It seems I owe you an explanation. I left you on a cliffhanger, but not for long. Just testing your loyalty. 🙂
So, let us pick up where we left off. What is the Romanians’ relationship with TIME and SPACE?
In Romanian culture, as in many other high-context, multi-active (Latin) cultures, time is flexible. Objectives are achieved, but not necessarily in a highly-organized and straightforward way, and the process is often more important than the outcome. There can be sudden and unanticipated changes of course, as short-term priorities change. Romanian culture is polychronic, meaning that its members tend to do more things at once, and they are convinced that they get more done this way. It’s a multitasking culture with many interruptions and pace changes. Polychronic people are committed to human relationships and change plans frequently to accommodate other people or life events. Scheduling needs to be flexible.
What about SPACE? You know, as in personal/private vs. public space. Well, Romanians need a smaller personal space than the Germans, for instance. There is a lot of touching, the public and private spheres intersect and merge quite frequently, and space is more “disorganized”. Take standing in lines, for instance. There is going to be a lot more jostling and people are likely to stand much closer to each other in Romania than in Germany. Also, they are very likely to interact with the other people in the line, building affinity and extracting information to prepare for the specific context awaiting them at the end of that particular line.
Next week, more about Romanians and their relationship with the external ENVIRONMENT.
For more details, see also my book THE GERMANS AND THE ROMANIANS EXPLAINED, now available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle).
