It isn't all of us. I'm never casually late for an appointment, and am always annoyed if the other party is, beyond the reasonable 10 minutes. And this is not because of any incipient effect of Western culture.
Please stop with the generalizing about pan-cultural differences in the perceived value of productivity, community, etc. Neither does an anecdote about a birthday party generalize to business situations.
She'll now tell my dad's relatives to show up at 4p because they operate on "Indian Standard Time".
And funnily enough, my father is always 5 minutes early for everything...
What I really objected to was the stereotyping. I know I'm not the only Indian who cares about punctuality.
Again, I object to the stereotyping. "You're on time. How American of you!"
(for the record, my personal perception of Indians is that they are quite punctual, because the Indians I've worked with were, and I didn't really have an opinion about it one way or another before that. Latin Americans on the other hand, let's just say that my experiences only reinforced the preexisting notions...)
That "oversimplified" is what makes it an unreasonable assumption.
My point was coming from a slightly different notion of 'stereotype' where it's more similar to 'preconceived notion'. Maybe it's just a language thing.
What I'm objecting to is what I have explained I mean by the word in the context of the original assertion by elbenshira, viz. that regard for punctuality is predominantly an American/Western trait.
And if you don't mind, this is all I have to say about it.
My point was to compare cultures, not to put down one or the other.