8062: Re: 8058: RE: 8007: RE: 8004: Re: 8001: In re: Manners (fwd) - About Haitian time and US time (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Senou <senou@yahoo.com>

(As she put it, "well, I had to say 8:30 to allow for
the late ones to get there.. so that we could start by
09:00 or so!"  See? It's part of our culture.. & I
don't think it'll ever change!)
Dear writer, you are right on target except when you
mention culture. Now, what is culture? According to G.
Hofsted "culture is the collective programming of the
mind which distinguishes the members of one category
of people from another" 
The definition of Kroeber and Klu ckhohn seems more
appropriate they said "Culture consists of patterns,
explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired
and transmitted by symbols, constituting the
distinctive achievements of human groups, including
their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of
culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically
derived and selected) ideas and specially their
attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand,
be considered as products of action, and on the other
as conditioning elements of further action." 
Common, if it is cultural therefore Haitians should
never start their work on time, which is not true.
Employers everywhere praise the hard working Haitians
men and women. By the way, I stick with the time. I'm
not trying to make a case about the time issue and I'm
not trying to defend many irresponsible people who
make us look bad in that particular area. I use to
live in Miami and always attend Manno Charlemagne's
concert. This singer had a habit to start on time,
guess what by 7 PM the room was pack. I understand
people have tendency to generalize, but in doing so;
please do not rely only on festivity. I see some
improvement in the time issue, I had attended many
Haitian events in Atlanta, I cannot complain about the
time. But it is something that we Haitians have to
work out to change that image. How we can do it? If
you set your event for a particular time, if you don't
start one time, (I will leave quietly without saying a
word) I will not attend your next event. Period. Stays
home watch TV, play game or going around. Do not
reinforce a bad habit. It won't take long to see an
improvement.

Senou@yahoo.com