Polychronic Time vs Monochronic Time

      

I really loved our last class discussion. We talked about different aspects of culture, mainly the different ways that people deal with time. Monochronic time is very schedule and blocked out - every part of the day is compartmentalized. The United States runs mostly on monochromic time – you schedule times to go to the doctor, to see shows, to have lunch with your friends, to work on homework. I know that I do this, just take a look at my planner. I refer to my class schedule frequently and fill in all the blanks with homework, work, exercise, etc. Polychronic time places more emphasis on doing multiple things at once and the involvement of people. Appointments or schedules are not as important, rather whatever or whoever is the focus gets all the time. These two different concepts of time do not mix well. And yet we see them together quite often, like in our doctor appointment example. You have a set time to go to the doctor but usually wind up waiting several minutes to see him. This can be upsetting – you had a scheduled time, a monochronic view. When you finally do see the doctor you don’t want him or her to be stressed about staying on schedule, you want their full attention and care, a polychronic view.

After this class I thought about trying to change my life to polychronic time. Of course, it wouldn’t work because I am in a monochronic culture – I have a class schedule, a work schedule, homework and tests with assigned due dates and times. In order to fit everything that I have to do into one day, I have to “manage” my time. And thinking about it kind of depresses me. I wish that I could escape monochronic time. The whole discussion made me think of a story I saw on the wall of a restaurant.  It’s called the Parable of the Mexican Fisherman and I liked it so much I’m just going to include it.

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them. "Not very long," answered the Mexican. "But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American. The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family. The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs ... I have a full life." The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. "And after that?" asked the Mexican. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge new enterprise." "How long would that take?" asked the Mexican. "Twenty, perhaps 25 years," replied the American. "And after that?" the Mexican asked. "Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!" "Millions? Really? And after that?" "After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."

To me, this is the perfect example of a monochronic world clashing with a polychronic one. The Mexican fisherman is content to work as much as he has to and then spend his time with his friends and family. The American instantly creates this whole plan, or schedule, for him that would make every day more busy and “productive.” Unfortunately for me, I have to be monochronic in order to do the things I want to do, for example get good grades and earn enough money for this field study to South Africa. But I am looking forward to the time when maybe I can be a little more polychronic.

To relate this to my project – what is South African culture, polychronic or monochronic? If they are polychronic how will the affect my time there? If I understand polychronic time correctly, it means that it could be difficult to schedule and keep appointments with people, which could be challenging if I am trying to do interviews. But I kind of hope that it is polychronic, just so I can experience something new and see if I really would prefer it to the monochronic life I have been living.

Zookeepers and Their Animals

Thanks to class on Friday, I think I really know what I would like to do my project about - the relationship of zookeepers/zooworkers with the animals that they care for. I've had so many different ideas for this project and had to choose something much more narrow or specific to study. As I was discussing my ideas with Holly and Heather I realized that what I really wanted to spend my time doing was being around animals and being around the people who worked with those animals. Voila, study their interactions and relationships! I'm going to do a mini version of what we did on Friday. Heather asked us three questions - what is our field project; how are we going to study it; and who are we going to work with in order to study it.

What - Study the relationship between zookeepers and zoo animals. What kinds of things do zookeepers do? Do they become attached to the animals they are working with? Do they give them personalities or try to keep things impersonal? Do they have much interaction with the animals? How do the animals respond to them, do they  treat different zoo keepers differently, or show preference? How can I tell if the animals are doing that?

How - Shadow/interview the zoo keepers at the East London Zoo and/or Lion Park. Go with them throughout the day to see their routines.

Who - Zoo keepers and administrators and zoo animals.

I am really quite excited about this!!! I just hope that the zoo will let me do this stuff and that the zoo keepers won't mind me tagging along. I would really like to help them do their jobs. So that is the new direction of my project, I will now start looking in the literature for anything about zoo animal/worker relationships.

Apartheid

In Wednesday's class we learned more about the history and legislature of apartheid. I cannot believe that laws such as the Group Areas Act (restricting different races to different living areas) or the Mixed Marriage Act (prohibiting marriage between races) could ever be passed. Unfortunately, South Africa is not the only place where such horrible racism has been displayed i.e. the Holocaust, or slavery in North America. But the apartheid of South Africa took place much more recently and since I am going to be living in a city where people still live in the separate areas forced on them during apartheid, it has a lot more meaning to me. Heather asked us to think about how this history of apartheid is going to affect our time and projects in South Africa. Some of the questions I have when thinking about this: Will black or colored people be less willing to help me because I am white? What is the feeling towards Americans in general? Besides just an unwilling or mistrusting attitude, do black or colored people feel angry towards white people? Do they actively try to hurt or be rude to them? Are white people still racist towards black/coloreds? Do white people/Afrikaans have a sense of guilt for what white people did, even if they were not involved? I know that I feel a little guilty, and I was not even born when most of this was going on! Maybe guilty is not the right word, but I definitely feel like I want to be kind and respectful towards colored/black people and show them that white people are not all rotten. Now, I know that black people were also killing black people during apartheid...revolutionists went after "informers" or those aiding white people. Does some of that anger still exist? I mean. that is on top of tribal disagreements that were going on before!!! Wow, there are so many more complexities to relationships there than I have ever experienced living in the United States.

So, how will all of this influence my project? Obviously, if black/colored people still feel anger towards white people, it might be difficult for me to work with conservation organizations or the zoo or lion park. Oh! If I am kind to black/colored people, will white people be less willing to help me? What a mess. That would certainly influence my project too. Are these questions ridiculous....I mean do South Africans as a whole even think about them? I guess it was only 18 years ago that apartheid ended and a democratic election allowed all races to vote. There are definitely going to be people who were alive and in the middle of things when all of this was going on - so how many of the old attitudes still exist? Do parents teach their children anger towards that one family because they helped whites during apartheid? What do the schools teach about apartheid? Ha, I would do a field study on apartheid, except I don't have the guts...it would be too depressing and horrific. I guess I need answers to these questions in order to know how apartheid will really affect my field study and my time in South Africa, but it seems like best way to answer many of these questions is by going there and talking to people....so I'll just have to wait and see!

The Parable Activity

In Monday's class we did the Parable Activity. We were given a brief story about the interactions of five different characters and then asked to rank those characters from most approved to least approved. This was a very interesting activity - it was hard to judge the characters just with the bare-bone facts that we were given. None of them were terribly likeable. This activity raised many questions. How much did our culture influence the way we ranked the characters? There was one group in the class who used LDS theology to rank them into the three kingdoms of Heaven - clearly they were highly influenced by the culture of BYU. But one of the girls in my group was disgusted at how all the men treated the sole woman character - she is a declared feminist, so clearly her ideas and values affected how she would rank the characters. I am curious to know how South Africans would have ranked the people in the parable...would their rankings be similar to our prep class or completely different?

On a different note, I have been thinking about my project and how I will benefit from doing this project in South Africa, as opposed to a library, or a zoo in the U.S. Some of the benefits of actually going to a zoo are: seeing how the zoo attempts to educate the zoo goers; how the zoo brings in the entertainment side; I could survey zoo goers in person and see how they feel about zoos, if they feel like they are learning, if they even care about learning or just want to see a lion eat something; I could observe captive behavior first hand and see how zoo enclosures are designed to work with certain species; I could talk to the zoo managers and keepers, see where they get their animals from, if they have breeding programs, how they deal with animal health.

So why do I need to go to a zoo in South Africa? Besides just being a great chance to travel and interact with people of a completely different culture, going to South Africa would allow me to research or work with their conservation groups close up and personal; I could go do stuff at the Lion Park as well as the zoo, and maybe other parks as well; is there wildlife in the zoos or parks that is completely unique to that area, hard to find in other zoos? As I mentioned in my Statement of Intent, going to South Africa would be a great way to start networking, and a great way to get used to working with people and organizations from other countries, something a wildlife biologist has to do a lot.

I think I have a good argument as to why I should go do this project in South Africa.

"Going Native"

In Friday’s class we discussed how you design a field study project. There is so much that goes into this process! We discussed different problems with field studies; different ways being in the field can limit a study. One of the things mentioned in the reading was the idea of “going native.” With a field study, one must decide whether to become a full participant in whatever is being studied, or to just sit back and observe. These have pros and cons. Joining in with the project can change how people act or how events would actually unfold. And you run the risk of “going native”, of completely adopting the lifestyle or opinions of whatever you are studying, which makes it hard to analyze that behavior. I just liked this phrase, because I am going to South Africa where I am hoping to study wildlife, so going native for me would be like running off with a lion pride to roam the savannahs.

So, field study project! As I’ve been reading more articles, I think I can almost see a project idea emerging. I just read an article about observing captive animals and designing zoo enclosures around their needs. That would combine animal behavior with zoos…in class we also talked about taking advantage of a field study. What is the point of going half way across the world to study something? In my case, what is the benefit of going to South Africa to study zoos? It would just be amazing to say I had studied wildlife in Africa (wildlife biologist’s dream, remember), but how can I tie in the culture of East London with a zoo study? I think one way to do this would be to look at South Africa’s conservation history. Zoos are supposed to be closely related to conservation work, so I could look at the conservation work that has been done in South Africa (which apparently has a good history of that kind of stuff) and see if zoos play into that conservation work at all. Things to think about…

South African History: Part 1

In Wednesday’s class we started learning some of the history of South Africa. It is unfortunate that we cannot spend longer on this, because it is fascinating. I feel like I know U.S. history fairly well, but barely know the history of any other part of the world. This is a shame, because there is so much more to world history.  Anyway, Heather asked us to think about how South African history will affect us in our day to day lives in East London. Several things come to mind with this – East London will have a much greater diversity of people than any place that I have lived before. There are colored people, Afrikaans, English, black, etc. It is good to know where they came from historically and how they relate to each other because of the past. Heather mentioned a black friend who was from the Xhosa tribe, I think, and did not think very highly of guys from the Zulu (?) tribe. These kinds of relationships would definitely be good to keep in mind in day to day interactions. It was cool to realize why East London is called East London, and why there is a Port Elizabeth. It is because the British were “in charge” of South Africa for several years, so of course they named things after London and after Queen Elizabeth. And there will not just be British influence in South Africa, because the French and Dutch also had a strong presence there. The Dutch even developed into a new people, sort of, the Afrikaners. And there are all the colored people, who descended from Indians and Malaysians and I can’t remember who else. It is going to be amazing! I am excited to be around so many different people. Do they have different cultures among each group? How united are the South Africans as a people? They have only really been their own country for about 60 years…I am excited to see the effects of these different cultures in everyday life in South Africa.

Questions, Questions, Questions

This entry is going to include a couple things. First of all, the questions I wrote as part of the “25 Question” assignment.  Then I discuss my Project Question, or in my case questions. And I will close with some thoughts on what we talked about in Friday’s small group class.

25 Questions – roughly. If I have learned the answer since I first thought of these questions, I included it in parentheses.

1.       What are the exact dates for the trip? (To be determined by the group)

2.       What is the food like? (Comparable to American food, at least you can find all the same foods there)

3.       What are the grocery stores like? (I saw a picture of the lovely Pic n’ Pay – looks like a grocery store!)

4.       Do people mostly speak English or Afrikaans or something else? Is it hard to understand people’s accents? (Mostly English?)

5.       Are white people the minority in East London?

6.       Will the zoo or lion park let me work with them and the animals?

7.       How do we contact people – like at the zoo or lion park?

8.       Can I be around animals enough to study some behavioral ecology?

9.       Can I handle the animals in any way?

10.   If so, can I do my own animal restraint course, like the one here at BYU?

11.   What do the conservation groups do in the community?

12.   If I worked with a conservation group, would I be doing desk work or presentations or researching things or out teaching people?

13.   Can I get out to the reserves that are around East London?

14.   Can I spend a significant amount of time on those reserves?

15.   How do I develop course contracts with upper level, more specific classes?

16.   Can I bring my lap top? (Yes – they have internet cafes and power converters)

17.   How would I get credit for an academic internship in South Africa?

18.   Can I split my time between a conservation group and the zoo/lion park?

19.   How could I be in a position to really observe animals?

20.   What scholarships are available for this kind of thing?

21.   Can I bring books and study from them and get credits for classes even if my project/research doesn’t deal directly with that subject?

22.   How will all of this (course contracts, main project) be graded?

23.   Will people be willing to take someone as inexperienced as me and train me to work with animals?

24.   Can I go do something on the animal rehabilitation farm that Heather mentioned?

25.   What other jobs are done at zoos – vet, cage cleaner, administration…who feeds the animals?

26.   Do they get more exercise/interaction than their cages might allow? Do they get the amount that they need? How much do they need?

27.   How do animals in the zoo compare to animals in the wild in health, behavior, happiness – can contentment be measured?

So, those are some of the questions I came up with when I first sat down to really think about this field study.

We are also supposed to post a Project Question. I do not have this question beautifully phrased in a way that encapsulates all that I would like to do, but I do have several questions that hopefully will merge into the greater Project Question. I know that I want to do something with animals and animal behavior. I am interested in learning how zoos work, clearly. I could research all the parts that go into making a zoo – the people that come to visit the animals, the animals, their interactions, the duties of the people working there, how a zoo is run and maintained and paid for, where the animals come from, their health etc. in relation to wild animals. 

For the last week or two I have been reading all about ethology, the study of animal behavior. This is something that has always fascinated me – goes back to the Jane Goodall method, where these amazing people live with and observe animals and figure out what makes them tick. We know that animals do not have emotions, or at least they do not have the capacity to realize they have emotions and then be driven by those emotions to do some action. I mean, a dog does not feel bad when the dog across the street does not want to play, causing our dog to go and mope in her dog house. But animals are motivated by something. They react certain ways to environmental or relationship cues – and that is what ethologists, if I can make that word up, are studying. Animals have hierarchies and orders, which is incredible to me. Think about wolves; there is an alpha male who is in charge of the pack. He has certain ways that he acts that show he is the dominant wolf. And the wolves in his pack act certain ways to show that they accept his leadership. Some human studied wolves and watched them long enough to figure out what some of these things are and what they mean to the wolves. I would love to be able to study some species and figure out why they do all the things they do.  Unfortunately, this might take more time and more resources than I have. Behavioral studies of wild animals require spending a lot of time out in the field. They can require some technology that I will not have available to me, like wildlife cameras, or radio telemetry collars. But I might be able to do some behavioral observation or captive animals, which means spending time in a zoo, or lion park. And I am quite fascinated by how zoos function. What kind of training do the employees have? Where do they get their animals? Do those animals reproduce much and do their offspring continue living in the zoo. I can think of a lot of questions about zoos, so it seems like that would be a good place to direct my project.

Friday’s class! Heather showed us some pictures of East London. We discussed some of the cultural differences between South Africa and the U.S. What I learned from this class: every day is going to require a lot more conscious thought towards how I act and treat those around me. I think it is important that we do not go to East London with naive assumptions. I mean, we saw the picture of all the school girls hugging Heather’s facilitator and of the cute kids from the day care sitting on her lap. So, people are friendly, not too worried about getting in your space. But then we talked about how if we want to go running, for exercise, that we should go in the middle of the day, don’t go alone, don’t go the same way every time, etc. What a contrast between the cute kids just loving you, and being worried that someone is going to track you down and do some unspeakable thing to you. And while it is not like it is drastically different, we can still go out and run, it will all just take a little more planning, a little more thought, care, common sense – whatever you want to call it.  

And that concludes tonight’s blog post – some general and project specific questions I had about the field study, what kind of project I could do, and some cultural things to remember when living in East London.

Culture Shock

Today in prep class we discussed culture. What exactly is culture? We had a good discussion about it and came up with some good definitions, if something like "culture" can even be fully defined. We also talked about symbols, and how a large part of a culture is the different symbols and the meanings that people within a culture attach to those symbols. The tricky thing is that different cultures can have different meanings for symbols, or different symbols all together. This made me think about that phrase "culture shock". Culture shock is "anxiety, feelings of frustration, alienation and anger that may occur when a person is placed in a new culture" (thank you Wikipedia). It is sad to me that people would feel anxious, or angry, when placed in a new culture. This makes culture sound like some awful monster to be avoided at all costs. Why would a person feel this way? I think it relates to the “culture is like the ocean” metaphor that someone used in class. Culture is all around us, we are just kind of floating in it, and it can be great, until a huge wave comes up and crashes into you and knocks you down. You have to maintain a certain amount of flexibility when dealing with other cultures – be ready for the waves and just go with them, instead of trying to resist them.

 I am excited to be going to a new place where the culture is completely different than my own. I hope I do not have culture shock – but I think that is the point of this prep class, to prepare us for new cultures. I also think that culture shock can be totally avoided if you have the right attitude. Individuals are entirely responsible for how they react to any external event. But anyway, I would like to learn more about South African culture before I go, so I’ll be doing that, with the help of the prep course, throughout the semester. So here’s a stab at that, a little South African culture: South Africa has 11 official languages! And here are some South Africanisms: just now means sometime soon or shortly, while now now means sooner than just now. And play play means pretend. Cool!

Why South Africa?

I've wanted to go to Africa for as long as I can remember. I am guessing that the desire to go there began in elementary school, when we watched those educational documentary type videos about African culture or wildlife. This desire has been fed as I've read books like Out of Africa and The Number One Ladies Detective Agency and watched National Geographic films about the Okavango Delta or cheetahs. I know I have a rather romanticized view of Africa and I do not know very much about the continent – but I want to know all about it.  It just so happens that I am also majoring in wildlife conservation. What wildlife person doesn’t want to go study wildlife in Africa?! Of all the programs offered by BYU’s International Study Programs, a field study fit best. It allows me to go to Africa and to study what I want. I know that a lot of connections must be made and work done, but hopefully by the end I will be able to do something with wildlife in South Africa.

            So what exactly does one do with wildlife? I would like to do something with ethology – the newest word in my vocabulary. Ethology is the study of animal behavior. I would like my project to be…Jane Goodall-esque. We’ll see how that works out, as I have very little experience. But I have to start somewhere! Some ideas I have for a project: look at captive behavior versus wild behavior; how reasonable is it to raise animals in captivity and then release them into the wild – will they be able to survive; what do zoos or rehabilitation centers do to teach or monitor behavior…I know that this might be hard to get into, in a country I’ve never been to, with people I’ve never met. So some other ideas I have involve looking more at conservation work. I know South Africa has a pretty good history of conservation, but what exactly has been done? It would be interesting to work with a conservation group and see how they raise awareness and what kind of projects they work on.

            We’ll see how it goes…