Most of us probably come from a Western culture that highly values time. It’s a commodity—a limited resource. It is one of the most valuable gifts we have, so we share it with people we care about. We honor one another by keeping time commitments with to-the-minute precision.
Many of the cultures where we teach interact with time very differently. The concept is far less rigid than most of us are used to. Teachers have seen their “scheduled” start date for the semester change by a few days or even weeks. When classes start “early,” preparation can be challenging for Western teachers who are not used to planning for this kind of adjustment. Friends and colleagues often arrive “late” from a Western perspective. But, of course, it isn’t really late at all.
It's not that these cultures value time less than Western ones; they honor people by keeping time flexible to the needs of the moment. A meeting may begin "late" because the person in charge stopped to greet an acquaintance along the way. A friend might be late for coffee because their family had unexpected (but always welcome) guests that morning. In these places, spending time with the people who are with you in the moment is more important than promptness.
Cultures are always nuanced, but one big distinction between their approaches to time boils down to this: some care by respecting other peoples’ time, while others care by giving their own time generously.
A Western teacher overseas has a major adjustment to make—a high level of cultural fluency may even include being late yourself—but the process is fruitful in more ways than one.
- Learning not to take offense requires empathy. You have to understand how your friend sees the situation and realize that “late” wasn’t even on their radar.
- You learn to speak their cultural language. We learn to function by our host countries’ cultural rules for the same reason we learn the local languages. Learning to hold plans loosely allows us to care for people in a way that is naturally meaningful and understandable to them.
This process definitely includes a learning curve, and there are always stumbles along the way to functioning in another culture. But sometimes, even a faux pas can be an opportunity to build connection! And there’s no question that it is worth the effort. We’ve been honored to witness more than 40 years of students responding to the love of teachers who worked to understand their world and join them in their culture.
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