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Cultures have their own rhythms: how they divide the day and the nights, when to go fast and when to go slow. Some of the differences are familiar. A well-known temporal gulf exists between the global north and south. The latter has, for example, its famous siesta—night again in the middle of the day. The northern visitor is always surprised at this diurnal difference and is often irritated as well.

Another familiar gulf exists between the East and the West, the Orient and the Occident. We speak of the slower pace, calling it leisurely if we like it, indolent if we don’t. These temporal differences are well known. Not so familiar, however, are those cultures that blend the differences and bridge the chasms. Among these, the most spectacular is Japan. Here the rhythms of the West have been rigorously applied and yet, under these, the pulse of old Asia is still felt.

Seen from the outside, the way that the Japanese structure time seems much closer to New York than, say, Kandy or Mandalay. Indeed, most of the Western temporal virtues—efficiency, promptness, get-up-and-go—are being flung in our faces by this seemingly industrious nation.

Yet, viewed from the inside, the older, more purely Asian rhythms persist. There is the new way of arranging the day, and then there is the old. And these two, as with so much else in Japan, coexist—strata in time.

Early to bed, early to rise has been the recipe for business success in the Western world, and this is the image (bright-eyed and bushy-tailed) that many of its inhabitants have of themselves. Thus, the Japanese, taking over this image and making it theirs, now insist that they are a hardworking people and are more flattered than not when referred to as workaholics. Such a role would indeed involve rising at dawn, rushing to the office, putting in long hours, racing home, and going to bed early to rest for the next fulfilling day.

Since this is the official version, it is officially supported. And since everyone has nominally gone home, buses stop running at ten thirty, the subways stop at midnight, and the trains shut down half an hour later. Unlike that of New York and Paris, shameless night-owl abodes, Japanese public transportation does not run all night long.

Yet, the populace is no more off the streets at midnight now than it was in old Tokugawa Japan. The entertainment districts are filled with people long after midnight. These people are not at home resting for the next fulfilling day. They are getting around the night spots by taking taxis.

Nor do the Japanese get up at dawn. Indeed, nowadays, a majority does not get to work until ten o’clock, also the hour when the bazaar at Rangoon opens. To be sure, some attempt an earlier arrival. Being first into the office in the morning supports, and in part creates, the modern idea of the Japanese being very hard workers.

And being the last one out as well. One is supposed to hang around even though one’s work may be finished. Being one of the group is considered important and rushing out to conform to an egotistical timetable is bad form. Rather, one subscribes to the group timetable. This has nothing to do with working hard, however; it has to do with mere attendance.

Indeed, as one looks more closely at the manner in which modern Japan structures its business day, one becomes aware of the differences between modern and traditional timekeeping and the manner in which these intermingle.

Once the modern rush to the office is over and the business day is actually begun, the time scheme turns traditional. There are lots of discussions, lots of stopping to drink tea—and nowadays lots of visits to the ubiquitous coffee shop to talk some more. Nor is the talk confined to work in the narrow Western sense of the term. Rather, work is socialized since social talk can serve as work because its larger purpose is the important cementing of personal relations within the working force.

Thus, the amount of time spent at what we in the West would call work is much less than what one might expect. The notorious efficiency of Japan does not depend upon time spent. Rather, it depends upon the absence of intramural conflict (though with lots of intramural competition) and an ideological solidarity that is almost beyond the comprehension of the United States and most of Europe.

This is of use mainly (or merely) in the hours, days, years spent together—in the creation and continuation of the group. This is equally true when the office is finally left. It is often left as a group since no one wishes to break cohesion by leaving first. Then the group divides into sub-groups that then go out on the town, to favorite pubs and bars, to continue the social amelioration that has traditionally been so important to Japan.

Far from early to bed, the upwardly mobile Japanese male is fortunate if he catches the last train home. And often he will stay overnight with an office friend, an event that his wife back home will accept as a part of the normal temporal rhythm of her spouse.

In places where day and night are divided according to the needs of actual work—such as in, I don’t know, let’s say Chicago—the pattern may be closer to the ideal of which Japan so brags. As it is, Japanese temporal reality is something different—far closer to that of Bangkok or Jakarta, the rest of Asia, places where time is almost by definition something that is spent together.

Yet, for a culture as time-conscious as Japan’s (one sees mottoes framed on office walls such as “Time is money”), the amount of real temporal waste is surprising. Here, too, the country shows its ancient Asian roots.

Take the matter of appointments, for example. In the big business world of the West, being punctual is sacrosanct. Again, actuality may be another matter, but all subscribe to the idea that to be on time is to be good.

In Asia, however, this is not so. One is frequently left cooling one’s heels in the great capitals of the Orient. And Japan, despite its Western temporal veneer, is no different. If you are meeting a member of your group, then he will wait and you can be late. If you are meeting a nonmember you can also be late because it is not so important that you meet or not.

Spatially, the Japanese are very efficient regarding rendezvous. There are known places to meet. In Tokyo one meets in front of Ginza’s Wako Department Store, in front of the Almond Coffee Shop in Roppongi, in front of the statue of the dog Hachiko in Shibuya, a famous beast who loyally waited years for its dead master.

Most waiting Japanese are in the position of Hachiko. It is rare to observe anyone being on time. Those who are on time and are doing the waiting are those in an inferior position (in Japan it is the girls who wait for the boys, and not the other way around), or those who want something from the late arrival. Time is money, indeed, but for all this show of making appointments, Japanese standards of punctuality are closer to those of Samarkand than of Paris or London. Still, one wonders. With time so precious that it must be doled out in little pieces, how then can it be so wantonly wasted?

Well, it is not one’s own time that is being wasted. It is the other person’s, the he or she kept waiting. In fact, one’s own time supply is a bit short. That is why one is late, you see.

We in the West, who make nothing like the fuss about time that the Japanese do, would be insulted to be kept waiting for, let us say, an hour. Yet many Japanese would wait an hour, standing by the store, coffee shop, or bronze dog.

And is this not perhaps then the largest difference between the time concepts of East and West? Time is not moral in Asia, it cannot be used as a weapon. And it cannot really be used to indicate virtue (hardworking, efficient) or vice (lax, late for appointments).

It is rather a seamless entity, an element like the air in which we live. To live naturally with time, says Asia, is to pay no attention to it. And Japan, despite modernization, still subscribes to this ancient tradition. Dig down, through company minutes and office hours, and there, firm, eternal, is time itself.

—1984