A Sense of Time in Mexico

Once we'd decided to move to Mexico, Reed and I began reading everything we could get our hands on about Mexico, including a delightful book titled On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel de Allende. Written by U.S. expat Tony Cohan, it is a readable, affectionate account of the cultural adventures encountered by Tony and his wife as they slowly made the transition from life as busy professionals in Los Angeles to full-timers in Mexico.

As I began this post, the title On Mexican Time quickly came to mind. Mañana must be nearly a universal idea these days. At the least, it conveys the notion that Mexicans have a concept of time a bit different from that held by most folks in the U.S. But what is it exactly?

I was reminded of this when we had to replace the vertical blinds in our bedroom. The strong winds that come up in the afternoon had broken several of the slats, which meant we had a gaping hole about 18" wide. But finding someone to replace them seemed a 'mission impossible' until Victor, our trusted vigilancia (building guard and informal majo domo), introduced us to Antonio, the albañil (master tradesman) who does a lot of work in our building. We began to believe that new blinds might be in our near future.

Antonio arrived promptly the same day to measure the window, and he told us he'd return on Friday at noon with the sample book so we could make our selection. The story gets a little complicated here, so before I go on, bear with me while we take a small detour. It'll be worth it, I promise.

Time Viewed in Mexico

Twenty years ago I did a two-year project with Pemex (Mexican oil company). One of my co-consultants recommended the little book Mexican Etiquette and Ethics: Anticipating and Understanding Mexican Social and Business Behavior (1996). I just discovered that the book has been lightly updated, and it remains remarkably useful. Where it seems outmoded, we ask ourselves, Does this still apply today? If not, we use the text as a jumping off point for understanding our own experience.

One section, titled Hora Mexicana / Dealing with Polychronic People, draws on the work of social scientist Edward T. Hall, who identified two kinds of time values that operate in different cultures:

• Monochronic, or one-thing-at-a-time time, which includes most people in Anglo-European cultures, including most people in the United States; and
• Polychronic, or many-things-at-a-time time, which includes most Asians, Mexicans and most other Hispanics.

Monochronic people (M-people) see time (M-time) as moving constantly forward in a straight line. Compulsively measuring time in tiny segments to keep track of its passing, they schedule things to happen sequentially—one at a time in specific time frames, and they tend to be obsessed with things happening "on time". M-people find any deviation in their precisely structured use of time to be very upsetting. Sound familiar?

Polychronic people (P-people) have a much more amorphous view of time. When we visited Teotihuacan, I wrote about the Mesoamerican view of space and time. Teotihuacan's first god-kings and city planners designed Teotihuacan to illustrate their vision of the cosmos. Above all, the Mesoamerican view is a cyclic view of time represented by the symbol ollin, the Life-Force that animates all life.

Ollín - Intertwining Ribbons represent the Life-Force that neither begins nor ends.

P-people, then, have a far more fluid, even seasonal sense of time. By seasonal I mean a morning, a mid-day, afternoon and evening recognized more as seasons than as specific hours, let alone minutes. Even days and nights are somewhat seasonal, or fluid. Far more open-ended than precisely segmented into strict minutes and hours, or even days and weeks, seasons neither start nor stop 'on the dot'. Instead, they seem to flow into each other. Agrarian societies all over the world, operate on P-time.

P-people routinely schedule—or allow—many things to occur at the same time. They are at ease juggling things around so that eventually all of them—or, at least, some of them—get done. They don't think twice about scheduling more than one appointment at the same time, accepting more than one work assignment that is "supposed" to be done in the same time frame, or intermittently doing two or three things during the same time period.

I wish I could remember where I came across this definition of mañana, but it is very useful. When a person on P-time agrees to do something mañana, it doesn't necessarily mean in twenty-four hours. It means that the task now has a place on the doer's list of commitments, and it will get done...when it more-or-less rises to the top of the list, or when it seems to be the next natural thing to do.

Maybe now's the time to mention that one of Mexico's many cultural divides is between the global, neoliberal business sector and the rest of Mexico. A relatively latecomer to the world scene, M-time arrived with industrialization, which demands it. As key sectors of Mexico become increasingly global, more and more Mexicans are becoming accustomed to M-time. Many here in Mexico City even speak of being puntual, punctual.

Back to the Vertical Blinds

But Reed and I don't live in modern Mexico and, most assuredly, neither does Antonio. So we weren't surprised when he didn't show up at the agreed-upon time. Feeling ourselves to be 'old Mexico hands', we were cool for the first several days, figuring that he'd show up in good time. Nothing.

Then one day as I passed through the Lobby, and there he was! Victor was on duty, so we had a lighthearted exchange around "What happened?"  I told Antonio that I thought he wasn't interested in doing the work. The genuinely shocked look on his face told me that he did want the work, which reassured me enormously.

He hung his head in mock guilt and agreed to come on the following Monday at noon, but Monday noon came and went with no sign of Antonio. Maybe now's the time to mention another trait we've noticed: it seems to be very difficult for Mexican tradespeople to tell us that they either don't have or can't do something.

Three weeks had now passed, and I'd given up when I again came across Antonio in the Lobby. This time he told me that the salesman had brought the sample, but he had to pay for it and he didn't have the money.

"But now I have it," he added, and we made yet another appointment.

This time I decided to pull out the stops—well, actually, I pulled out the only stop I know: suffering. I told him that so many of the slats have broken that now when our upstairs neighbor across the air-shaft leaves a light on in the bathroom, it shines right on my face so I can't sleep:

"Estoy sufriendo, Antonio; es muy dificil"—"I'm suffering, Antonio; it's very difficult". 

I was appealing to Antonio's chivalry and his sense of honor toward women. Maybe my tactic worked, because this time he arrived at the appointed hour with sample book in hand. We chose the color and made an appointment for him to install the blinds on the following Saturday at noon.

Now here's the fun part of P-time. I next chanced upon Antonio on Monday, and he told me he had the curtains and could install them on Thursday at 4:00 PM. On the appointed day, I made a quick trip to the local market, arriving back at 3:30 PM, a full half hour before our appointed hour.

Who was waiting for me in the Lobby with the new curtains at his feet? Antonio...all smiles. He'd been chatting with his good friend, Victor, while he waited for me to return. Obviously, installing my blinds had risen to the top of Antonio's list. When I mentioned this to Reed, he observed,

"Yet another example of the personalismo, where business is conducted subjectively based on personal relationships rather than objectively based on an impersonal fee-for-service transaction."

To us M-timers, a specific date and time is sacrosanct, but for people operating on P-time it is just one more task that will occur sometime in its season. I'm convinced that personalizing my experience—I'm suffering because I can't sleep—is what propelled installation of our blinds to the top of Antonio's list. Oh, yes—the blinds look great, and I'm sleeping much better, thank you!

Still Curious?

Jenny's Post: Mesoamerican God-Kings As City Planners.

Another book by Tony Cohan Mexican Days: Journey into the Heart of Mexico.