Running Out of Time: Filipino versus American Concept of Time

How does the American (Western) culture see the concept of time versus the Filipino?

“Wala pa ba sila?” (are they not there yet), you lament with a flushed smile at your own engagement party. Of course, you don’t expect your parents to RSVP for this event but you expected them to be on time. Your future in-laws have been there way before sunrise, or at least that's how it feels, compared to the que sera sera attitude of your parents.

Your parents texted you again, “Is your Auntie Baby there already?”

“Nandito na, everybody’s here”, you texted back, pounding on the keyboard, like the last child picked up in school, hoping to get a glimpse of the long-awaited vehicle.

Inside you feel haggard on your special day although not a tendril of your hair is misplaced. No one notices except you, the boiling blood in your body comes in waves.

When you finally spotted the long-awaited vehicle, your parents stepped out without a hurry. Mom saw you with your grimace face, all the while giving her the  look that usually only belongs to her. 

Oh, don’t look at me like that, anak. Let’s just have fun!

That’s what you were trying to do all the while!

Sheesh……

TIME CONCEPT: FLUID VERSUS SET

If you attend a party in the Philippines, except if it was held in a commercial center, invitations provide a start time but not (usually) the end time. 

There is a running joke called “ Filipino Time,” in which Filipinos constantly arrive past the start time to the irritation of other cultures especially those from the West. Many Islander cultures like those who live in the Caribbean are said to share a similar concept of time- fluidity.

The wet markets in the Philippines called palengke or talipapa for smaller ones within a barrio or village begin their stint somewhere 4 or 5 am in the morning, sometimes, even slightly earlier than 4am. The opening of these markets are a range of time rather than  strict office hours you may be accustomed to. If you arrive at 8am and the sellers feel that they’ve sold enough, they may close shop (except for highly commercial palengke). Filipinos don’t get upset that they didn’t get the freshest fish after 8am, or the tindero (seller) closed shop at 7:30am when his sign said 10am. Time is not set but rather fluid based on his cultural context.

This is not to say that Filipinos think they can run late for work. Schools in the Philippines implement a strict expectation for students to arrive on time. The most effective negative reinforcement for being late to school is feeling embarrassed. The Filipino child wants to be out of the spotlight for situations that will bring him shame. His collectivistic upbringing teaches and reinforces this value.

On the other hand, meetings in America are expected to start on time, usually an agenda is laid out so as not to waste people’s time. Facilitators might even apologize if they estimate they would go over time.

If you don’t pick up your children up in the day care centers or after school programs at the designated time, parents can incur fees by the hour, even, sometimes by the minute.The difference is not by the fees incurred but what may be considered culturally late.

My cello teacher teaches me 30 minutes each week and she doesn’t open the door for me to enter her studio at around my start time and just a few minutes for me to set up my cello. At about 20-25 minutes, she is wrapping up our session and off to the world to practice my cellist skills on my own. She budgets her time efficiently which I can relate to having a practice of my own as a psychotherapist. However, I notice that most of the time, I don’t mind running over a few minutes in my session. I stick to the time but I’m not a stickler for time. 

I propose that not one concept  is better than the other but rather which one, fluid or set is more appropriate and socially acceptable. On this note, I’m learning to keep my therapy sessions within the timeframe that clients expect. Going over time may mean providing exceptional care for me but could mean a client rushing over to another appointment because I was not such a stickler with time.

GEOGRAPHICAL SENSE OF TIME

There is a vast difference between being raised in an island, an archipelago, surrounded with waters and bounded by beautiful landscapes with two climate changes(dry & wet) compared to living in a land where four seasons are enjoyed, has varied topography, bounded by waters only around outlining states, and the third largest country in the world. 

Growing up in Manila, my weekends started off with knocking at a neighbor's home, 

“gising na po ba si… ( is my playmate awake now)?” I often eat almusal at a playmate’s house and then I’m off to la-la land with my bike along with a group of other lakwatsero. 

My mother often complains, “you have itchy feet!” 

Noon times in the Philippines are hot and humid

By this time, I’m expected to rush back home for lunch with a shrieking call of “ kain na!” Reckoning with the heat of the sun, islanders learn that noon time is slow time. Farmers might catch a shade under a Molave tree. Children wind down for siesta (afternoon nap), others muni-muni (dream escape) into a quiet space or escape into a tele-novela.

By 4:00pm, most children are allowed in the streets again. The sun has lowered down its gaze, giving relief from its tempered heat. The buzz in the market, the streets, kick up a second win.

The Philippines is an agricultural country. We are rice farmers throughout the year although the rainy season can devastate our harvests, our sustained, steady hand in sowing and reaping fruits of the earth is our lifeline.

Farmers are attuned to the rooster’s coockledoodledoo. He works early, steadfast, and leans on the sun to nudge him for rest, and, so he does. 

Since winter is not forthcoming, Filipinos need not preserve or can their foods to stock up their pantry, only for the joy of flavoring earth’s delicacies in intricate ways.

This year round agricultural culture, (whether you are a farmer or not) leans a view of the world and time. Time is fluid like the rising and the setting of the sun.

In the Western cultures, farmers need to preserve bounties of their harvests. Working on the land is not year round ( in most places) and therefore, one has to diligently keep up its harvests not just for this season but for the next. Having a set time for preparation, when to sow certain seeds, when to transplant outside, and when to harvest is a timeline crucial to be on time with. 

Spring and summer  are times to produce, otherwise, winters will leave offsprings empty-handed and the pantry barren. Of course, these are the olden days, and the period of producing and utmost efficiency is no longer bound by the coming of winter as it used to be. 

The West is a proud innovator of technology. Blue light from our devices trick our brains to work longer and harder. Days are much longer and nights shorter. What used to be a hustle only for most seasons became - all seasons. 

Time is gold,  as the old adage goes. Are the farmers in the motherland who place their straw hats on their faces as the amihan winds lull them to sleep just wasting their time? Their gold? Their fortune?

As a child, I spent my summers biking, visiting long lost relatives, doing excursions where my mother would drag me, and plenty of time to be bored. Then, I magically find something to tinker with to revive my arid imagination. I’m asked to fill my time with shenanigans  rather than time is filled up for me.

One of my observations in America is that children’s schedules are filled to the brink. Already stressed out parents, chauffeur their children to soccer one day, music the next and dance class on their short days. 

It’s as if bodies in the west are primed to be in constant productivity, or is it?

PEOPLE OF THE LAND VERSUS EXPLORERS

The Vikings and later on the explorers were an innovative group of people who dare to discover if there’s more than meets their eye and to explore unknown territories.

Have you seen the spectacular designs of the viking ships and how they can siege an island without much warning from the land dwellers? Their ships were meant to float even with two inches of water, most ships at that time had to stop a few meters away from the island and have to be pushed to shore giving island dwellers time to hide and run. The innovative ships of the vikings gave them advantage to besiege an island swiftly.

It took courage and an adventurous spirit to explore the oceans and the seas while being uncertain if indeed the world was flat. “Will I return back safely or succumb to the hungry mouths of the waters?” is an intriguing question an explorer has to reckon with himself.

The explorers were constantly on the move, or at least, their thoughts were. What should I do next? Where should I go? Who has the resources that I need? 

You know what came down in history is that many explorers thought they discovered islands that were already inhabited by people of that land

In contrast to the constant exploration of the explorers (some became the colonists), indigenous people honed their skill in being in the land rather than envisioning what’s out there. They’re enchanted by the spectacle of nature around them, worshiping the sun, calendaring with the moon and creating herbal concoctions with their makeshift mortar and pestle.

They have become part of nature as they maintain the ecosystem of earth’s biosphere. In listening to the pulse of the earth, they hibernate with the bears during winter (rest), futile soil is seen as fertile soil awaiting to be awakened by spring solstice. 

Explorers gained a concept of possession of land (own-ing) from their Christian theology of men having  dominion over the earth, a concept incomprehensible to the people of the land, be it, the Native Americans, the pre-colonial Filipinos, the Maoris, the Palestinians, who belong to the land rather than the thinking that-land belongs to me.

Indigenous land is not always peaceful. There were fighting, misunderstandings and even ritual practices that will make you cringe to your bones.

There is both a gift to the curiosity and adventurousness of the explorers and the attunement and naturalist wisdom that the people of the land are endowed with. 

How do we reconcile both in our modern world?

RECONCILING TEACHINGS FROM INDIGENOUS AND EXPLORERS

The concept of possessing or own-ing is a concept heavily subscribed to by the explorers. The belief that humans have dominion over the earth leads to owning time as if it can be controlled or the misuse of it can lead to loss (time is gold).

Indigenous cultures untouched by this Christian theology rely on the intelligent clock embedded in nature. For example, when there’s less sunlight coming through the pupils, it connotes that perhaps less activity is demanded from the individual. When the beam of the sun wakes the tired pupil, it jolts an individual to make his time productive before the sun sets again.

There is so much wisdom in this.

The explorers, without the greed to possess land already made fertile by indigenous peoples, had the incredible stamina for innovation and exploration. They are the ones who made scientific inquiry available so that women in the middle ages burnt at stake who believed to have caused a cow to die because of their spiteful spit, have other options for self-defense.

There is much wisdom in this.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The concept of time that Filipinos and Americans vary from the collective geographical positioning of each culture to the messaging about time, passed on from generations to generations.

The worldview of the Westerners seeing time as rigid, fixed and to be controlled may have its origin from the emerging story of the explorers. The latter were in a constant move for discovery, and who navigated the world as if they had dominion over other lands, seeking to possess them as if they were commodities to own. 

Time is of the essence for the westernized mind.

For the indigenous culture of the Filipinos who acted according to the cosmic whispers of the earth,  he saw time as fleeting, like a river that flows but its water recycled many folds to the water of yesterday to today

Time is but a gateway for more time. 

Time is energy so it's fluid and replaceable. Ok, lang, pana-panahon lang yan (it’s ok, everything has its own time), he explains to himself when he gets disappointed by a missed opportunity.

There is such a nugget of learnings from these two concepts of time. One is the restorative practice of rest and play and all has its time and season. On the other hand, the explorers enhanced the deliberate practice of productivity so that every moment of time is optimized.

You can choose to optimize your gifts in the seasons of your life that calls for your productivity and rest in the season of time where play and creativity beckons your spirit.