What is their concept of time?

The Thai concept of time is one of the most annoying things I have ever had to experience! The people here are very laid back and carefree. The do not stress details or anything at all really, when stress comes their way the just freeze up and can’t function anymore. So, because details aren’t important, they are never on time for anything! They run things on their own time and don’t really care about others involved. They don’t communicate plans effectively either (which is very frustrating).

I will give an example of their time oriented ways. When I went to Bangkok to meet with Srunya a few weekends ago, we were supposed to leave at 7 but last minute my sister decided that we wouldn’t leave until 9 so we weren’t going to arrive until really late. When we finally arrived, she was not going to call Srunya to check anything, but I told her she should. Before we separated I asked her when I was supposed to meet her and she did not know, so I was kind of left to just guess as to when we were meeting. When we finally met up with her I asked her when we were supposed to take the van back to Petchaburi, she said that she didn’t know and that we would figure it out when we it was time. When we finally got back to Petchaburi I asked when my host parents were going to pick us up, she didn’t know, she said she would call them and they would come whenever they came. It was the most frustrating thing not having any definite plans or knowing what was going on!

Another example is at school. Classes never start on time and it is not important for students to be on time, because teachers are never on time. The teachers then hold the children for up to 15 minutes into the next class period so that they can finish their things, which puts the other teachers behind. Nothing ever runs on time here! If someone says to meet them at 12 you can usually wait till about 12:15 to head there and maybe they will be there. I have basically given up trying to figure out when things are going to happen and asking for plans because I know that they will not happen the way that they say or that they won’t know what the plan is.

I never realized how much Americans care about time before. I knew that we hate it when people are late and that we are always making definite plans with solid details, but I never really thought about it. We are very detail oriented people because causes a lot of stress in our lives, whereas here they don’t do stress so they are a lot more laid back.

In this case, I guess I will just have to say “It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s just different!”