Time is relative

Time is very important for me. I like to be efficient and practical in the use of my time. I like to get places on time, I like to know how long things will take, I like to know when things will start and end.

In Japan, EVERYTHING is on time, to the minute, to the second even! After taking a few shinkansen, I realized that my watch was one minute and about 50 seconds ahead of the shinkansen time. You know that if your train is scheduled to arrive somewhere at 11:47am you will be there at that time.

In the Philippines, time is very relative. All clocks seem to be ahead by some random number of minutes. For example, the clock in my homestay living room is 22 minutes ahead, the other one is 13 minutes ahead. The clock at VFV community center is about 7 minutes ahead. The clock at R.'s place in Manila was almost 30 minutes ahead... and yet everything starts late! (and to be fair some rare clocks are also late, like the clock in my homestay's car: 34 minutes late) People seem unconcerned about time, and it's rubbing off! I've been late two days in a row for my Waray Waray lesson (the dialect of this region of the Philippines).

Moreover, my cellphone time is different than the time on my laptop (there's at least a 5 minute discrepancy), so I really have no idea what time it actually is since those two times usually coincide! Tomorrow I'm going north to Biliran Island for the weekend. When I went to inquire about departure times of the vanvans, they said: the first is at five, then every hour or when they get full... we're planning on getting one at six, we'll see how that goes!