阅读理解
Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words.
Time communicates in many ways.
Consider the different parts of the day, for
example. The time of the day when something is done can give a special meaning
to the event. It is not customary to telephone someone every early in the
morning. If you telephone him early in the day, the time of the call shows that
the matter is very important and requires immediate attention. If someone
receives a call during sleeping hours, he assumes it is a matter of life or
death. The time chosen for the call communicates its importance.
In social life, time plays a very important
part. In the United States, guests tend to feel they are not highly regarded if
the invitation to a dinner party is extended only three or four days before the
party date. But this is not true in all countries. In other areas of the world,
it may be considered foolish to make an appointment too far in advance because
plans which are made for a date more than a week away tend to be forgotten.
The meaning of time differs in different parts
of the world. Thus, misunderstandings often arise between people from cultures
that treat time differently. Promptness(准时) is valued highly in
American life, for example. If people are not prompt, they may be regarded as
impolite or not fully responsible. In the U.S., no one would think of keeping a
business partner waiting for an hour; it would be too impolite. A person who is
five minutes late is expected to make a short apology.
This way of treating time is quite different
from that of several other cultures. This helps to explain the unfortunate
experience of a certain agriculturist from the United States, assigned to duty
in another country. After a long delay, the agriculturist was finally agreed an
appointment with the Minister of Agriculture. Arriving a little before the
appointed hour, the agriculturist waited. The hour came and passed. At this
point he suggested to the secretary that perhaps the minister did not know he
was waiting in the outer office. This gave him the feeling of having done
something to solve the problem, but he had not. Twenty minutes passed, then
thirty, then forty-five. To an American, that is the beginning of the "insult
period". No matter what is said in apology, there is little that can
remove the damage done by an hour's wait in an outer office. Yet in the country
where this story took place, a forty-five-minute waiting period was not
unusual.
In the West, particularly in the United States,
people tend to think of time as something fixed in nature. As a rule, Americans
think of time as a road stretching into the future, along which one progresses.
The road has many sections, which are to be kept separate— "one thing at a
time". People who cannot plan events are not highly regarded. Thus, an
American may feel angry when he has made an appointment with someone and then
finds a lot of other things happening at the same time.
Since time has such different meanings in
different cultures, communication is often difficult. We will understand each
other a little better if we can keep this fact in mind.
