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excerpted
from It's About Time Present or Future? Americans are future-oriented.5 (Where else would you find a magazine titled The Futurist?) Americans really live in the future. The present is just a way station. This passion for the future is really not shared even by all European countries. The French are known to be present-oriented whereas the British are often labeled as past-oriented. For Japanese Zen followers, time is like a pool of water. Things just happen. There is no past, present or future. In the Sioux language there is no word for time, late or waiting. Arab countries are well known for their past orientation. Russians are present-oriented. In Urdu, the native language of Pakistan, the same word kull is used for past and future. I did not grow up with a telephone. So the Yellow Pages were something brand new for me when I first arrived in the U.S. I still had the habit of going to a store only to find out that it didn't have what I needed. My wife used to ask, "Didn't you call before going there?" The notion of calling ahead of time requires planning and a future orientation, where my upbringing was in a present-oriented culture. One thing my nuclear family enjoys when my mom visits is her cooking. (I guess I enjoy it more than the rest of the family.) So normally I ask my mom a couple of days in advance what ingredients she needs for the upcoming meals. She always assures me that she has everything. The truth is that many times, in the middle of cooking, she will ask for items we don't have. That shows a present orientation. You deal with it when you get there instead of doing advanced planning. It may not be conscious, but these are the cultural behaviors one develops over a life time. It is not easy to suddenly change those attitudes and behaviors. Listening to weather forecasts and then living your life accordingly is a sign of a future orientation. The first time I saw the weather report on television, it appeared to be a professor's lecture suited for the classroom with all those big scientific words, graphs, charts and slick presentation. I never imagined weather to be so complicated. Normally when I get to work and see everyone walking around with their umbrellas, I figure that it will rain today. (Of course by that time it is too late.) Here people are trained from their childhood to figure out at least that day's expected weather before leaving the house. I am normally missing my umbrella because it was not raining, the sky did not have dark clouds or birds were not flying very low when I left the house. Here my present orientation gets me wet every time. Mainstream Americans have internalized the clock to a degree which is beyond the comprehension of many cultures across the globe. So the frustration many Americans face when interacting with people from other cultures (domestic or overseas) is understandable. In today's rhetoric, building the bridge to the 21st century may turn out to be easier than building bridges with other cultures which may appear to be so alien, but are crucial partners for our interdependent life on this planet.
Contact: Syed & Joyce Zafar, Cultural Diversity Group Please Note: The full text of this article can be found at the S.I.E.T.A.R. (The Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research - Houston) website: http://www.sietarhouston.org/articles/articles2.htm#time |
