The 150th Episode : What time is it?
[September, 1999 Lima, Peru]
At 9:00 a.m. on the next morning, I was at the lobby of the hotel as he would pick me up. He didn’t come yet even 10 minutes passed as I estimated. Approx. 20 minutes passed, when a hotel clerk told me that the guy would be late about 30 minutes… as I estimated. Since it was not enough time to be back to the room I decided to wait at the lobby. Buuut, he didn’t appear even after 9:30 a.m. as I estimated again. Then, finally he came in after 10:00 a.m.
I thought we were leaving for the office, he asked me if I had breakfast. Sure, the accommodation included breakfast. Then his answer was “let’s go to a cafe for coffee before we go to the office.” Hey, let’s go to the office for the meeting. After the meeting I would like to visit the customers… I had a lot of things to plan during the valuable trip time.
"Don’t be so hasty", he said. "Even in a cafe, I can tell you the market information of Peru and a light meeting is available." Is it a Latin groove!? Looks slow from Japanese eyes.
It was a long time since our last meeting, and we talked a lot each other. It was almost noon we arrived at the office. Either the Japanese are too tight or the Latinos are too lax!?
