We Filipinos have many, many wonderful traits and habits that we can be truly proud of. This includes patience, good humor, hospitality, respect for elders, and loyalty. We are also a people who have very close family ties, and most of us are willing to go to great lengths and make extreme sacrifices for the ones we love.
But there are also traits and habits that may be acceptable and even amusing to us, but that people of other cultures may find annoying. One of these is what we commonly call “Filipino time”. At its simplest, this usually means that many of us do not arrive to appointments on time, or that we do not start meetings or festivities on time because we wait and make adjustments for those who arrive late. Taken further, this could mean people not committing to a certain timeframe or deadline, holding on to the principle that something “will get done when it gets done” or that someone “will get there when he/she gets there”.
I first noticed this at a very young age, when my grandma would give party invitations for 6:30 pm, fully expecting that majority of the attendees will start arriving at 7:00 pm. We did this in school as well, giving leeway for people to come late for gatherings and meetings. I am ashamed to admit that I even carried this to my earlier days at work, either coming late myself, or waiting for people to arrive before starting meetings, even to the extent of not saying anything as some of them drift into the room 15, 20, or even 30 minutes late. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying that all Filipinos do this, just that it’s such a widespread practice that we have even given it a name, that is, “Filipino time”.
Now we can choose to study, dissect, and even defend this habit philosophically. We can say that time is relative, and time-related habits, like eating habits, are different culturally. We can say that Filipinos have a different concept of time (or the passing of time) because we live in a laid-back, tropical, Oriental archipelago whose rhythm of life is different from that of the West. We can say that nature has “wired” us to be this way, because for centuries we never relied on (or were never slaves to) the “law of the clock” - the division of day and night into hours and minutes. We can argue that we have, for ages, gone with the ebb and flow of nature - where work started at dawn and ended at dusk. Yes, we can do that. But truth is, we also need to admit that the constant indiscriminate practice of “Filipino time” has resulted in a lot of wasted time, in irritation, misunderstandings, and even broken relationships. Not to mention projects getting delayed and money going down the drain.
When I came to the U.S., I had to adjust my habits and learned to value punctuality. I learned quickly that when someone said that a meeting will start at 8am, then it WILL start at 8am, regardless of how many people are late (though very few usually are). I’m glad to say that many of my Filipino co-workers here were my examples for this good habit, as they were some of the most prompt and punctual people I’ve worked with. Some of them even came in as early as thirty minutes before work or meetings.
Because of this, I began to think that this sense of punctuality was now widespread among Pinoys here - a sign of another good trait we have, that of flexibility. This is probably why a recent conversation with a mananahi in our area, which started innocently enough, caught me totally off-guard. It could be that because I got so used to giving and receiving specific information and working within a well-defined, concrete timeframe that I almost lost my patience during the conversation (and I’m usually a patient person).
Here, my friends, is the gist of the conversation, which I’ve translated to English for brevity. The humor of the situation does not escape me (it sounds like a conversation in a comic strip), but I think there’s an important lesson here for me, and maybe for others as well.
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Me: Manang**, do you alter pants?
Manang: Yes.
Me: How long does it take to get done?
Manang: Oh, very quickly.
Me: About how many days?
Manang: Not very long.
Me: About a week?
Manang: Oh, less than a week.
Me: Five days?
Manang: Maybe about three days.
Me: Ok, we’ll just come back and bring the pants this Saturday. Are you open Saturdays?
Manang: Yes.
Me: What time do you open?
Manang: In the morning.
Me: What time in the morning?
Manang: Before lunch.
Me: (starting to get exasperated) Uh, what time exactly? Nine a.m.? Ten a.m.? Eleven a.m.?
Manang: Around ten.
Me: What time do you close?
Manang: Oh, we close early on Saturdays.
Me: What time?
Manang: Around two p.m.
Me: So you’ll be open this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.?
Manang: Yes, around that time.
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Hay naku. Needless to say, we never went back to her shop again.
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*Mananahi: A locally-based seamstress-entrepreneur, operating out of a small shop or storefront. Very common in the Philippines, quite rare in our area
**Manang: A Filipino term of respect of an older woman
Posted under Navel-Gazing
