I consider myself very punctual and get a little bit upset when I have to wait. Ever since I know of myself, my parents taught me the importance of being "on time". For example, if a meeting starts at 3pm, I would always come to the meeting at least 5 minutes earlier. I follow the rule "Better early than late!" When I was in Turkey, I was very surprised how Turkish people are so relaxed and laid back. Simply, they do not pay too much attention to whether they are going to be late for an event or not. I remember when I was at my friend's house in Turkey, we called over some friends to come for dinner at 6pm. When it was around 5.30pm I asked my friend when are we going to prepare dinner because our friends are coming in only half an hour and we basically did not prepare any food. My friend told me not to worry, and that we have enough time because even though our friends were invited to come over at 6pm they were not going to come until 7pm. And she was correct! Our friends came around 7:30pm! They were late for about an hour and a half I was even more convinced about this Turkish culture when I met some other Turkish people at the University of Richmond. I can say that majority of Turkish people that I know and am friends with are always late, no matter whether it is for a meeting, class or an event. All in all, I can only say that they are very relaxed and laid back and they find it normal to be late. This is very interesting and in a way similar to my country's culture (I am an exception to this rule) where most people are always late. For example, a Bosnian friend of mine who lives in Richmond got married last year. She had two types of wedding invitations. One type of invitations was only for Bosnian where it said that the wedding starts at 5pm, and the other type of invitations was for Americans which indicated that the wedding starts at 6pm. They knew that Bosnian will take 5pm as if it was 6pm and will be at least an hour late. However, Americans are generally very punctual and therefore the correct time of the wedding was written on the invitation. When I told this to my Turkish friend, she told me that a similar situation happened when her cousin was organizing a birthday party, and the party started at noon, but he sent out the invitations to his Turkish friends indicating that the party starts at 11am.
Another interesting fact that I learned about Turkish culture and its people is that time actually does not mean much to them. For example, when Turkish people take a coffee break, which would take us 5-10 minutes, such breaks last at least 45 minutes to them. I talked about this with my language partner and several more Turkish people that I know, and they all said that majority of Turks are like that. When they go for a coffee or Turkish tea, they usually stay so long that it basically should not be considered a coffee break but a lunch break.
We read an article, in Professor Nuray's class, that there are some cultures, such as Turkey, in which people think that so much time is given to everybody and that people do not have to rush with anything because they have so much time, while other cultures believe that time is limited and should not be wasted. It just depends on culture as well as on individuals how they perceive time and what their attitude towards time is. Speaking in general, I can definitely say that Turkish people tend to be more relaxed when it comes to meeting deadlines, coming to an event at time, and being on time. I say this based on my experience, conversation with Turkish people and research I have done regarding this topic.
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