The attendant, a native Hawaiian, nods, gets up, and disappears into the kitchen. A few minutes go by, the bus driver has restarted the engine, and the New Yorkers are nervously griping about the slow service. Finally, not able to take it anymore, one of them leaps over the counter and opens the door to the kitchen. Edward T. Hall's book The Dance of Life considers the paramount importance of time in cultures. All cultures have their own unique concept of time which distinguishes a Frenchman from a German, a North American from a Latin American, and a Hopi from a Navajo.
Monochronic cultures divide time into sections, and allot specific activities for each.
This schedule generally takes precedence over everything else. Monochronic people usually do one thing at a time with their time. They also tend not to mix business with pleasure. Northern Europeans, especially Germans and Swiss, and many Americans are mostly monochronic. Polychronic cultures include southern Europeans and Latin Americans.