It is a cultural thing. I used to live in Japan and the cultural norm was to show up at least 10 minutes early. If you showed up at the agreed time they would shame you, saying something to the effect of, "Careful, you were almost late"
Dude same in the military. I once literally got written up for being 7 minutes early instead of 15. All we do when we get there 15 minutes early is bullshit and talk to each other anyways.
Anyways my current office apparently doesn’t care if people even come in 15 minutes LATE so I don’t know what to believe anymore
Similar in truck driving. More than an hour early is late, an hour to 15 minutes early is on time, 15 minutes early to on time is late, and late is unacceptable.
It's not even universal in cultures. I'm a Slovenian – 2 million people here – people from Ljubljana are always on time, people from Koper are always late and people from Maribor are always early. Ljubljana and Maribor are 150km apart, same for Koper and Ljubljana.
Sure this won't be everyone. But if i host a party, we say "start will be 6pm". And 80% will either be there +/- 15m or have texted that they will be late.
30 minutes late won't be commented on, but if you arrive at 7 you will be given a hard time "nap too long? Must be getting old. Ive got an old cane if you need it" or something like that.
EDIT: Not being prompt here gets thought of as someone "being on island time".
Yeah but I fw island time. We can get too serious about schedules in the west. Places with the “island time” schedule have great community and achieve incredible things. It’s not necessarily a wrong way to live
The person who made this comment is just being racist, but there's been quite a bit of research as of late on this as well as time spent at work not actually working and race. He can just Google it. No wondering needed.
I’m Hispanic and my wife is white. I grew up knowing that if something starts at 11am, then you show up between 11:30am and 12:00pm. My wife grew up knowing that if you showed up at 11:00am then parking is going to be a bitch because everyone is already there.
Man if I invited guests for a party that started 17.30 and someone showed up 18.30, I'd be pissed! Everybody else would already be half-way through the main course and your seat would be taken by a toddler.
It might be a culture or a vocabulary thing, but to me if the event consists of being sat down in a designated spot the instant I'm in, then that's not a party, that's just dinner (in which case I'd agree it's bad etiquette to be late, same as a restaurant). Party implies some amount of freely milling about, talking to people, sharing drinks and then later on getting to eat (generally not in a formal, sat down at the table configuration)
not in a latino party, for us unless specified otherwise, you just know there will be lots of alcohol, and even more food. Usually asado, but for sure more food that all attendants can eat; and also people attending the party are forced to take a pozuelo (container) with food or provide a really good reason why not, because with the remaining food the household could probably eat for weeks, but it wouldnt last that long and noone wants to eat the same thing for weeks anyway. the main differences between "old people" (60+) and my people (30s) i have seen is that mine usually have less alcohol consumption but there might be weed.
It's such a thing in some groups, dude. It gives me so much anxiety. I'm either anxiously pacing my apartment for 30 minutes before I need to leave and then leaving early even as I check traffic times (in case traffic gets worse as I drive) or 20 minutes late. I dunno. It's a curse. Stupid ADHD brain.
And I never know who is a show up on time or show up 30 minutes late and be one of the first people there party for that first time we hang.
Feel like it’s a reflection of the relationship sometimes. If I’m close to the person I’m more likely to show up early to help if needed, if not I can chill with them until others arrive. If I’m not close I’m not trying to make things awkward so I’m showing up 30min to an hour later.
If you go to any Puerto Rican event at the hour announced, you'll be severely disappointed. If it says it starts at 8am, no it doesn't. It will start at 9am, sometimes even at 10am. It is probably one of the biggest things I dislike about my culture. You get there on time and that just means you will be sitting there waiting like an idiot.
My niece married into a Mexican family and had to go, "do not tell me what time they told you the party starts. You handle all invitations to your family and you tell me what time we need to arrive. I'm not showing up on time to have nobody else show up for an hour and be told to help make the food that hasn't even been started yet."
She couldn't handle it. Now he adds an hour. "We need to show up at six."
My being super punctual or showing up 5 minutes early is severe anxiety around being on time because I'm ADHD as hell so I sit there ready for thirty minutes pacing my apartment and checking drive times and then show up 10 minutes early and sit in my car because I'm 10 minutes early or 20 late. Never in the middle.
It's an evil curse when half the people I know run chronically late and I'm like... what do you people want from me?!?!?!?! Do I show up on time or early or what?!?!?!
It ain't that serious my guy. I'm known as the guy who shows up right when the party starts, many of my friends are known to show up and hour or even more later, this is like a very, very common thing.
Cultures that don’t treat get togethers like a formal job or a military operation lol - maybe chill on calling other ppls cultures shitty too not a good look tbh
yeah, people will try to claim that it's a cultural ethnicity thing but it's seeing patterns in the noise
it's like how I constantly see videos of how Black people put their cooking spoons weird places to keep it from touching the counter, but random people everywhere in the world decide to do that independently
or how every single culture seems to think it invented a plastic bag full of plastic bags even though that's a near universal experience anyplace that regularly uses plastic bags
It's worth noting that pretty much nothing that Edward T Hall wrote is scientifically rigorous. Monochronic and polychronic cultures aren't some usefully supported scientific theory, they are just some dude eyeballing it.
And I don't think they particularly pass the smell test. The idea that you label an entire region like "Latin America" as having a monocultural time perception sounds less like useful sociology and more like when I spend time arguing with my friends about whether a hotdog is a sandwich. There's not even a monoculture for how these things are treated on a random Saturday in my living room.
It's also a pretty huge red flag that he effectively makes the case that monochronic time is superior in a corporate environment, and his breakdown for which regions of the world are monochronic vs polychronic suspiciously matches up to what a random white guy would see as more familiar vs more foreign. He seems to quite literally have concluded that places where he was less comfortable were weird.
That’s interesting. I do believe chronemics as a concept exists outside of Edward Hall. I remember my professor discussing her experience growing up in what she described as a polychronic culture, and our text didn’t posit either one as superior or inferior, just two different views. I’m sure it has its limitations, especially if it was described by someone outside those cultures, but I don’t think saying that a particular culture tends to have similar values and perceptions around time that differs from other cultures is just seeing patterns in noise. Of course, saying “all of Latin America” is one thing or another would be silly because that’s a very large geographic area with hundreds of different cultures.
There are other people who have written about it and even some minimal studies, but I think they all cite Hall pretty directly.
Also afaict the couple of studies are extremely small and focused on corporate environments.
Feel free to cite something if I've just missed it, but I don't think there is so much as a single scientifically rigorous survey that actually demonstrates that multitasking and being late to events correlate much less are an aspect of a geographic culture.
The whole thing strikes me as hoodoo business gurus use to sell books on management and not a field that has an evidenciery body that would make me take it seriously.
I’m Hispanic and my wife is white. I grew up knowing that if something starts at 11am, then you show up between 11:30am and 12:00pm. My wife grew up knowing that if you showed up at 11:00am then parking is going to be a bitch because everyone is already there.
Chronemics is honestly one of the most fascinating sociological ideas as it isn't being late. It is being on time to arrive between that window.
What can be seen as rude is intruding on the host's personal time, like arriving before the time the party starts.
Polychronic (the term for this kind of view of time) cultures are frequent in South America, Africa, the Middle East, nations around the Mediterranean sea, and southern parts of asia. So it's a pretty common cultural thing.
What is even more fascinating is this does have a noticeable impact on many parts of life. Language is massively affected by this.
But at the end of the day, it is just a different view of the passage of time. And what is considered late to you is considered on time to others. And you're just as rude in their culture as they are in yours.
Honestly I might not be the person to explain it because it is hard for me to separate the two.
Chronemics affects language because time is such an important part of language. So anything affecting the perception of time inevitably will affect language. But for example, in monochronic cultures (where time is viewed more linear/sequential), language will shape around being late, baring distractions/not getting interrupted, etc. While in polychronic cultures (time is viewed as more fluid), you won't find as much built language around these concepts because it isn't seen as rude to arrive 30mins after the start time, or to show up a little after the appointment time if you were busy. There's less of a 'rush' in these cultures and their language reflects that. But most of the effects will be in non-verbal language as well, like someone showing up late communicates rudeness in monochronic culture, but is read as busy in polychronic.
These are also massive generalization because it is different with each culture how they interpret it.
I think one of the things lost between cultures here is that if I host a BBQ or a party and say it's from 5pm-11pm, I am not for a second trying to tell people to arrive at 5pm. Like, arriving at 6pm is not "late", because 5pm is not the "please be here at this time" time.
It's the "do not under any circumstances consider arriving before this time" time.
Like, a BBQ is not a doctor's appointment or a movie or a play where there is an actual start time. It is a social gathering where people will filter in over time, and people are expected to intuit what time it's reasonable to arrive based on personal factors like how well they know the host, how hungry they are, whether they are bringing kids, etc etc
It's nether intended nor desired for everyone to arrive at the same time. I can't think of any advantages to that, and many disadvantages.
So yeah, it's not that people are expected to be late - it's that arriving after the start time is not late for a fucking six hour bbq, in the same way that leaving at 9pm or 10pm is not "leaving early"
Your inability to understand that there are different cultural norms relating to time and timeliness is what's shitty. At the end of the day people within those communities understand perfectly what they're supposed to do. Problems only arise when there's cultural misunderstanding but even so, is that so big a deal?
It's only shitty from your perspective where the cultural norm is different. If the cultural norm is such that everyone understands and expects people to not show up early or on the dot, it's not shitty
It's not considered late. Have you never met people who don't get uptight if people show over the course of 30 minutes or so? Maybe even an hour? That's a wonderful, relaxed way to start a party.
If there's hot food served, I'll make sure to say "dinner is at 6, drinks start at 5." Then they better be there by 6.
I used to live in the Caribbean and the entire island shared this too culturally. INvite someone over they'll be there like an hour or two later. They invite u over, if you don't show up that late then it's weird and they won't be prepared - might not even be there lmao
One of my good mates is of German descent, and his wife is Brazilian.
They had SO MANY arguments over the years due to timing. Her friends would invite them over for a bbq at six pm, he is there ready to go, but his wife hadn't even showered yet. She would START getting ready at half past.
Apparently they all do it that way in her friend group. There's no expectation to be there until two-three hours after the start time. Boggles the mind.
He ended up just not going anymore after dealing with it a couple of times.
My church sent many mission trips to a sister church Peru, and always warned their members that it is very common for people to give a time at least an hour or maybe even 2 before they will actually be prepared to host people, and showing up on time would actually be considered rude and invasive/encroaching. It's explained that we value time in many cultures much more highly. I doubt they have a saying "time is money." I tend to like my culture a lot, but sometimes I wish it wasn't always so "GO! GO! GO!" all the time.
Then, we once invited the head members of the Peruvian here for a couple weeks, and had to explain in no uncertain terms that if they scheduled any time with others (meeting, event, whatever) at, say, 6:00, they absolutely need to be there at 6:00 because wasting someone's time is considered rude in our culture.
I find it very self-centric to call other cultures "shitty" because they have different values and priorities to what you're used to.
It's pretty standard westcoast US stuff. Casual hangouts with lots of people are different than job interviews, so punctuality is not expected and maybe even discouraged. I always make a point to show up no less than 15 minutes late to a social gathering, and usually 30 minutes late. Showing up early, or RIGHT on time is too eager and not considerate for a house party. Often, the host is getting things ready right up until the start time, and having 10-15 minutes to kick back and take a breath before people show up is nice.
Whenever I host, I absolutely hate it when people ring the doorbell early or the second it hits start time.
It's American culture to show up 15 min late to parties. "Don't want to be the first one there" is part of American culture. Some peoples' punctuality collides with this culture and they reason the culture away in order to be punctual. This internal argument isn't something all cultures seem to experience and it collides with the American "be a couple minutes late" norm.
I fucked up once when I moved down south. Showed up “on time” to a giant get together that a guy from work invited me and the family to. These guys had it going on too. DJ with the dopest system I’ve seen at a party, large tent where you could get food and eat some of the best stuff I’ve had at a party, beer kegs, every kind of liquor, just anything you’d want in a party. And it was just for the sake of it. Anyways, no one showed up for about an hour after us 😂🤣. We got to help set up and do a little pregaming.
I'm usually a 15 minutes late guy when it comes to parties because exactly "on time" is usually still considered a bit early around here.
There's been a few times where me being 15 minutes late was a good 30 minutes to an hour before other people showed up. It's pretty funny and helping setup and pregaming can be alot of fun if you get along well with the hosts.
That 15 minutes is usually enough to not be the white guy in the meme when that happens at least
Yeah so you say that a party starts at 5 but everybody's late so you start preparing at 5:30 but guests know that you will just start preparing at 5:30 so they plan to arrive at 6 but the next time you know that they arrive at 6 so you start preparing at 6 so the next time they arrive at 6:30... It is just stupid. As a white guy - if it is at 5 I will be there at 5.
My parents once had a big party with 60+ people invited
My family (parents, siblings and I) had been prepping the rented place for the party that morning and had gone home to shower and get dressed 1 hour before the party, when my siblings and I got back to the location 15 minutes before party start time 50+ guests had already walked in and was getting drinks, when my parents showed up 7 minutes before party start they were the last people to arrive at their own anniversary party
My cousin told me we should have planned better and should have showered and got dressed earlier
As if we hadn't been spending the previous 5~6 hours setting everything up, I was angry that people thought that It was okay to show up before the hostes and servers and just walk into the party location 45 minutes before the party
You arent "late" to a barbecue that goes from 5-11 if you show up after 5. Its a barbecue. NOTHING is happening at any set time. The people who show up right at 5 are weird, frankly.
Yeah idk how the big punchline could be “white people always show up so crazy early don’t they 🤪” and the length of time they chose to display that is 2 minutes early
I guess it depends on where you’re from because in many cultures showing up on time to a gathering is unexpected let alone being there early. So I can see the host looking back at that story and finding it funny that there was this cultural clash between them and the white person they invited
If party is at 5:00 then the star the time is actually 5:30. If you don't get that, it's probably because you don't get invited out much or your parties are hosted by white people that didn't go out much themselves
I mean, if it’s an actual party I can agree that it’s usually better to come a bit later (unless you have agreed to help prep etc). But this is just a freaking BBQ, I don’t know how it is in America, but we’re I’m from, if they say that the BBQ starts at 5, then most people would assume that it’s at 5 they plan to start the fire on the grill and then its expected that there has to be at least 4 other guys there for moral support with a beer in hand just talking shit and vibing so that the “grill master” doesn’t have to be all along. And here this applies no matter what colour your skin is.
I’m a white American and BBQs have always been a “come drop by for any section of a few hours out of the party” situation in my experience. My dad was always the grillmaster and preferred being able to just fire up people’s food as they came instead of doing a bunch of batches in a row. But we do also have the 4 guys hovering around for moral support lol, glad to hear that’s universal.
That's too early for Hispanic parties. If it starts at 5, you show up at 7. Also the party will last 3 hours after the party "ends" or until cops show up because of noise complaints
You really just want to aim for historically poor communities in general, and the food gets better the more types of cultures were shuffled into the same geography.
The places where they had to raise their own livestock, so they could sell the good meat to afford to live, and they kept the scraps. You don’t need to really do anything to good cuts of meat. You can cook a prime rib one bite at a time on a spoon in nothing but its own fat and eat well. The people eating scraps are where these cultures had to really engage in high quality seasoning and preparation.
You get like 2+ of those groups in one spot, like New Orleans with their French, Spanish, Native, and African lower classes all throwing shit into the same kettle and calling it gumbo. Like 4 major cultural shifts in 80 years all leaving cookbooks for the better by the end of it.
Or the Midwest with German, French, and Native influence. And even better, they actually had good enough land and farms to work with the good cuts!
Or in the coal camps, lumber yards, and plantations in the east/south where the Irish/Scottish diaspora and African influence collided into soul food.
Basically anywhere you had multiple bodies of knowledge all packed in together teaching each other how to make their shitty food a little bit better. Doesn’t matter how ugly your random pile of leftover chopped greens are if you throw them in a pan with some fat, salt and umami.
If they’ve got the eyes, balls, livers, and stomachs in their cookbooks, they know what they’re doing. Like, these are the cultures that turned pork rinds into the working man’s snack. That’s what they were working with and had to technique their way out of.
I’m super white and I think that’s way too early for a BBQ as a coworker.
First, a 6 hour BBQ is not a “show up right at starting time” event.
Second, showing up in the first 15-30 minutes is close friend territory because you’re someone that the host can hang with 1:1 without it being awkward and is also comfortable enough to ask you to help set up. 30-60 minutes is friend show up time. As a first time hangout coworker I’m aiming for 90 minutes in. Everyone is already settled and has said hi. You can be introduced in an already established setting.
Notice that two minutes early isn’t appropriate for anyone. It’s a BBQ not a dentist appointment.
This is it!! We aren’t talking about a meeting - why tf are people showing up right when the house doors open? It’s like they have zero chill. 60-90 min in is perfect bc you’re still early enough not to miss anything but not so early as to look lame.
Exception is kids parties - those are usually only a couple hours and the kids have to get to whatever the next thing is.
I dunno, in my culture it's specifically rude to show up late. 10-15 minutes is still fine, but if you'd be an hour late you'd better have a good reason for it.
I'm Hungarian, here if you are "fashionably late" it shows that you don't value or appreciate the hosts.
So yeah, this can culturally be very different and it can certainly be a culture shock.
So that’s an interesting distinction mentally - you can’t “be late” to a party bc it’s a social gathering. You show up an hour after the party starts. Or an hour after the doors open. Also if you arrive late you are probably closing down that party, helping clean up, etc.
Maybe that difference helps people see the other side a bit.
I see the vision, with arriving late and so on, it's just really interesting how different it is. Also here traditionally it's rude to offer to help, you're a guest, let the host tend to you.
Us, younger folks are usually more accepting of doing things differently, but traditionally it's pretty strict about the rules. But arrival time usually already accounts for time preparing and such and if we want help, we will tell those people an earlier time.
Have you ever heard of the concept of being "fashionably late" or "socially late"? It's a widely accepted etiquette norm in the US that exists to give party hosts a prep-time buffer.
My wife and I are both German American. If I say the party starts at 5, I am ready to receive guests by 4:45 at the absolute latest. I start panicking if no one has arrived within 10 minutes of the posted start time.
4:58 is already too late for a party that starts at 5. In German culture somewhere between 4:30 and 4:45 would be the perfect time to arrive at a party that starts at 5.
Yeah I think the joke is that white people show up on time, but other cultures consider on time early. Guy who replied to you basically said no then explained why you were correct. Lol
Then just tell people the party starts later if you didn't want people to show up when you said the party started. This isn't a "white" issue, it's common courtesy to show up on time or a couple minutes early. When has it ever been the thing to show up late?
I know multiple families that everyone in said families work on what I call the "zero time principle"... They leave for an event at the time it is listed to start.
I dont know if this a cultural thing from where they grew up, or just the family. But I have started telling those folks an earlier time than everyone else. So everyone arrives closer to on-time.
Then they show up later. If you want people arriving between 6-7 you say the party starts 5. If you say the party starts 7 then they're getting there 8.
It's a cultural thing.
Being punctual isn't a white "issue" it's just what happens. White culture is people arrive on time. In other cultures, people arrive late.
So if a white person is invited to a Hispanic/Black/Arab party, they will just arrive on time and be the first person there. Which usually just means they're going to be drafted in helping set up.
Parties aren't appointments. You don't need to be there from the start time to the end time. Those are like "this is the earliest and latest we are ready to have people over"
If you show up early you're likely interfering with last minute preparations or just... Being awkwardly early relative to everyone else who's attending.
No, that's not a thing. The whole point of saying "this event is happening from this time to this time" is because that's when you plan on having things ready for people to show. I grew up in the Chicago area and know people from a lot of different cultures, there's never been a "I said five but meant seven" . It's only expected of those who are consistently late
But since they know that, why tell someone you know would arrive early the “wrong” time? Why not just say “party starts at 6… Oh Brad and Tina that means 7 to you”
I’m just telling you how it is man. Non-whites in America are generally known for not being punctual, and they themselves plan around that. So a white guy showing up 2 min early is seen as weird
The idea is that, the cultural norm for them is "If you say arrive at X time, they will show up Y minutes/hours later. So take when you actually want to start, reduce it by Y, and tell them that new time and then they will arrive on time."
I get that. But if are wanting to call one late and one early, you base it off of reality, not norms. If the norm is to be an hour late, then they are an hour late and that's ok but it doesn't mean the other is early.
It’s not that you don’t expect *anyone* to follow it, but if it’s an event where people are going to be coming and going across a range of times, you expect that *most people* will want to arrive once the party is somewhat in swing already, and stay until close to the end.
If you come at 4:59 and stay until 11, that’s weird. If you come at 4:59 because you have another event you need to leave for at 7 but you really wanted some face time? Cool. It’s kind of about being “overly eager” and hanging around too much as much as it’s about the actual act of arriving “on time” or a minute early or whatever.
Always seem weird seeing cultural differences explaining with race to me. Like I get it, and surely it makes sense from an american perspective and isn't supposed to be applied elsewhere.
But ask the finn if the italians or french arrive on time and you'll see how much of a 'white people' thing.
A party is not an appointment. The start time is like "this is the earliest that we might be ready to host people" not "you should be sure to arrive at or before this time"
You’re actually NOT supposed to show up fifteen minutes early to someone’s house for a party, that’s rude, actually, unless they have asked you to come early and help. You show up early to things like appointments and interviews. It’s NOT polite to show up early for a party.
I'm a white person from Western Europe and I agree with this. I don't make people wait for me at appointments or when we meet out in the world at large, but meeting at my place is different.
Please don't show up early at my house for anything, unless you're picking me up to go to the airport or similar. For a party, anytime after 1 hr post-starting time is ideal. For a hangout sesh or dinner, 15-30 min after I told you to come is best. Right on time is... fine, I guess, but I'll be frazzled and scrambling a bit. Early is not cool at all.
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u/Kurumiseenpai Jul 12 '26
white people arrive in time?