I feel the same way even though I'm not Brazilian. If someone arrives early or right on time, I feel annoyed about having to entertain while I finish setting up or getting myself ready.
I appreciate it when people arrive 15-45min after the party start time.
Reminds me a lot of Thailand. We call it "Thai time". And it does seem to be worse in Bangkok than in rural areas. Despite the terrible traffic and resulting delays, Bangkokians are used setting out for a party at the time the party is supposed to start, thus arriving an hour or more late.
That’s funny, around Tahoe we call it “Tahoe time”. It’s really normal for people to be late here. It’s not taken as personally as other areas I’ve lived in. It’s something about that lake..
There are a lot of these and they usually do seem to fit the groups/locations/corporations in question. I've heard Mexicans refer to "Mexican time," and I've heard Mormons refer to "Mormon time," and various corporations also have equivalent terms.
Amusingly, a lot of these terms seem to have their origin in people who were really annoyed by the phenomena.
Does everyone state times an hour earlier than they want to correct for this rule? Is this just time for the party's hosts to perform a certain function? ( Punctuality is heavily engrained in me, and I can't understand the point of a time if its to be disregarded as a matter of policy )
> Does everyone state times an hour earlier than they want to correct for this rule?
Certainly seems like that to me. I've arrived at wedding functions at the exact time mentioned in the invite and even the hosts weren't present. I had to wait 30 min for them to show up.
I experienced this in Sweden. A Indian colleague was having a party for family and friends at x hours. I showed up fifteen minute early and most guest arrived 1-2 hours later...
Just to add-up on time namings, I recently learnt that in Italy we can have an appointment at the Neapolitan way (Naples is an italy city):" _let's meet at 9.00, but if I don't show up by 10, at 11 you're free to leave_ " . :)
I don't think this is just a Brazilian thing. When I throw parties in the US nobody shows up until 30 mins after the start time, and the peak of people showing up is between 60 and 90 minutes after start time.
The exception to this is dinner parties, where people are much more punctual because they know you're planning the meal timeline.
If there's 20 people going to a party, does anyone think the "start time" is really when you're supposed to be there? I think of it more as "don't come before this time".
Well, not everywhere. I move to Cal from Minnesota. Ethnically, Minnesota is heavily German and Scandanavian. Germanic puctuality is more the norm (or at least was when I was a kid).
Central PA has a strong Germanic/PA Dutch influence and most of the time folks are still very punctual, the two notable exceptions having already been mentioned - informal get-togethers like BBQs and late night parties.
I don’t know about fashionably late but at a large party I feel like it serves a purpose of spreading out when guests arrive so you greet them in turn and don’t have to deal wit a logjam right at 5pm if they all showed up simultaneously. Smaller parties are obviously different though especially if waiting to be seated at a restaurant or serving dinner on a schedule.
I experienced it first-hand, thought I admit it has been many years since I've spent any time in Germany and I fully recognize that culture changes over time so I have no idea if this is still how it's done. That's why I used the word "historically" in my original statement.
German here. Punctuality is still valued highly. In a business context it is considered very rude not to be there exactly on time. You are seen as untrustworthy, if you can't honor a simple agreed upon time.
Well, as a German, I can tell you that we take timing seriously and for business meetings, there is just one time the meeting starts.
Party timing is still something many of us struggle with as not every host does it the same. Some like the guests to arrive on time, others have adopted the more international habit of not expecting anybody during the first hour.
That was quite an entertaining post. My grandma used to say that the difference between a Swiss and a German is that if we'd forget to cut the lawn, the neighbor would be annoyed after a week. In Switzerland they'd call the Police on day 2.
Trains are also late in Germany. A lot. I blame DB.
They come up with the silliest excuses too, like that one time were they claimed that the track bed had caught fire. I would have believed it if it wasn't -10°C in the dead winter while it snowed like crazy.
On the other hand I do have a punctuality tick, I have counted out the exact amount of time it takes to get to the train station and I wake up at 0600 with or without alarm clock, regardless of when I fell asleep. I also make sure that my clocks are set as exact as possible (I used to run a GPS powered NTP server just for my devices).
> They come up with the silliest excuses too, like that one time were they claimed that the track bed had caught fire. I would have believed it if it wasn't -10°C in the dead winter while it snowed like crazy.
Here in Chicago, the tracks are intentionally lit on fire in the winter (so they don't develop an ice sheet, I think). Maybe the same thing, but whoever explained it was unfamiliar with the practice?
No I don't think they do that here, not that I observed it. The switches are heated though, since they need to move for the train.
There is also a lot of different snow clearing vehicles that go around in the worst areas.
We do have trainbed fires during dry summers at times (like currently) but not winter, it was just some excuse for lack of trains or otherwise produced delays.
The tracks are lit on fire only in areas where they don't have the right of way to install heaters. It's not to keep the tracks from icing up - it's to prevent the switches from freezing up. Rode the UPW Metra line for about 12 years.
No, it's a cultural thing among 20-35. In the same vein you now have to set up really complex birthday parties: renting a room or a cafe, setting up a theme (80's fashion, cinema, etc.) and have a band or a DJ. Starts at 20:00, people coming in around 23:00.
If the party started at 22:00, would everyone arrive at 1:00? If not, this may indicate when people like to party more than how late people like to be.
I just don't understand how this works at a house party.
You invite 20 people over for a BBQ at 2pm. Here's possible conversations I can envision in America:
"Thanks for the invite! I actually have a haircut appointment at 2, but I'll come right after"
or
"Thanks for the invite, but I have a a haircut appointment at 2..." "what? No worries! Come join whenever you can; we want to see you!" "Great. I will thanks!"
This doesn't happen. People are just applying stereotypes to every possible context and situation. Germans are perfectly capable of coming to a BBQ later than the scheduled start time, although it's true that unless it's impossible for them to make their schedule fit with yours, if you tell them 5, then 5 it is.
Because of this, I would say it's even more important to schedule things sufficiently ahead of time. Making up plans only 2 or 3 days in advance, when weekend plans are mostly settled and they can't properly schedule around your event, will just stress people out.
1. the first one can occur, if they can't be on time they will ask if they can arrive later and as the host you get to decide whether they should still come or not, either way the guest will arrive on the pre-determined time
2. if the start time is flexible, this is stated clearly as part of the invitation e.g. you invite people for a bbq "starting around" 2PM (rather than at 2PM) and make it clear that they can arrive and leave at any point in the afternoon, just that they should not arrive before 2PM
A more interesting metric would be: You are meeting a buddy for dinner at some pizza place at 18:00. You are there punctual for whatever reasons, at what time would you ask yourself whether you would text your buddy? I think in Germany, the first text message might run 18:05 or 18:10 with lose ("I am sitting inside already") kind of a thing.
The haircut example would just mean you tell your friend in advance that you will arrive later.
I arrived at about 16:55 to a party in Denmark, having overdone my effort not to be late. The hosts didn't mind, they were amused that I'd made the effort to not be 15 minutes late.
I was then amused to see all the other (Danish) guests arrive within 2 minutes of each other.
In France it works the same as in the US or Brazil then in my experience, if the party is said to start at, say, 7pm it means that you can start showing up by that time but definitely not that you have to be here at 7 sharp. If it's a dinner I'd expect most people to arrive within the hour or so, if it's just some kind of party then I wouldn't be surprised to see people arriving a few hours "late". I would be quite surprised and probably not fully ready if I told a bunch of people to come to my party at 7 and they all showed up exactly on time.
I wouldn't say it's an American thing. Any party that's starting at 10PM isn't gonna get a good crowd till 12-1AM in Europe as well. Cause you don't want to show up when there are barely any people and have to awkwardly dance to the music in an empty place.
I'll always remember our international parties here (in Germany). Party starts, some of us show 5 minutes early, some up to 10 minutes late. Then there is about a 50-60 minute break and the Italians and Spanish would start arriving.
Not german, but my father always taught us that you must always be early so you can be on-time, and that unless the host has made it clear arrival time was flexible one must be on-time.
We have relatives who usually leave their home at the declared start-time (so they're at best half an hour late, usually an hour or two), they're by far the most disliked members of my extended family for this an other reasons. Arriving late is disrespectful of both host and other guests, and is emblematic of and perfectly in line with their character.
Yes, depending on where you're from. I was raised to show up at the start time for events, this is pretty common in the Midwest. If the host is someone you know, you'll often ask if you can show up early and help prepare.
When I was in California a few years ago I showed up to a party a few minutes before the invite time. Not only was I the only guest there for the first ~30 minutes, but the host clearly wasn't expecting anyone to show up at the given time.
I've been to parties where a few friends--the same people each time--would show up 2-3 hours late to a party and their house was only a 10 minute walk away.
When I'd ask why they were late, it was the same reason each time. "Oh, we were watching a movie." A typical movie is 90 minutes long, so they would've been putting it on just around the time the party started.
In general though, everyone was a good 20-30 minutes late, but a few people and myself would show up early to help the host prepare last minute food/drinks.
There is some etiquette involved. You don't want to be the first person there, just as you should avoid being the 'lingerer' who stays too long or even worse needs to be asked to leave explicitly.
Provided I know the host well I consider those early arrival situations much easier to handle than arriving late when the gathering is already in full swing. I know it's absurd, but it almost feels like interrupting.
I prefer too ease into these events by starting early and with a small group instead of making an entrance to a full room.
In some cultures appearing a busy person can be important. Showing early to a party could send the message you had nothing to do before. Not that i like or do that, but some people could pay attention to such details.
It has nothing to do with looking busy. It's simply awkward when you go to a party and you're the only guest present and you don't know the hosts very well.
Even more so if the hosts are still frantically finishing preparations. As an acquaintance, do you offer help? Go for a walk around the block? Best to just avoid that altogether by showing up a little “late”.
I think early bird is best reserved for close friends of the host. I invite close friends, somewhat-close friends, and maybe tangential friends (that neighbor who seems nice but I don't really know well) to parties, and if it's the last group who shows up first conversation flows less smoothly.
Cultural norms are different for different kind of events.
In the US and most of the West, it's expected to be okay to be around one hour late for big house parties. However, Americans wouldn't normally be late for job interviews or other important events in a set time, which is completely normal in Latin America.
Not really, no one would be one hour late for a job interview in Brazil. There is rush hour in Brazil just like any other big city because people need to be on time for work, dropping kids on school, etc.
> However, Americans wouldn't normally be late for job interviews or other important events in a set time, which is completely normal in Latin America.
Nope. Sorry, but you are completely wrong. If you are late in job interviews for instance, you will probably not grant the job, if its in bussiness meetings, it will hurt your credentials in the company and it can even lead one to be fired.
Bussiness mentality is different than party mentality. Other things you must have to take into account is local culture. Rio is more laidback, while Sao Paulo is much, much less because it has more of a bussiness culture. (And i bet its the same in the US between different cities).
Thats one of the reasons why i try to teach some people, that for some contexts, thinking in terms of 'Latin America' its just wrong and too broad of a generalization.
You cant hardly generalize the whole of Brazil, and doing so in terms of Latin America is even worse.
That's not overall in Brazil. I live in Sao Paulo and it's certainly not rude to arrive on time or closer to that time.
The time is usually a reference of "arrive after that time" and people will arrive in the hour or two after the time set. Usually closer friends will arrive earlier and not so close friends will arrive late because the party will be already full.
I have no idea where the author got the generalization that this is a rule "everywhere in Brazil". It's at most more or less a custom in Rio, and no other places that I know of. In southern Brazil not arriving within half hour of the appointes time is in fact disrespectful
Besides this is only for social appointments. Try to arrive a couple hours late for a meeting and you'll find yourself talking to your boss aboit how this article misled you
I used to work in Indonesia, with Indonesian clients. Scheduling a meeting for 10 AM and not having anybody show up until 11 was normal; showing up four hours late and shrugging it off with "macet" (traffic) was not unusual. (Then again, Jakarta jams really can be that bad.)
They have a word for it too: jam karet, or "rubber time".
I am Brazilian and can confirm: in pretty much every state I've been to (some 10 in total), no event starts on time, there's always a delay, even if minuscule.
I am from Minas and typically people are 15-45 minutes late to things. Mostly social events though. It’s not considered rude though because that is the expectation when these kinds of events
I noticed how this created some tension between Japanese and Brazilians & Peruvians, when I lived in Japan. One Japanese friend, who was a really impressive guy and really "outside the box" for a Japanese person, was even shaken by the difference after a while. It was unsettling to be seated in a meeting and watch people walk in late with HUGE smiles on their faces, greeting everyone. He told me one day, "in the US, like if you're in high school, walking into class late is kind of _kakkoii_, right? But here in Japan, arriving just a little bit early--that is _kakkoii_."
Quite a few of my other Japanese friends made nervous comments when we were waiting for Brazilian friends, or after they'd arrive. "sasugani [so-and-so, the Brazilian] hahahahaha" they'd say, and it was clear that they were annoyed.
After traveling a bit more and studying psychology a bit more, it's clear that the preference really does vary by the individual, even though patterns like those in the article exist within a populace. Some Japanese really don't care when you arrive, and some Brazilians are really timely people. Their personal strengths come from some position along the robotically-scheduled/free-floating continuum. Culturally, maybe they make arrangements to fit in a little better, or maybe they don't and they're just the weirdo. No matter what the preference is, if we can be flexible or tactical about how we use it, we gain some advantages.
Having worked in London I appreciate this article being on the BBC. At least in the company I was employed people tended to be late to meetings as standard (10-30min) with the usual tube/traffic excuse....every week as thought this caught them by surprise each time.
It became a problem with meeting rooms being booked but empty so you would use and then get kicked out 20min past the booked time as the people turned up. The company eventually brought a rule if you were not in a room within 15min of the booking start time you lost it to avoid this problem.
I think some people in this enviroment would play to it as 'I'm so busy & important' but I always felt it was such a economic cost to the company having a bunch of people sitting there making small talk while someone was delayed.
Anecdotally I find that some of the most successful people I know are chronically late, but I’m not sure if they are late because they are successful or successful because they are always late. I’d wager it probably has to do with whatever your reason for being late is. Being late because you are trying to maximize productive time is different from being late due to carelessness or procrastination.
Anecdotally I have found the exact opposite. The most successful people I know value their time and consequently value other people's time as well, so they are always on time.
I work with brazillians often, we have an office there. It's easy to accommodate as well -- I just do the same thing I do with my mother: tell her the start time is way earlier than it actually is, and then she is on time. For example if dinner is at 6:45, I tell her dinner is at 6:15, and expect her to arrive 30 minutes late.
You have to tweak it a bit for different situations (for example, a meeting, is about -15, a conference call, -10, but an after work event is roughly -30 to -60, but works well.
I'm not accusng you of lying but this story is extremely suspicious. It conflicts completely with my professional and personal experience, which I'm pretty sure is close to the general truth.
Unless you have found yourself working with a very peculiar group of people, you are being duped or just exaggerating to the point of being outright wrong.
It is absolutely not a custom anywhere in Brazil, not even in Rio, to be late (_at all_) for professional appointments.
_Especially_ systematically late that a "system" like that is put in place (and supposedly works). To be blunt, the idea that you could correct such behavior from professional adults by duping them with altered schedules is even childish.
If this is indeed the case, please post the name of the company so we can blacklist everyone that works in that office
Not limited to Brazilians, but company culture starts at the top. If the boss doesn't care about time, everyone else will get the message and be lax as well. Things become systematic due to people following these established intra company norms.
My observation, being born and having lived in Brazil for my whole life, is that there's a power/authority/seniority dynamic involved, too: If you have a meeting with a customer, you should be on time, but it's okay for them to be late. When meeting with your boss, they'll probably be late, but you probably shouldn't be. Internal meetings within the company usually start later than meetings with other companies. Once you know people professionally for a longer time, you'll also be more comfortable arriving later.
There's definitely a dominance element here in Mexico, too.
My Mexican friend traveled a lot here for work to meet with various executives. These executives would be the ones who set the time.
She'd drive four hours and arrive at their office for a 8am 1-on-1 meeting and be directed to a sofa outside their room. She told me often 30+ minutes would pass and the guy would be in there twiddling on his smartphone, she could see him right through the blinds.
It was like some proof of time-burn to remind you that they had the power.
Nah, not suspicious at all! I am a Brazilian and still live here (for better or worse).
I live in Minas Gerais, where things are not this bad, but last month we gave a party for my daughter's birthday. All the invitations were sent with a 30 minute offset from the real start time as agreed with the caterer because we knew everyone would be late, and it turned out fine.
All my professional meetings start at least 15 minutes late, and it enrages me to no end! Yes, it is really that bad!
>To be blunt, the idea that you could correct such behavior from professional adults by duping them with altered schedules is even childish.
If any appointment is set to start at 7pm, I'm there at 7pm sharp or otherwise inform the host in advance that I'm arriving late and give an accurate estimate on when I will arrive (+-5 min). I find anything else disrespectful towards the host and, depending on the kind of appointment, towards the rest of the participants.
I guess some stereotypes on Germans are true after all...
I hope you all remember that Brazil is too big to assume that everyone is the same, thus everyone will be late to all appointments. It happens a lot, yes. But be careful to label people in advance. Many (!) Brazilians work overseas, including in Germany, and I'm sure those are not late as the article suggests for example :)
Also, what would be crazy for many people that live in small countries compared to Brazil, is that many workers live far away from their job or school. Up to 3 hours for a single way. It is also expected to have something not working in their way to their destination.
It's not a black and white thing. Writing a generic bold statement tends always to be harmful. Damn human brain that loves to find patterns to simplify information processing :)
You can’t negate cultural traits. A population is a distribution of characters and one individual may be anywhere on the distribution, but there are still noticable differences on average. And it is not wrong to describe a typical character, keeping in mind that the individual you are facing may be at odds with national traits.
Yes "cultural differences" have sometimes their roots in the infrastructure or economy of the country.
I remember some years ago that my (french) boss was often frustrated with our indian colleagues being late or having delays in their work.
Then I spent an internship with them and I understand. It was much harder for them to go from their home to the office and the conditions were far worse for them.
But it's hard for a lot of people to realize these differences and empathize without having to live under the same circumstances.
People act based on the standards of the places around them.
My example: I'm Portuguese but have lived in Denmark for quite a few years now, in Denmark I'm about as punctual as everyone else around here (which is mostly punctual, not as much as Germans though, who tend to show up before the agreed time) but when I'm visiting down south, I go back to the standard of showing up a little after the agreed time.
I can at least vouch for the fact that Cariocas have a tough time adjusting to normal Anglo punctuality demands. As a Portuguese speaking student I ended up with quite a few Brazilian friends and many of the Cariocas ended up flunking out of school. Not because they were dumb or didn't work hard, but because they couldn't show up on time for tests and never understood why they couldn't just take a test two hours late.
It's a cultural thing. If that's the way the world has always worked for you, wouldn't it be surprising, at least for a while, to see that other people do things differently?
No it wouldn't be surprising for even a moment. When I travel to foreign countries I try to be a good guest and follow the local standards of behavior as best I can. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
"My impression as to your cheap labour was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see your men at work made me feel that you are a very satisfied and easy-going race who reckon time is no object. When I spoke to some managers they informed me that it was impossible to change the habits of a national heritage."
This excerpt appears in Ha-Joon Chang's book "Bad Samaritans" and it was written by an Australian consultant with regards to Japan in August 1915. Chang also mentions Sidney Gulick's 1903 book "Evolution of the Japanese" which also stereotypes the Japanese as "'easy-going' and 'emotional' people who possessed qualities like 'lightness of heart, freedom from all anxiety for the future, living chiefly for the present.'"
I don't have details on Brazil, but I am almost certain that this "Brazilian time" is just a symptom of some completely reversible, systemic problem that is making it difficult to do business with high-technologies in Brazil.
This is not useful in the slightest. What was different after the war was a late 20th century boost in economy for Japan. Does Uganda learn as much every day because of a quote?
Just a caveat, I am not an economist, and am quickly approaching the edge of my knowledge.
I think that time is not really a factor here. Institutions like the IMF and WTO passively suppress the economic development of poor countries by withholding incentives unless they behave like rich countries. I don't think this is done out of malice though, because I've met people who genuinely believe that forcing businesses in Mozambique to compete directly with the U.S. economies of scale "creates a level playing field" and doesn't inhibit their growth in certain key industries at all.
>I don't think this is done out of malice though, because I've met people who genuinely believe that forcing businesses in Mozambique to compete directly with the U.S. economies of scale "creates a level playing field" and doesn't inhibit their growth in certain key industries at all.
It's easy for someone to "genuinely believe" something when their career (as policy advisors, bankers, development "experts", etc) and perks is based upon promoting it and enforcing it upon others.
Without "skin in the game" everyone can be a good person with "great intentions".
Exactly, this is why extending scope of democracy (workplace democracy, more decentralization, liquid democracy, direct democracy etc) is important, intellectual/political/economic/corporate elites with power however much "enlightened" they are , without having skin in the game lead to disastrous policies.
One person, One vote is the least flawed way to gather signal from actual people who have skin in the game.
>Direct democracy is still pretty awful though, especially for anyone who falls into any kind of true numerical minority category
That's a generalization its opponents make, but it isn't true.
In most places where it was practiced (ancient Athens, short-lived anarchist areas in Spain, egalitarian communities, etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to "true numerical minorities" than most representative democracies. Heck, the US had segregation in practice up to the 70s, with blacks being a 20% or so of the population (and more in some areas), and gays were persecuted throwout Europe representative democracy or not.
Even more, the most horrid persecutions of minorities have happened under elected representatives (like Hitler), or authoritarian regimes (e.g. Stalin), as opposed to any "direct democracy".
There's no "tyranny of the majority" that's inherent in direct democracy, any more so than it is in representative "democracy". The tyranny lies in an orthogonal axis (namely: the prevalent passions and ideologies of the era), and can be applied regardless of direct or representative democracy.
> it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to "true numerical minorities" than most representative democracies
Source? Athenian direct democracy was only for males, legally sanctioned slaves and allowed for a simple majority to ostracize people. Sparta's direct democratic elements oversaw a large Helot slave population.
>Source? Athenian direct democracy was only for males, legally sanctioned slaves and allowed for a simple majority to ostracize people
That's irrelevant to the discussion though, as that was simply the norm then across regimes, not a special characteristic of Athenian direct democracy.
Not to mention that the US representative democracy was only for males until the 1920s, had slaves until 1865 and segregation until the 1970s. And that's 2.5 millennia later than that pesky Athenian direct democracy.
You claimed "in most places where [direct democracy] was practiced (ancient Athens... etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to 'true numerical minorities' than most representative democracies." I'm disagreeing with that claim. I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.
I'm pushing back on the assertion that is has been shown direct democracy works well for minorities. It hasn't. (It has been shown that representative democracy works, or at the very least can be stable.) The tyranny of the majority has not been conclusively proven (nor disproven). This is an open question, and one that evolves as technology (and the population's education) progresses.
>You claimed "in most places where [direct democracy] was practiced (ancient Athens... etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to 'true numerical minorities' than most representative democracies." I'm disagreeing with that claim.
You can disagree, but not because ancient Athens had slaves or women didn't vote. That were common places until millennia later across systems of government, and not some inherent product of direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy).
If you want to disagree, let's stick to differences in how the citizenry included or excluded in both is treated.
By definition, something found in both types of democracy (such as slavery or women not voting) wont tells us anything about how they differ.
>I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.
Nothing. I didn't chose the term "true numerical minorities" -- I just used the grandparent's (ff317) term.
I think its done out of malice however they dress it up.
Ignoring history of how stolen wealth from colonialism and protectionist policies of the west during the colonial era etc when its convenient to do so is nothing but malice.
For centuries England has relied on protection, has carried it to extremes and has obtained satisfactory results from it. There is no doubt that it is to this system that it owes its present strength. After two centuries, England has found it convenient to adopt free trade because it thinks that protection can no longer offer it anything. Very well then, Gentlemen, my knowledge of our country leads me to believe that within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade.
Now America and its lackeys in IMF and WTO want to do the same to the poorer countries.
If it is done with malice, it's the dumbest, waste of malice evil project ever because nobody really benefits.
It is not done with malice.
The IMF/WB believe that nations that have basic infrastructure, basic forms of democracy, low corruption and relatively open markets ... will be successfull. This is neither malicious nor entirely naive.
It's pragmatically naive when you consider the leader of some nation may take a 10% cut off the loan, hire his buddies to 'build the dam that never gets built' and then of course you have a nation in debt ... but those debts are not advantageous to the West at all, so the conspiracy theories are wrong.
Now - where there is actual malice is when a large, Western industrial conglomerate might win a big contract and so they influence, bribe, fake data - and then get the contract to 'totally overbuild' some kind of capacity leaving a nation with way more than they need. That's malice, but it's definitely not the IMF/WB or lending nations that win there.
Yes, I agree with that, however, their dogma is reasonable.
And no the Greeks destroyed their own economy though systematic hard and soft corruption, knowingly hiding irregularities, unwillingness to make any necessary reforms, etc. etc..
The IMF's 'dogma' operates under the assumption that there are conscientious, reasonable and rational actors on the other side of the loan.
One might argue that it is this assumption that needs to be revisited ... though what some lament as 'austerity' (required by lenders) to others simply is 'being responsible with the massive loan we are about to take'.
The fact that the Greek state is incompetent or corrupt was not unknown before the crisis. The banks granted loans to Greece knowing that the Greek state was incapable of paying back because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans.
If you are assigning moral faults, then please do so for the banks too who made their loans knowing the facts & assuming that they would be bailed out by EU if things went bad.
A more rational thing to do would have been to force the banks to grant Greece a debt haircut, waiving off 50% of the loans, while helping Greece restructure its economy in a realistic manner.
Instead, many people especially at the EU saw the Greek economic problems as a moral failure of all the Greek people for which all of them, including pensioners, must be punished while safely bailing out the banks that originally lent. Somehow, it is unacceptable to blame the banks.
Not only that, but the average (Greek or not) person has no grasp of even basic economic policy, and can't see farther than "I have a job that pays well, so what if all the politicians are corrupt? It's not like I can do anything about that anyway".
The average Greek is in on the scam by not paying any taxes, or expecting to retire with full pension earlier than Germans do and voting out anyone who considers changing this. It's a problem from top to bottom.
"because they were certain that ECB (or EU) would guarantee their loans."
I doubt this. The ECB and EU have not ever done this, and thinking through it just for a minute means that this is highly unlikely. I can't fathom why anyone would actually think this is going to happen with any degree of certainty. But I get the impetus that 'way back in the 2000's' that people might have 'felt this way'.
Also - there's a lot of fault still on the side of the Greeks in this case.
A certain EU country exports it’s supposed tax revenue to Greece so they can use 90% of it to pay their multinational banks. They have to do it in a currency they don’t own and is overvalued relative to their economy. The country mostly pressing for this is meanwhile running an export surplus and apparently asking the same for every economy in the region. This is not sensible economics any way you slice it.
It’s happened before in history and even has a name: debt bondage.
Honest question: why would being an economist allow you to competently answer that question? Is knowledge of how to change the mindset and behaviour of a complete country within the purview of economists?
If you ask an economist, he will define economics as the study of human action, making him an expert on nearly (or entirely, depending on the economist) all disciplines, questions, and problems.
That’s fascinating! Does the book have any insight into how Japan made the complete 180° in I guess a few decades?
The Meiji Restoration was already incredible but I thought the work ethic was there throughout and helped make it possible. I had no idea there was also a revolution of work ethic.
Wait, what ? What makes you think (and other commentators) that it's the Japaneses who changed and not the view held by post-colonialists ? (Managers complaining about their workers ? How weird)
It wasn't just the Japanese. "Korean time" was a thing back when Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Germans also used to be stereotyped as dishonest, thieving, dull and overly emotional before their country industrialized.
TL;DR (it's a 213 page grad thesis) Old Germany used to be basically Hufflepuff, a simple-minded, loyal, obedient rustic bumbler who's too stupid to really be a threat or even much of a partner. New Germany arose post-German unification and especially post WW1, where the stereotypes shifted to the modern more sinister concept of a nation of amoral mad scientists and clockwork soldiers - largely as an attempt to justify Germany being the great rival of England.
> overly emotional before their country industrialized.
After all some of the most famous Romantic artists came from Germany: Heine, Beethoven, Hölderlin and Goethe himself. The latter's Werther was the most emotional novel until at least Madam de Bovary, which was written about 80 years later.
It doesn't go into specifics on what Japan did right, but it does make a very good point that there are elements of every culture which can either help or hinder economic growth and that the economy has a much bigger influence on culture than culture has on the economy. People are lazy because they are poor. Not the other way around.
There is a podcast episode by Dan Carlin which I'm listening to which goes into this issue in depth. Basically according to him the Japanese basically "imported" values of warfare from the Samurai class into the general population and created an expectation of going 'above and beyond' for even ordinary citizens.
Education. The Japanese Empire was one of the first, if not first, nation in the world to have mandatory schooling that was accessible by a large majority of it's population.
Yep. Mass education (as opposed to high end elite education) can turn a nation of free people into slaves (or, as Japanese call it, 社畜: corporate livestock). After a century of that, they're losing their collective will to live, too [1].
>The Japanese Empire was one of the first, if not first, nation in the world to have mandatory schooling
Are you sure about that? Compulsory education was introduced in Austria in 1774. Apparently Japan introduced it shortly after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. If anything the UK was particularly late to the game.
> that was accessible by a large majority of its population
Austria had major attendance and implementation issues (e.g., only a 50-60% attendance rate) which apparently weren't fixed until the Reich Public School Law of 1869.
That said, I remember that there was a lot of discussion at one point about how individual behavior in countries that overlapped ex-Austrian/Habsburg territory could be mapped against historical (19th century) boundaries.
Getting back to the original point, Japan was successful because it had high levels of urbanization, which made state directed education more accessible and easier to attain. Other countries/territories implemented compulsory education well before Japan (e.g., Massachusetts first required compulsory education in the 1640s), but efforts either had comparatively lower penetration or relied on non-state institutions (e.g., the church or private institutions) to enforce.
I think the larger question, which has haunted me for a long time, is: how do you change culture on mass scale? Singapore is an example where brute force top-down was used. Maybe that’s the only way?
Similarly, I read Pachinko a novel about Koreans in Japan in the period 1910-1940 (mostly). Koreans were all lazy, unintelligent, untrustworthy thieves. A stereotype that few would still hold today.....
"Korean time" used to be a thing. Before the "Miracle on the Han river" (which was actually a carefully orchestrated economic development program run by the South Korean government and not a "miracle" at all) South Korea was one of the poorest countries on earth.
Likewise, Germans were used or being drunk, largely unproductive and simple people. Then Prussia conquered conquered a large number of the german principalities and forced the other ones to join in a new German Empire. A massive economic boom followed, during which Germany was thoroughly industrialized.
It's amusing and in line with what my grand mother who grew up in the early 1900s Indochina told me about her (french) dad doing business there. The Chinese had the reputation to be super reliable and men of their word, while the Japanese had the reputation to be unreliable and ready to cross you at the first opportunity.
On a longer time scale, it is hard when you look at Italy or Greece today to think of how the same population was once Sparta, the army of Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire. Populations evolve.
The Chinese had the reputation to be super reliable and
men of their word, while the Japanese had the reputation
to be unreliable and ready to cross you at the first
opportunity.
What has been the observation off late of those very same peoples? Have the perceptions markedly changed? If so, how?
I suspect if you looked for statistics on corruption perception, and in local faith in locally produced products, you’d see a situation where the Japanese trust their compatriots and the Chinese severely mistrust theirs.
I’ve lived in China for six years. The consensus among Western businesspeople is that if you have a joint venture it’s not a matter of if you’ll be screwed but when. Once you find a good contact in a company, someone who will deliver you the goods you wanted, at the time and place you wanted, in the correct quality and at the agreed price, you hold on to that relationship. Once they leave you have to go back to fine tooth comb quality control, asking every day on the status of the delivery, and going ballistic when someone inevitably messes something up. It is very, very uncommon for a foreigner to make a great success of a business here without a Chinese business partner but that business partner is their wife a large majority of the time.
The Party is a large part of the difference in culture. Taiwanese and Singaporeans are Chinese but they didn’t have the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward to deal with. Communism does bad things to cultures. I’m sure things will get better in time but I doubt it will be the work of just one generation.
I read Paul Midler's "What's Wrong With China" recently, the followup to his "Poorly Made In China", and his research seems to indicate that communism and the Great Leap Forward are not the source of those aspects of Chinese culture, that those aspects go back much further.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years and Japan deliberately "westernized" the local political and industrial culture. Whereas elsewhere the Japanese didn't see the locals as fit for modernization and so didn't bother. The KMT were beneficiaries of this when they took over the island, even though they implemented a program of sinicization.
Lee Kuan Yew famously fashioned Singaporean culture almost out of whole cloth as he believed that without a radical transformation in the social and economic culture that Singapore would quickly disintegrate. I can't find good quotes at the moment, but he had some really harsh opinions about the local ethnic Chinese culture from which he emerged; that it was corrupt, chaotic, criminal and an existential threat to the new nation.
The unreliableness of Chinese-made goods is usually due to incompetent Western firms cost-cutting and communication errors arising from cross-globe, cross-language collaborations. It's unfortunate nobody blames the CEOs for made-in-China, just the Chinese people for making it.
If you really believe that there are a lot of sourcing and quality control jobs here in China that would be happy to employ you if your Mandarin is as good as your English and you have manufacturing experience. All the people I’ve met in those businesses have a quality control everything attitude because if you stop checking they’ll start shipping you shit.
While I think your point rings true, trying to use your historical examples to point it out dismisses human migration among other factors that may have contributed. For instance, there is a good chance that most "Spartans" have died off as a people, since their population problems are well documented. and both the army of Alexander the Great, and the Roman Empire are armies of much larger territory then current Italy/Greece in their peak. And much of Macedonia of Alexander's early reign isn't part of what's typical Greece today.
That's just nit-picking about the complexities of history, but I do agree that the point that people and cultures can change is very true!
I agree that a racist account of 1915 Japan doesn't really say very much about what's going on with Brazil's economy. But I do think it's important to notice that when the BBC is saying something like "Brazilians are always late" there might be more going on than just a lazy culture.
I was hoping someone whose started a business in Brazil would come along and tell me what it's like. I really know nothing about the country.
Brazil is a huge country, with 200M inhabitants, an area as big as the continental US and a diverse population composed of imigrants from all over the world. What we hear from outsiders is almost always based on local and limited experiences (like this one from the BBC, limited to Rio). There's no single "Brazilian culture".
>I don't have details on Brazil, but I am almost certain that this "Brazilian time" is just a symptom of some completely reversible, systemic problem that is making it difficult to do business with high-technologies in Brazil.
Or inversely, it's a western problem that makes it difficult to live humanely and stress-free and incurs great human toll -- and at the point when we're so technologically advanced to not need it as much (but are great at creating busywork for ourselves).
To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit if you were to sharpen your position, as there is something deeply intriguing about your point.
With that said, I also find issue with content of your argument. Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic.
> Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business.
You hasten to generalizations. It's entirely possible that the economic success of the Western societies had historic roots in the industrial revolution and the mechanization of human life it entailed. But it's very hard to prove the same reasons hold today - it might be the case where the historical effect is confused with the alleged cause.
The strong economic growth of countries like Brazil or South Africa seems to indicate that, at least to a point, economics can blend with a relaxed attitude. Modern technology, offline communications like email, telecommuting and just in time fabrication could well usher in an era of high prosperity and low stress. Maybe these countries are laboratories of the future.
>Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic.
punctuality doesn't necessarily means efficiency. Punctuality itself comes at a cost. Somewhat similar to low latency. Your argument reminds about those Scrum proponents who tout that decreasing the latency and increasing synchronicity - what the Scrum is really about - would miraculously lead to throughput increase. Which it never does, and usually it has quite the opposite effect (exactly as expected from the systems theory and experience)
Whilst there may not be a perfect correlation between punctuality and efficiency, I'd suggest that it seems likely punctuality in business is more likely to be efficient than not.
For example if you have 10 people attending a meeting and all must wait till they are present before starting (a very common occurrance) having all 10 people turn up promptly is more efficient than having 1-9 people waiting for the remainder of the attendees to arrive.
>Whilst there may not be a perfect correlation between punctuality and efficiency, I'd suggest that it seems likely punctuality in business is more likely to be efficient than not.
Efficient towards what, and what for? Those are good questions seldom asked.
Efficiency in terms of not wasting people's time. The ability in business for people to complete tasks in-line with when they were expected allows for better scheduling.
I'm not suggesting that everything in business benefits from being regimented but that meeting expectations allows for others to plan their time effectively.
Time where people are waiting for others to do work which should have been completed can often be wasted.
>Efficiency in terms of not wasting people's time.
Then you must first consider the need to have the business or meeting in the first place.
In fact, people's time is only "wasted" because it has been made precious -- i.e. because it was stolen and/or sold. That's way more wasted time (they'll never get again) there, than in "wasting time" by not being punctual.
Societies studied by ethnologists had little care for punctuality. In fact the same was true for rural societies in Europe and the US as well (the US South was considered "lazy" and without a "sense of time" as well), and even urban life before the tyranny of the modern "always on" demands. For the upper classes, being fashionably late was a virtue.
Sure as I mentioned elsewhere I'm not arguing that meetings are an unalloyed good, what I am arguing is that where they are held, it is better that people are punctual, rather that non-punctual, and that there is improved efficiency relatively where participants are punctual.
Even more efficient is: starting the meeting anyway; publishing minutes so people can choose to attend or not; inviting fewer attendees; not having meetings about things which can be resolved by the teams talking directly to each other in their day-to-day work.
Yeah, it's a mistake to think that a meeting is always the most efficient way of doing things. Every meeting held costs the company thousands of dollars as people are not able to do other things during it, and so many companies just don't even think twice about adding anyone and everyone and don't think of how much it's costing them in productivity lost to other things because they just always assume that meetings are the best way to get things done.
I think it would be better if meetings were seen as the expensive beasts they are and only the bare minimum of people that can attend it, should attend it, and it should be considered (especially with routine meetings) whether or not the meetings even need to be held in the first place.
Oh absolutely, I'm not suggesting that meetings are always well run or indeed necessary, but where they are held, time management is important to get people in and out as fast as possible, which improves efficiency.
It's honestly blowing my mind that this point even needs to be argued. Of course being on time correlates with efficiency.
Have they ever looked up a store's hours before going there? Or gone to see a movie? Or met with someone else to do... anything? Or utilized public transit?
Of course it can be argued that, in a cosmic sense, maybe society is more "efficient" toward people relaxing and enjoying life if that train doesn't leave for another 45 minutes because the conductor felt like sleeping in this morning. But at that point, it's not a meaningful discussion.
Honestly it's difficult to imagine having the opposing view with any experience at all managing anything. Or even considering what it might be like to do so.
>Honestly it's difficult to imagine having the opposing view with any experience at all managing anything. Or even considering what it might be like to do so.
Well, as you yourself admitted, your position is the default one, that few would disagree with.
That automatically implies that it doesn't take much experience or a very open mind. It would be the opposite position, the hard to accept one, that would require broader life experience and a more open mind.
I understand your point, but you're wrong.
Working with other people towards a common goal does not equal becoming a slave to them. It does mean however, that if you don't respect their time then your actions serve against that goal.
I think we are so deeply ingrained in thinking this way in some societies that we completely miss the forest for the trees. We forget what the overall goal is and instead focus mindlessly on efficiently doing little things that seem in that moment to be the goal at a drag on accomplishing the overall goal. We are not ants, we are thinking creatures who, given time and a relaxed attitude can come up with solutions that easily negate the need for the mindless ant-like efficiency that is more suited to ignorant creatures than thinking ones.
Do people often "work with other people towards a common goal" though, or only give the impression of doing so, by going through the motions, and being trapped into one of the default modes of making a living in modern society?
There is effectively zero cost to punctuality. If you have to spend 60 minutes in a meeting to get through the agenda items regardless of when it starts then there's no benefit to being late. Just show up on time.
>To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic.
Well, there is a problem with western culture in this area -- it can never be content, and its eating away the planet. It's own visionaries and thought leaders imagined a society of leisure and 3 hour workdays and such, but we have many times the efficiency per hour of previous ages, and people are overworked more than ever (not to mention increasingly in debt as well).
>Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business.
Well, I'm against "economic success" beyond a certain point, and especially when it comes to the detriment of the society, and the environment. I'm for economic sustainability, and with utilizing the vast technological resources to improve life (as opposed to induce consumption).
If you put the price on the free time (as e.g. opportunity cost, or cost of saving resources), you can see leisure as a form of consumption.
The problem of many Western societies is that the cost of leisure is too damn high for many.
This is partly because the efficiency of work (its value for advancing a business project) is non-linear with time spent. Someone spending 100 hours a week maybe pretty inefficient due to overwork and thus lower (even negative) quality of things done. Someone spending 10 hours a week could be also inefficient because the project moves faster (when everyone else around works 40 hours), or the competition moves faster. So there is a range of maximum efficiency, which is hopefully far from 100 h/week, but also likely far from 10 h/week.
"Gig economy" can help: you work hard 2-4 months for a high rate, then coast 4-6 months at a nice place with low cost of living. The problem, of course, is that you must have saved a pretty thick cushion of assets for the case when a new gig is not coming when you planned.
>This is partly because the efficiency of work (its value for advancing a business project) is non-linear with time spent. Someone spending 100 hours a week maybe pretty inefficient due to overwork and thus lower (even negative) quality of things done. Someone spending 10 hours a week could be also inefficient because the project moves faster (when everyone else around works 40 hours), or the competition moves faster.
I'd go further. Most products and projects are BS busywork, if not actively harmful and they shouldn't be part of the economy in the first place.
We've created a huge society middlemen, procurers, and snake-oil salesmen, and turned increasingly more aspects of life into commercial endeavours, where ever more people are constantly hustling and peddling something (manufactured crap, of which there are untold tons [1], planned obsolesce replacement products, their image, and so on).
If a product finds some customers (maybe ultimately unsatisfied, or disappointed, or gaslighted customers), there must be a need that the product is filling. It's only filling it poorly.
Finding such toxic-but-still-used product is a good opportunity to both make a living and improve life in general. I suppose the hardest part is to detect and understand the real need being filled.
Certainly enough, education, and other ways to change culture, is a more profound way to change the way people fill their needs, and especially what they even perceive as needs. E.g. the need to serve a bloody revenge is by now mostly absent from a typical Western society, while the need to one-up a neighbor is still pretty widespread.
>If a product finds some customers (maybe ultimately unsatisfied, or disappointed, or gaslighted customers), there must be a need that the product is filling.
Well, I'm a believer in an objective world in which not all needs are equal.
I can accept that which need is important or not can be difficult to ascertain. But I also hold that in many, if not most, cases, it's very easy.
Despite the cult of the individual and the reverence with which subjective taste is held, I'd go on record to say that some (most) people have buy products that fulfill irrelevant non-needs.
For an easy to agree with (but real) example, heroin addicts ands Milli Vanilli listeners both buy products that "fill a need". The question is more whether they should.
If you think about the list of "irrelevant non-needs" from e.g. 15th-century Europe (your choice of country), or from any sufficiently different contemporary culture (consider China or Saudi Arabia), maybe your idea of "objective" needs will... expand a little bit.
If for some reason you prefer today's Western culture to that of 15th century, be certain that it changed mainly because of some people pursuing their irrelevant non-needs, as seen by then-contemporary "normal people".
> Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business.
Unfortunately, the people benefitting from the 'economic success' aren't the same people as those who are required to be efficient in everything.
It would be much better to look at quality of life than at profits. The only thing amounts of money have going for it is that you can easily put them in spreadsheets.
There was a significant national effort to change the same "national character" in South Korea after the war. Massive initiatives to institute a "bali bali" (hurry hurry) culture in the workplace and was seen as a national strategic need.
High-jacking top comment to note that the original headline, under which most of any of the discussion was written was:
"Why Brazilians are always late"
Always being late, and always being late to parties are too very different accusations. If you just read the new headline ("In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party") and checked comments before reading TFA, you might be confused.
This reminds me of Malaysia, the country I grew up in. There’s a thing called Malaysian timing, where people will be consistently late for at least 30mins to any meeting (both personal and work events). Sometimes, the “on my way” reply is basically them still at home laying down on their bed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm from a Mediterranean country and it's customary to be 30 min to an hour late to parties. Distant acquintances and people that don't really feel like going will arrive close to 2 hours late. I thought this was the norm in the Western world. Is it not? Do folks in the English-speaking world arrive on the minute?
Don't do this in France. It's considered "polite" to arrive ~30minute late if you're invited, however, if you arrive early, you will be asked to help while the host/hostess take his/her last minute shower. I don't mind and i like being early, because the most meaningfull discussion are made there, but non-Latin foreigners can have some troubles to adjust.
It's not polite. It's a lack of respect. (it depend if it's a party or a dinner.) Party generally don't have a strict meal but if you attend a meal, being late is really disrespectful.
For anyone interested in this type of cultural difference, I would strongly recommend Erin Meyer's "The Culture Map" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KSXNFJQ), which presents and argues for a series of scales that create a heuristic useful for comparing (not judging!) different cultures.
The goal is to realize and understand the differences so that you can anticipate and cope despite culture gaps.
I've read it myself, had two coworkers read it, and have recommended it to numerous other people who work in multicultural contexts and everyone has found it useful and insightful. It really recalibrated my personal way of looking at the world and people from other cultures.
Just to add onto the cavalcade of other anecdotes ... can confirm that there is a similar "cuban time", having grown up in Miami. No one is on time, much to the chagrin of my very-caucasian wife :)
I am Brazilian but I really appreciate punctuality, to the point of walking away from a date because she was 15 min late. I have friends that are more or less punctual, and others that are always late.
One characteristic of the latter is, they can't say "no" to anyone. Generally they get late because someone else asked them a favor or to do something "urgent". This trait affects them in many other areas of life as well: overpromising, overcommitting, etc.
It's kind of neat that if the party starts at 6pm, you (the guests) could take that to mean that is the time you should start getting ready. In this way, you, the hosts, and the other guests will actually all be on the same schedule really.
Also common in Indonesia, its called "rubber time".
Ive grown to like it! Your never in a rush, don't have to worry too much about unforeseen traffic. You can arrive late to meetings that tend to drag but can start without you.
I arrived on time, my hostess was already dressed up, and I made myself useful helping with preparing the food. We had a long time to talk while waiting for the other guests.
A month later, we were dating. A couple years later, we married.
Truly absurd generalizations about a vast and complex country. You’d have thought we’d outgrown this sort of crass writing about other countries when we exited the nineteenth century.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted but I'm with you.
Screw this subtle racism.
Being someone who was born in a country with far from ideal stereotypes is not fun, specially those related to work ethic which are potentially harmful should you want to make a career abroad.
Since this is all anecdotes anyway I'll post mine. I was working in Brazil and even though our main office was in Sao Paulo we were interviewing for our Rio branch. Of the 12 candidates we were expecting only 2 showed up, both late due to traffic. The other 10 just never showed up. Their excuses varied but people around the office shrugged the phenomenon as expected due to the early time of the interview and the fact that it "deu praia" meaning it was sunny and they probably just went to the beach instead.
It was a bit mind boggling to me since I was used to the behavior in Sao Paulo where delays were possible but usually not common and no shows were rare.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 202 ms ] threadI appreciate it when people arrive 15-45min after the party start time.
Amusingly, a lot of these terms seem to have their origin in people who were really annoyed by the phenomena.
Certainly seems like that to me. I've arrived at wedding functions at the exact time mentioned in the invite and even the hosts weren't present. I had to wait 30 min for them to show up.
The exception to this is dinner parties, where people are much more punctual because they know you're planning the meal timeline.
Party timing is still something many of us struggle with as not every host does it the same. Some like the guests to arrive on time, others have adopted the more international habit of not expecting anybody during the first hour.
Having lived in both countries, I would say our Swiss neighbors are even more stringent regarding punctuality.
There is a relatively old Swiss movie that plays with them. Available only in French and German versions.
https://en.unifrance.org/movie/24595/welcome-in-switzerland
Trains are also late in Germany. A lot. I blame DB.
They come up with the silliest excuses too, like that one time were they claimed that the track bed had caught fire. I would have believed it if it wasn't -10°C in the dead winter while it snowed like crazy.
On the other hand I do have a punctuality tick, I have counted out the exact amount of time it takes to get to the train station and I wake up at 0600 with or without alarm clock, regardless of when I fell asleep. I also make sure that my clocks are set as exact as possible (I used to run a GPS powered NTP server just for my devices).
Here in Chicago, the tracks are intentionally lit on fire in the winter (so they don't develop an ice sheet, I think). Maybe the same thing, but whoever explained it was unfamiliar with the practice?
There is also a lot of different snow clearing vehicles that go around in the worst areas.
We do have trainbed fires during dry summers at times (like currently) but not winter, it was just some excuse for lack of trains or otherwise produced delays.
You invite 20 people over for a BBQ at 2pm. Here's possible conversations I can envision in America:
"Thanks for the invite! I actually have a haircut appointment at 2, but I'll come right after"
or
"Thanks for the invite, but I have a a haircut appointment at 2..." "what? No worries! Come join whenever you can; we want to see you!" "Great. I will thanks!"
So how would it go in Germany?
"Sorry, I am busy and can't make it"
Because of this, I would say it's even more important to schedule things sufficiently ahead of time. Making up plans only 2 or 3 days in advance, when weekend plans are mostly settled and they can't properly schedule around your event, will just stress people out.
1. the first one can occur, if they can't be on time they will ask if they can arrive later and as the host you get to decide whether they should still come or not, either way the guest will arrive on the pre-determined time
2. if the start time is flexible, this is stated clearly as part of the invitation e.g. you invite people for a bbq "starting around" 2PM (rather than at 2PM) and make it clear that they can arrive and leave at any point in the afternoon, just that they should not arrive before 2PM
The haircut example would just mean you tell your friend in advance that you will arrive later.
I was then amused to see all the other (Danish) guests arrive within 2 minutes of each other.
I wouldn't say it's an American thing. Any party that's starting at 10PM isn't gonna get a good crowd till 12-1AM in Europe as well. Cause you don't want to show up when there are barely any people and have to awkwardly dance to the music in an empty place.
The majority of America just doesn't care about appearance in this way.
We have relatives who usually leave their home at the declared start-time (so they're at best half an hour late, usually an hour or two), they're by far the most disliked members of my extended family for this an other reasons. Arriving late is disrespectful of both host and other guests, and is emblematic of and perfectly in line with their character.
When I was in California a few years ago I showed up to a party a few minutes before the invite time. Not only was I the only guest there for the first ~30 minutes, but the host clearly wasn't expecting anyone to show up at the given time.
When I'd ask why they were late, it was the same reason each time. "Oh, we were watching a movie." A typical movie is 90 minutes long, so they would've been putting it on just around the time the party started.
In general though, everyone was a good 20-30 minutes late, but a few people and myself would show up early to help the host prepare last minute food/drinks.
I've heard of "fashionably late", never anything about "early".
IME early bird gets all the good nachos. And you can leave earlier.
I prefer too ease into these events by starting early and with a small group instead of making an entrance to a full room.
In some cultures appearing a busy person can be important. Showing early to a party could send the message you had nothing to do before. Not that i like or do that, but some people could pay attention to such details.
Also if you're first, be ready to help set up!
In the US and most of the West, it's expected to be okay to be around one hour late for big house parties. However, Americans wouldn't normally be late for job interviews or other important events in a set time, which is completely normal in Latin America.
Nope. Sorry, but you are completely wrong. If you are late in job interviews for instance, you will probably not grant the job, if its in bussiness meetings, it will hurt your credentials in the company and it can even lead one to be fired.
Bussiness mentality is different than party mentality. Other things you must have to take into account is local culture. Rio is more laidback, while Sao Paulo is much, much less because it has more of a bussiness culture. (And i bet its the same in the US between different cities).
Thats one of the reasons why i try to teach some people, that for some contexts, thinking in terms of 'Latin America' its just wrong and too broad of a generalization.
You cant hardly generalize the whole of Brazil, and doing so in terms of Latin America is even worse.
But if you expect people to show up 30 mins. late structurally, why not just give a time 30 minutes later and have them be on time ?
All this does is cause unnecessary ambiguity.
Besides this is only for social appointments. Try to arrive a couple hours late for a meeting and you'll find yourself talking to your boss aboit how this article misled you
They have a word for it too: jam karet, or "rubber time".
Quite a few of my other Japanese friends made nervous comments when we were waiting for Brazilian friends, or after they'd arrive. "sasugani [so-and-so, the Brazilian] hahahahaha" they'd say, and it was clear that they were annoyed.
After traveling a bit more and studying psychology a bit more, it's clear that the preference really does vary by the individual, even though patterns like those in the article exist within a populace. Some Japanese really don't care when you arrive, and some Brazilians are really timely people. Their personal strengths come from some position along the robotically-scheduled/free-floating continuum. Culturally, maybe they make arrangements to fit in a little better, or maybe they don't and they're just the weirdo. No matter what the preference is, if we can be flexible or tactical about how we use it, we gain some advantages.
It became a problem with meeting rooms being booked but empty so you would use and then get kicked out 20min past the booked time as the people turned up. The company eventually brought a rule if you were not in a room within 15min of the booking start time you lost it to avoid this problem.
I think some people in this enviroment would play to it as 'I'm so busy & important' but I always felt it was such a economic cost to the company having a bunch of people sitting there making small talk while someone was delayed.
You have to tweak it a bit for different situations (for example, a meeting, is about -15, a conference call, -10, but an after work event is roughly -30 to -60, but works well.
In Los Angeles it's also about -30 to -60 due to traffic, fire or both.
Unless you have found yourself working with a very peculiar group of people, you are being duped or just exaggerating to the point of being outright wrong.
It is absolutely not a custom anywhere in Brazil, not even in Rio, to be late (_at all_) for professional appointments.
_Especially_ systematically late that a "system" like that is put in place (and supposedly works). To be blunt, the idea that you could correct such behavior from professional adults by duping them with altered schedules is even childish.
If this is indeed the case, please post the name of the company so we can blacklist everyone that works in that office
My observation, being born and having lived in Brazil for my whole life, is that there's a power/authority/seniority dynamic involved, too: If you have a meeting with a customer, you should be on time, but it's okay for them to be late. When meeting with your boss, they'll probably be late, but you probably shouldn't be. Internal meetings within the company usually start later than meetings with other companies. Once you know people professionally for a longer time, you'll also be more comfortable arriving later.
My Mexican friend traveled a lot here for work to meet with various executives. These executives would be the ones who set the time.
She'd drive four hours and arrive at their office for a 8am 1-on-1 meeting and be directed to a sofa outside their room. She told me often 30+ minutes would pass and the guy would be in there twiddling on his smartphone, she could see him right through the blinds.
It was like some proof of time-burn to remind you that they had the power.
I live in Minas Gerais, where things are not this bad, but last month we gave a party for my daughter's birthday. All the invitations were sent with a 30 minute offset from the real start time as agreed with the caterer because we knew everyone would be late, and it turned out fine.
All my professional meetings start at least 15 minutes late, and it enrages me to no end! Yes, it is really that bad!
>To be blunt, the idea that you could correct such behavior from professional adults by duping them with altered schedules is even childish.
I tell you, it's real...
I guess some stereotypes on Germans are true after all...
"Hey you are X mins late. This is Germany man!"
I thought it was a bit too expositional IMHO.
And of course this was set in a sex shop.
Also, what would be crazy for many people that live in small countries compared to Brazil, is that many workers live far away from their job or school. Up to 3 hours for a single way. It is also expected to have something not working in their way to their destination.
It's not a black and white thing. Writing a generic bold statement tends always to be harmful. Damn human brain that loves to find patterns to simplify information processing :)
I remember some years ago that my (french) boss was often frustrated with our indian colleagues being late or having delays in their work. Then I spent an internship with them and I understand. It was much harder for them to go from their home to the office and the conditions were far worse for them.
But it's hard for a lot of people to realize these differences and empathize without having to live under the same circumstances.
My example: I'm Portuguese but have lived in Denmark for quite a few years now, in Denmark I'm about as punctual as everyone else around here (which is mostly punctual, not as much as Germans though, who tend to show up before the agreed time) but when I'm visiting down south, I go back to the standard of showing up a little after the agreed time.
In other words: when in Rome do as the Romans do.
I see a contradiction here.
This excerpt appears in Ha-Joon Chang's book "Bad Samaritans" and it was written by an Australian consultant with regards to Japan in August 1915. Chang also mentions Sidney Gulick's 1903 book "Evolution of the Japanese" which also stereotypes the Japanese as "'easy-going' and 'emotional' people who possessed qualities like 'lightness of heart, freedom from all anxiety for the future, living chiefly for the present.'"
I don't have details on Brazil, but I am almost certain that this "Brazilian time" is just a symptom of some completely reversible, systemic problem that is making it difficult to do business with high-technologies in Brazil.
“Repetition is the mother of all learning”
I think that time is not really a factor here. Institutions like the IMF and WTO passively suppress the economic development of poor countries by withholding incentives unless they behave like rich countries. I don't think this is done out of malice though, because I've met people who genuinely believe that forcing businesses in Mozambique to compete directly with the U.S. economies of scale "creates a level playing field" and doesn't inhibit their growth in certain key industries at all.
It's easy for someone to "genuinely believe" something when their career (as policy advisors, bankers, development "experts", etc) and perks is based upon promoting it and enforcing it upon others.
Without "skin in the game" everyone can be a good person with "great intentions".
One person, One vote is the least flawed way to gather signal from actual people who have skin in the game.
That's a generalization its opponents make, but it isn't true.
In most places where it was practiced (ancient Athens, short-lived anarchist areas in Spain, egalitarian communities, etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to "true numerical minorities" than most representative democracies. Heck, the US had segregation in practice up to the 70s, with blacks being a 20% or so of the population (and more in some areas), and gays were persecuted throwout Europe representative democracy or not.
Even more, the most horrid persecutions of minorities have happened under elected representatives (like Hitler), or authoritarian regimes (e.g. Stalin), as opposed to any "direct democracy".
It's indicative that the arguments in the lemma ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority ) are contrived though experiments and not historical examples.
There's no "tyranny of the majority" that's inherent in direct democracy, any more so than it is in representative "democracy". The tyranny lies in an orthogonal axis (namely: the prevalent passions and ideologies of the era), and can be applied regardless of direct or representative democracy.
Source? Athenian direct democracy was only for males, legally sanctioned slaves and allowed for a simple majority to ostracize people. Sparta's direct democratic elements oversaw a large Helot slave population.
That's irrelevant to the discussion though, as that was simply the norm then across regimes, not a special characteristic of Athenian direct democracy.
Not to mention that the US representative democracy was only for males until the 1920s, had slaves until 1865 and segregation until the 1970s. And that's 2.5 millennia later than that pesky Athenian direct democracy.
You claimed "in most places where [direct democracy] was practiced (ancient Athens... etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to 'true numerical minorities' than most representative democracies." I'm disagreeing with that claim. I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.
I'm pushing back on the assertion that is has been shown direct democracy works well for minorities. It hasn't. (It has been shown that representative democracy works, or at the very least can be stable.) The tyranny of the majority has not been conclusively proven (nor disproven). This is an open question, and one that evolves as technology (and the population's education) progresses.
You can disagree, but not because ancient Athens had slaves or women didn't vote. That were common places until millennia later across systems of government, and not some inherent product of direct democracy (as opposed to representative democracy).
If you want to disagree, let's stick to differences in how the citizenry included or excluded in both is treated.
By definition, something found in both types of democracy (such as slavery or women not voting) wont tells us anything about how they differ.
>I'm asking for a source for the the general claim because I'm confused about what separates "true numerical minorities" from other kinds of minorities.
Nothing. I didn't chose the term "true numerical minorities" -- I just used the grandparent's (ff317) term.
Ignoring history of how stolen wealth from colonialism and protectionist policies of the west during the colonial era etc when its convenient to do so is nothing but malice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...
President Ulysses S. Grant stated:
Now America and its lackeys in IMF and WTO want to do the same to the poorer countries.It is not done with malice.
The IMF/WB believe that nations that have basic infrastructure, basic forms of democracy, low corruption and relatively open markets ... will be successfull. This is neither malicious nor entirely naive.
It's pragmatically naive when you consider the leader of some nation may take a 10% cut off the loan, hire his buddies to 'build the dam that never gets built' and then of course you have a nation in debt ... but those debts are not advantageous to the West at all, so the conspiracy theories are wrong.
Now - where there is actual malice is when a large, Western industrial conglomerate might win a big contract and so they influence, bribe, fake data - and then get the contract to 'totally overbuild' some kind of capacity leaving a nation with way more than they need. That's malice, but it's definitely not the IMF/WB or lending nations that win there.
Many of EU & IMF bureaucrats genuinely believed that they were helping the Greek economy recover while they were actually engaged in destroying it.
And no the Greeks destroyed their own economy though systematic hard and soft corruption, knowingly hiding irregularities, unwillingness to make any necessary reforms, etc. etc..
The IMF's 'dogma' operates under the assumption that there are conscientious, reasonable and rational actors on the other side of the loan.
One might argue that it is this assumption that needs to be revisited ... though what some lament as 'austerity' (required by lenders) to others simply is 'being responsible with the massive loan we are about to take'.
If you are assigning moral faults, then please do so for the banks too who made their loans knowing the facts & assuming that they would be bailed out by EU if things went bad.
A more rational thing to do would have been to force the banks to grant Greece a debt haircut, waiving off 50% of the loans, while helping Greece restructure its economy in a realistic manner.
Instead, many people especially at the EU saw the Greek economic problems as a moral failure of all the Greek people for which all of them, including pensioners, must be punished while safely bailing out the banks that originally lent. Somehow, it is unacceptable to blame the banks.
I doubt this. The ECB and EU have not ever done this, and thinking through it just for a minute means that this is highly unlikely. I can't fathom why anyone would actually think this is going to happen with any degree of certainty. But I get the impetus that 'way back in the 2000's' that people might have 'felt this way'.
Also - there's a lot of fault still on the side of the Greeks in this case.
It’s happened before in history and even has a name: debt bondage.
The Meiji Restoration was already incredible but I thought the work ethic was there throughout and helped make it possible. I had no idea there was also a revolution of work ethic.
There is correlation between stereotypes and GDP.
Any links on this?
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=h...
TL;DR (it's a 213 page grad thesis) Old Germany used to be basically Hufflepuff, a simple-minded, loyal, obedient rustic bumbler who's too stupid to really be a threat or even much of a partner. New Germany arose post-German unification and especially post WW1, where the stereotypes shifted to the modern more sinister concept of a nation of amoral mad scientists and clockwork soldiers - largely as an attempt to justify Germany being the great rival of England.
> passionate, melancholy, romantic, and tearful
https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/thomas-dixon/british-stiff-up...
After all some of the most famous Romantic artists came from Germany: Heine, Beethoven, Hölderlin and Goethe himself. The latter's Werther was the most emotional novel until at least Madam de Bovary, which was written about 80 years later.
They beat the Brits by about a decade.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
Are you sure about that? Compulsory education was introduced in Austria in 1774. Apparently Japan introduced it shortly after the Meiji Restoration in 1868. If anything the UK was particularly late to the game.
Austria had major attendance and implementation issues (e.g., only a 50-60% attendance rate) which apparently weren't fixed until the Reich Public School Law of 1869.
That said, I remember that there was a lot of discussion at one point about how individual behavior in countries that overlapped ex-Austrian/Habsburg territory could be mapped against historical (19th century) boundaries.
Getting back to the original point, Japan was successful because it had high levels of urbanization, which made state directed education more accessible and easier to attain. Other countries/territories implemented compulsory education well before Japan (e.g., Massachusetts first required compulsory education in the 1640s), but efforts either had comparatively lower penetration or relied on non-state institutions (e.g., the church or private institutions) to enforce.
On a longer time scale, it is hard when you look at Italy or Greece today to think of how the same population was once Sparta, the army of Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire. Populations evolve.
The Party is a large part of the difference in culture. Taiwanese and Singaporeans are Chinese but they didn’t have the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward to deal with. Communism does bad things to cultures. I’m sure things will get better in time but I doubt it will be the work of just one generation.
I read Paul Midler's "What's Wrong With China" recently, the followup to his "Poorly Made In China", and his research seems to indicate that communism and the Great Leap Forward are not the source of those aspects of Chinese culture, that those aspects go back much further.
Definitely a fascinating read.
Lee Kuan Yew famously fashioned Singaporean culture almost out of whole cloth as he believed that without a radical transformation in the social and economic culture that Singapore would quickly disintegrate. I can't find good quotes at the moment, but he had some really harsh opinions about the local ethnic Chinese culture from which he emerged; that it was corrupt, chaotic, criminal and an existential threat to the new nation.
That's just nit-picking about the complexities of history, but I do agree that the point that people and cultures can change is very true!
I was hoping someone whose started a business in Brazil would come along and tell me what it's like. I really know nothing about the country.
Or inversely, it's a western problem that makes it difficult to live humanely and stress-free and incurs great human toll -- and at the point when we're so technologically advanced to not need it as much (but are great at creating busywork for ourselves).
To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit if you were to sharpen your position, as there is something deeply intriguing about your point.
With that said, I also find issue with content of your argument. Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic.
You hasten to generalizations. It's entirely possible that the economic success of the Western societies had historic roots in the industrial revolution and the mechanization of human life it entailed. But it's very hard to prove the same reasons hold today - it might be the case where the historical effect is confused with the alleged cause.
The strong economic growth of countries like Brazil or South Africa seems to indicate that, at least to a point, economics can blend with a relaxed attitude. Modern technology, offline communications like email, telecommuting and just in time fabrication could well usher in an era of high prosperity and low stress. Maybe these countries are laboratories of the future.
punctuality doesn't necessarily means efficiency. Punctuality itself comes at a cost. Somewhat similar to low latency. Your argument reminds about those Scrum proponents who tout that decreasing the latency and increasing synchronicity - what the Scrum is really about - would miraculously lead to throughput increase. Which it never does, and usually it has quite the opposite effect (exactly as expected from the systems theory and experience)
For example if you have 10 people attending a meeting and all must wait till they are present before starting (a very common occurrance) having all 10 people turn up promptly is more efficient than having 1-9 people waiting for the remainder of the attendees to arrive.
Efficient towards what, and what for? Those are good questions seldom asked.
I'm not suggesting that everything in business benefits from being regimented but that meeting expectations allows for others to plan their time effectively.
Time where people are waiting for others to do work which should have been completed can often be wasted.
Then you must first consider the need to have the business or meeting in the first place.
In fact, people's time is only "wasted" because it has been made precious -- i.e. because it was stolen and/or sold. That's way more wasted time (they'll never get again) there, than in "wasting time" by not being punctual.
Societies studied by ethnologists had little care for punctuality. In fact the same was true for rural societies in Europe and the US as well (the US South was considered "lazy" and without a "sense of time" as well), and even urban life before the tyranny of the modern "always on" demands. For the upper classes, being fashionably late was a virtue.
I think it would be better if meetings were seen as the expensive beasts they are and only the bare minimum of people that can attend it, should attend it, and it should be considered (especially with routine meetings) whether or not the meetings even need to be held in the first place.
Have they ever looked up a store's hours before going there? Or gone to see a movie? Or met with someone else to do... anything? Or utilized public transit?
Of course it can be argued that, in a cosmic sense, maybe society is more "efficient" toward people relaxing and enjoying life if that train doesn't leave for another 45 minutes because the conductor felt like sleeping in this morning. But at that point, it's not a meaningful discussion.
Honestly it's difficult to imagine having the opposing view with any experience at all managing anything. Or even considering what it might be like to do so.
Yeah, how dare people disagree.
That automatically implies that it doesn't take much experience or a very open mind. It would be the opposite position, the hard to accept one, that would require broader life experience and a more open mind.
Punctuality is a virtue of slaves -- to other people and to the clock in general.
Well, there is a problem with western culture in this area -- it can never be content, and its eating away the planet. It's own visionaries and thought leaders imagined a society of leisure and 3 hour workdays and such, but we have many times the efficiency per hour of previous ages, and people are overworked more than ever (not to mention increasingly in debt as well).
>Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business.
Well, I'm against "economic success" beyond a certain point, and especially when it comes to the detriment of the society, and the environment. I'm for economic sustainability, and with utilizing the vast technological resources to improve life (as opposed to induce consumption).
The problem of many Western societies is that the cost of leisure is too damn high for many.
This is partly because the efficiency of work (its value for advancing a business project) is non-linear with time spent. Someone spending 100 hours a week maybe pretty inefficient due to overwork and thus lower (even negative) quality of things done. Someone spending 10 hours a week could be also inefficient because the project moves faster (when everyone else around works 40 hours), or the competition moves faster. So there is a range of maximum efficiency, which is hopefully far from 100 h/week, but also likely far from 10 h/week.
"Gig economy" can help: you work hard 2-4 months for a high rate, then coast 4-6 months at a nice place with low cost of living. The problem, of course, is that you must have saved a pretty thick cushion of assets for the case when a new gig is not coming when you planned.
I'd go further. Most products and projects are BS busywork, if not actively harmful and they shouldn't be part of the economy in the first place.
We've created a huge society middlemen, procurers, and snake-oil salesmen, and turned increasingly more aspects of life into commercial endeavours, where ever more people are constantly hustling and peddling something (manufactured crap, of which there are untold tons [1], planned obsolesce replacement products, their image, and so on).
[1] https://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/
Finding such toxic-but-still-used product is a good opportunity to both make a living and improve life in general. I suppose the hardest part is to detect and understand the real need being filled.
Certainly enough, education, and other ways to change culture, is a more profound way to change the way people fill their needs, and especially what they even perceive as needs. E.g. the need to serve a bloody revenge is by now mostly absent from a typical Western society, while the need to one-up a neighbor is still pretty widespread.
Well, I'm a believer in an objective world in which not all needs are equal.
I can accept that which need is important or not can be difficult to ascertain. But I also hold that in many, if not most, cases, it's very easy.
Despite the cult of the individual and the reverence with which subjective taste is held, I'd go on record to say that some (most) people have buy products that fulfill irrelevant non-needs.
For an easy to agree with (but real) example, heroin addicts ands Milli Vanilli listeners both buy products that "fill a need". The question is more whether they should.
If for some reason you prefer today's Western culture to that of 15th century, be certain that it changed mainly because of some people pursuing their irrelevant non-needs, as seen by then-contemporary "normal people".
Unfortunately, the people benefitting from the 'economic success' aren't the same people as those who are required to be efficient in everything.
It would be much better to look at quality of life than at profits. The only thing amounts of money have going for it is that you can easily put them in spreadsheets.
Here's an interview with an industrialist that describes the transformation: http://blog.lucforsyth.com/2012/01/under-pressure-byun-ho-sa...
"Why Brazilians are always late"
Always being late, and always being late to parties are too very different accusations. If you just read the new headline ("In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party") and checked comments before reading TFA, you might be confused.
The goal is to realize and understand the differences so that you can anticipate and cope despite culture gaps.
I've read it myself, had two coworkers read it, and have recommended it to numerous other people who work in multicultural contexts and everyone has found it useful and insightful. It really recalibrated my personal way of looking at the world and people from other cultures.
One characteristic of the latter is, they can't say "no" to anyone. Generally they get late because someone else asked them a favor or to do something "urgent". This trait affects them in many other areas of life as well: overpromising, overcommitting, etc.
Ive grown to like it! Your never in a rush, don't have to worry too much about unforeseen traffic. You can arrive late to meetings that tend to drag but can start without you.
Maybe we take timeliness too seriously.
A month later, we were dating. A couple years later, we married.
Sometimes being too early is good. :-)
Screw this subtle racism.
Being someone who was born in a country with far from ideal stereotypes is not fun, specially those related to work ethic which are potentially harmful should you want to make a career abroad.
It was a bit mind boggling to me since I was used to the behavior in Sao Paulo where delays were possible but usually not common and no shows were rare.