the people involved.”^149 A lower-status person in Japan would wait much longer for
someone of higher status than they would for a lower-status individual. For the Japa-
nese, a person’s use of time is yet another way of showing respect.
A few additional examples will help illustrate how reactions to punctuality are
rooted in culture. In Spain, Italy, and Argentina it is typical for people to be thirty
or more minutes late for a meeting or dinner appointment. Punctuality is also not
highly regarded in much of the Arab world. Comparing Arabs to westerners, Nydell
notes,“Arabs are thus much more relaxed about the timing of events than they are
about other aspects of their lives.”^150
In Africa, people also might“show up late for appointments, meetings, and social
engagements.”^151 There is even a Nigerian expression that says,“A watch did not
invent man.”These views of tardiness might be perceived as rudeness in places such
as the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom.Pace. The Irish have a saying:“Life is a dance not a race.”This somewhat cavalier
approach to life is often confusing to westerners, who are raised to adhere to the biblical
statement that“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”These two examples demonstrate
cultural attitudes toward pace. Because of the tempo of life in the United States, to“out-
siders”U.S. citizens always appear to be in a hurry. As Kim observes,“Life is in constant
motion. People consider time to be wasted or lost unless they are doing something.”^152
From fast-food restaurants to gas stations where you can do your shopping while putting
gas in your car, to microwave cooking, to computers that use the fastest available proces-
sors, U.S. Americans live life at a frenzied pace. Even the expression“rush hour”
describes how commuters in major cities are dashing to get from point A to point B.
Children in the United States grow up hearing others tell them not“to waste so much
time”and to“hurry up and finish their homework.”Think how those expressions differ
from the Latin proverb“Haste manages all things badly”or the Mexican saying“You
don’t have to get there first, you just have to know how to get there.”^153
People in much of the world use time differently than the pace found in the
United States. For instance,“the French do not share the American sense of urgency
to accomplish tasks.”^154 Japanese culture considers time in ways that often appear at
cross-purposes with U.S. American goals. Brislin illustrates how the Japanese pace is
reflected in the negotiation process:
When negotiating with the Japanese, Americans like to get right down to business. They
were socialized to believe that“time is money.”They can accept about fifteen minutes of
“small talk”about the weather, their trip, and baseball, but more than that becomes unrea-
sonable. The Japanese, on the other hand, want to get to know their business counterparts.
They feel that the best way to do this is to have long conversations with Americans about a
wide variety of topics.^155
The Chinese also value a slow pace. For them, the completion of the mission is
what matters, regardless of the amount of time it takes. The Chinese proverb“With
time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown”captures the notion of time
being unhurried. In Africa, where a slow pace is the rule,“People who rush are sus-
pected of trying to cheat.”^156
The idea that nonverbal behavior is directly linked to a culture’s religious and
value orientation is manifest among Arabs. Earlier, we pointed out that Muslims
believe that their destiny is predetermined. The connection between this religiousTime 329Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).