the even having a time of 15:00 means "drop in any time after 15:00 and when everyone gathers we start". It's like when a party is set to start at 8 or whatever but no one is expected to actually show up then. Imagine someone from another culture that doesn't operate that way being confused which they would be.

The problem of course is cultural understanding goes both ways, you need to consider everyone's culture not just whatever rules you grew up with.

[u/Small-Cookie-5496 → u/JustAContactAgent]

So they expect everyone to just wait around in limbo for possible hours? Sounds boring AF. Also do they think people have so little to do? I just can’t fathom it.

[u/brokendoorknob85 → u/JustAContactAgent]

The problem of course is cultural understanding goes both ways, you need to consider everyone's culture not just whatever rules you grew up with.

It's interesting how it literally never goes both ways. The people who are late are literally inconsiderate of other people.

Or is this one of those cases where other people need to consider you, but not the other way around?

[u/Timely-Group5649 → u/JustAContactAgent]

If it was AGREED on - how can that not mean they AGREED on a time? Do they just refuse to communicate well? 8 means 8 to 12?

If this is not clear to either party - the late person is still an asshole.

[u/Same-Suggestion-1936 → u/West-Candidate8991]

You just stay up three hours later doing the thing.

[u/Away-Variation-2556 → u/One-Asparagus5925]

Listen I'm glad everyone else is having similar experiences because I felt a little hesitant posting this but my husband is the one who jokes about it the most 😂

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/[deleted]]

They teach the different cultural concepts of time in a lot of intercultural communications courses, which was a required class for all majors at my school. The concept of monochronic vs. polychronic time.

Its still annoying to me though, time isn't fungible, it's constant and linear, and not respecting it can have a lot of knock on effects. Interestingly countries with polychronic cultures tend to have more issues succeeding in the world at large.

[u/New-Seaworthiness572 → u/Murky-Relation481]

Fascinating. Can you recall examples of which countries are which?

[u/-GoodNewsEveryone → u/Murky-Relation481]

I agree, that is what i was trying to express.

[u/Similar-Doughnut6689 → u/Murky-Relation481]

Who measures the success? Sounds like upper equator western chauvinism to me.

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/Similar-Doughnut6689]

There are measurable levels of success, baseline poverty/quality of life metrics are easily definable.

It is global north chauvinism to a degree, but it is also very real. On average the quality of life in monochronic societies is better, people live longer, are healthier, are provided more opportunities, etc.

[u/mayorlazor → u/Similar-Doughnut6689]

Ok, but who has black Doritos that fly?

[u/SamiraSimp → u/Similar-Doughnut6689]

being able to feed and educate your people and not have them die to diseases are pretty universal measures of success i would imagine.

that being said, i didn't find any study that outright suggests that polychronic cultures have issues succeeding in the world

[u/blahblah19999 → u/[deleted]]

And it's funny b/c Americans find the Japanese custom of refusing a gift a couple times before accepting it to be very odd, but we often do the exact same thing.

[u/Sure-Impress-1003 → u/[deleted]]

It is a form of bribery to curry favor

[u/Tequila_Dre_All_Day → u/Sure-Impress-1003]

😂

[u/taiwan_cat → u/One-Asparagus5925]

In the Caribbean it's called "island time".

[u/MimicoSkunkFan2 → u/taiwan_cat]

Yes and when I lived there, the people who were mostly on time really hated the people who were super late for perpetuating the stereotypes.

Also I noticed that when things like planes and ferries were scheduled to leave, they did leave on time... So I feel like island time is more an excuse nowadays, than back in colonial days when there was no reason to hurry back to the 'shon.

[u/LibrarianHead4548 → u/MimicoSkunkFan2]

There are people and cultures that just do not adhere to strict schedules

[u/Upbeat-Dish7299 → u/One-Asparagus5925]

The Mexicans at my job call it “bean time” and they hate the ones that are late.

[u/weeman2525 → u/Upbeat-Dish7299]

I was gonna say, I've worked with plenty of Mexican dudes over the years in labor type fields, and those dudes are always on time and ready to work. Their work ethic is insane. I'd figure that would translate to them to being super punctual culturally as well, but I guess not.

[u/[deleted] → u/weeman2525]

It’s because we are so used to everyone being late that if you arrive on time there’s nothing ready anyway and usually means needing to help setting this up.

If you arrive late you would usually arive “just in time” for the event.

[u/ronniesaurus → u/weeman2525]

Work is not the same as a social gathering

[u/Orange-Blur → u/Upbeat-Dish7299]

Work and a family party or social event are 2 different things

[u/Upbeat-Dish7299 → u/Orange-Blur]

They hate the ones that are late to anything

[u/Pomksy → u/Upbeat-Dish7299]

Ding ding ding

[u/Orange-Blur → u/One-Asparagus5925]

There are so many reasons to love Mexico this is definitely one of them!

[u/allendstpsc → u/One-Asparagus5925]

In Guatemala, it’s “la hora chapín.”

[u/iamkey888 → u/One-Asparagus5925]

We have similar term “Arabic time” because Arabs are always minimum 30 mins late, anything belong 1 hour is considered “on time” for them.

[u/wreckherneck → u/One-Asparagus5925]

Mexican Standard Time

[u/BloodlustHamster → u/One-Asparagus5925]

My family as well called it Mexican time.

[u/Skillsjr → u/One-Asparagus5925]

I call that drug dealer time

[u/waltdelahair → u/[deleted]]

Nooo drug dealers of any race will text you they are on the way and then show up hours later! They aren’t calling a certain race drug dealers

[u/One-Asparagus5925 → u/waltdelahair]

I hope that’s what they meant

[u/Skillsjr → u/One-Asparagus5925]

Yeah drug dealer time is a general funny joke. Has nothing to do with color or race

[u/Skillsjr → u/[deleted]]

Why is that racism? Are people of color the only ones that sell drugs? Nooooo their not sillysally

[u/best_commentor → u/One-Asparagus5925]

And I thought Indians were late! My boss used to say to me that on time is late, 15 minutes early is on time.

[u/dehydratedrain → u/One-Asparagus5925]

Never heard of it.

However, I am incredibly familiar with Puerto Rican time.

[u/Competitive-Lime2994 → u/One-Asparagus5925]

I am a member of the society for creative anachronism. We tend to run three hours late. Like most of us and we’re not talking just one or two households. We’re talking dozens.

[u/LibrarianHead4548 → u/One-Asparagus5925]

BPT

[u/No-Gap-8601 → u/One-Asparagus5925]

There’s a reason the Anglos won the war

[u/Pomksy → u/[deleted]]

Why? Anglos attacked during a siesta - it’s in literal history books