Engaging in Stereotypes
It seems that there’s an entire country on CP* time:
The entire South American nation has been ordered to break with centuries of tradition by attempting to be on time.
At a specified time, Peruvians will all set their watches to the same time – with sirens and church bells being sounded to remind the forgetful.
The campaign has been called “Peru on time”
…Peruvians have become known for their tardiness, with many routinely arriving more than an hour late for appointments.
On the BBC World Service this lateness has been called “Peruvian Time” and if they want to stress that a Peruvian person should really, truly arrive on time, they state that an appointment is in “English Time”.
This is so funny it generates its own jokes.
*CP Time = Colored People’s Time – the notion that black folks are always somewhat late to events, appointments, etc.
That’s hilarious! Thanks for posting. God Bless!
That is so funny!
My idea of being late is to arrive 15 MINUTES to the estimated time of arrival. To me, 30 minutes arrival before the scheduled appointment is late enough.
Anything later, and I am embarressed to the max.
Peru is not the tardiest of Latin American countries – and they do also return phone calls there, answer letters, and open businesses at announced hours. I’ve definitely seen more extreme cases – including my current U.S. state…
Just reading through your blog, and I gotta say I’m loving it. As an American Indian woman (as in actual Native person, I have more than a great grandma Cherokee princess in my family) I gotta say you are speaking things that I think all the time but am generally not as effective at articulating, so thank you, I will be reading your blog regularly.
But back to my point…there is also such a thing as “Indian Time”, as in around 15-30 minutes late for any event. CPT is definitely not the only “special time zone” out there. :^)
You know what, I do think that important events should start on time; and in the world we live in, being on time is important. But guess what-I personally feel that U.S. citizens, British, and other Western countries/people, particularly white people are always rushing,too busy, and too impatient because of the Western fast-paced lifestyle. This obsession with being on time has drawbacks like car accidents, stress related health problems, death due to stress, etc. To the extent that the economy,needs on time workers, fine-it makes sense. Still the same way being too late all the time has drawbacks, being too time conscious/excessive has drawbacks as well. But since Western and Westernized lifestyles are fast-paced people rarely hear the negative side of this cultural aspect. I know alot of groups have the equivalent of CP Time. Australian Koori Aborigines have “Aborigine” time, Melanesian Pacific Islanders have “Melanesian Time” and Africans have “about Time”(I think.)I read somewhere that pre-industrial whites were not sticklers for time either; which is partly why the first factories enforced set schedules. Heck, it is just funny to see an article about this phenomenon in a news publication.
i worked at panera bread and the clock was always 10 min slow so i used to get to work 10 min late everyday and close at normal time
hey thats not cool