The Seamless Passage of Time

For I have known them all already, known them all-
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

-T.S. Eliot
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

The arrival of 2009 in rural Cambodia was an uncelebrated and unrecognized occasion. There were no parties, fireworks, or celebrations of any kind to mark the change in time. I raised the subject of the dying year on New Years Eve, and the response from most Cambodians was merely a shrug and a smile. I went to sleep that evening at nine o’clock to the sound of some drinking establishment’s supersonic vibrations, and woke up early the next morning to find that the date on my cell phone had changed. The only hint that something was different came from the fact that I had the day off from teaching. In search of doing something special for the holiday, I proposed having brunch to the volunteer married couple in the town closest to me. I caught a taxi early the next morning into their town some 40 kilometers away, and drove across the veel s’rai ma roy (place of a hundred fields). In the cab of an old pickup truck, I was crammed next to at least six other people who smelled of various odors. The red earth road cut straight across a sea of green, and the dust billowed up furiously behind us. I arrived at the next town in time to pick up a few items from the local market, and walked to my friends’ home. With supplies from our local markets and the Siem Reap supermarkets, the three of us managed to put together a brunch of pancakes, a pineapple, banana, and watermelon fruit salad, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs. In a moment that is very rare in Cambodia, not a single grain of rice touched our plates. We ate on their stone patio underneath a coconut tree and shared stories of our recent developments at site. The conversation was carried along by an excitable tone that only comes when you have not been able to have a fluent conversation in your native language for a long time. It was a good time.

A curious sensation crept up slowly on me later that day, and it had to do with the passage of time. How I spent New Years was no different from how the other American holidays had passed in Cambodia, but somehow this particular one was different. Labor day had passed during training without being noticed, as did Columbus Day and Halloween. I taught two classes on Thanksgiving, and did the same on Christmas. Text messages passed between volunteers read, “You know, if I close my eyes and try really hard, this salty dried fish I’m eating sort of tastes like turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!” or “I’m dreaming of a very green Christmas,” when the occasion was upon us. Yet without the recognition of these holidays to punctuate the final months of the year, the New Year was unnoticeable as a submerged water buffalo in a deep canal. It seemed as if there was no clear reason why the date had to change. Cambodians celebrate the New Year in April, and I have to wonder if their feelings on the Gregorian calendar resemble mine at the present moment. Yet, this uncelebrated marker in time seems to be in connection with a larger cultural element.

Time passes very differently in the land of lotus flower. In the west, time is separated and categorized into different spaces. We have quarters, semesters, seasons, daylight savings time, and familiar holidays to mark the different stages of the year. Over here, time is much harder to measure. To begin with, the weather remains the same from day to day, with little discernible difference other than the presence of rain. The sun rises at six every morning, and sets at six every evening. Thus, it is hard to measure time through its subtle changes or any other physical entity. In lieu of the familiar markers of time, there is instead a kind of continuous lull that persists as the days on the calendar go by.

Thus, it seems that the passage of time is not an important part of life for most Cambodians. The best example of this can be found in the fact that not even one’s own birthday is cause for celebration. Many of the older people, as well as those born during the time of the Khmer Rouge, do not even know when their birthday is or even what year they were born. They live their entire lives not knowing how old they are. Take a moment to think about that last sentence for a moment. Imagine not knowing how old you are as you go about the different stages of life. My working theory on why this is so has to do with Theravada Buddhism. This local sect of the eastern religion teaches that displays of strong, impassioned emotions are not acceptable, and that a calm disposition must be taken towards life at all times. Thus, the frenzy of the northern European Protestant work ethic, which dictates the compartmentalization of time, could never be accepted here. Thus, the numbering of dates, figures, ages, and other such numerical data about a person is completely malarkey in the eyes of the Khmer.

In its place is a feeling that could be described as “eternal mid-August at the beach.” If Odysseus had been an Asiatic, he would have found the land of the lotus-eaters in central Indochina. When walking down the main street or into the market in the middle of the afternoon, one can see nearly the whole population of Anchor strung up in hammocks or slumped over a table somewhere. A trip to the wat will reveal that most of the monks there are passed out on the floor beneath their giant, golden, smiling Buddha. If I want coffee in the afternoon at a nearby cafe after teaching a lesson, I continually have to wake up the sleeping waitress from her nap in the hammock to place my order. Teachers at the school will skip class if they feel tired, want to play soccer, or are, most regrettably, drunk.

In all fairness, I can see why the work ethic is much different from the west’s or even other parts of Asia. Between the heat, the rain, and the lack of protein in the diet, simply living in this country is considerably exhausting. On some days, a simple morning’s walk down to the market can be reason enough to want to take a nap in the hammock. After living here for nearly six months already, I can already see why the French failed to make a financially successful protectorate out of Cambodia. It is simply too damn hot to get anything done.

Nonetheless, it is into this lull that I step forward in 2009. Every 18th day of the current month, I make a mental note to myself that it is another month since I left my home. Come the 18th of this month, it will will have been six months. Its my own way of keeping time in a world that is "timeless." Prufrock had his coffee spoons, I have my 18ths.

Happy New Year To All!