Reflecting on the Clock
In "Tristes Tropiques," Levi-Strauss has a phenomenal chapter about the nature of travelling. Unfortunately I don't have the book in front of me right now, but what calls it to mind for me - and it is very often called to mind for me - is that I'm sitting in a very Starbucks-like internet cafe right in Mae Sot. Why does this cafe exist? Is it "a good thing"? Why does such a large part of me dislike it? (If I dislike it, why am I here?)
Even in the six months that I've been gone, Mae Sot has grown considerably. This cafe is evidence of this, as is this *huge* grocery store towards the north end of town called Tesco. It's not exactly Wal-Mart, but it certainly smacks of A&P, or some other such large supermarket. I don't like it.
But what of this dislike? Levi-Strauss encounters a similar issue in his travels in Brazil - that is, he, too, has unsettling "run-ins with modernity" (my phrase, not his) that make him long for some time past, a time in which a "purer" existence could have been experienced. But he is wiser than I. What he argues is that had he arrived earlier, he would have experienced the same wish, the wish to have seen the society at hand another 200 or 300 years earlier. For every present, there is a purer past. It is impossible to find the right moment, in that sense. And what's more, he says - and here he is very much in his role as a fairly scientific anthropologist - that arriving earlier would mean forgoing data sets and lines of inquiry that are available to him now.
The clock, then, is an elusive thing. It can always be turned back. One can always turn it back further, and once one steps out of the time machine in that earlier present, one is still looking for an earlier present. And so it is with me. Had I arrived in Mae Sot in the early 1990s, I would have decried the state of the town as beset by damaging business interests even then - and I would have longed for the 1980s. The lesson, it seems, is to recognize oneself - not without a tinge of sadness, but not, also, without an amount of redemption - as endlessly, hopelessly contemporary, despite all wishes for the crystalline past. As Levi-Strauss says, "Yet I exist." (That is a sentence I can quote without the book in front of me.)
I haven't loaded any new pictures onto my machine yet, so I'll try to get some of those up soon. For now, I hope my sketched out - and sketchy - thoughts may be something more than rambling.
Even in the six months that I've been gone, Mae Sot has grown considerably. This cafe is evidence of this, as is this *huge* grocery store towards the north end of town called Tesco. It's not exactly Wal-Mart, but it certainly smacks of A&P, or some other such large supermarket. I don't like it.
But what of this dislike? Levi-Strauss encounters a similar issue in his travels in Brazil - that is, he, too, has unsettling "run-ins with modernity" (my phrase, not his) that make him long for some time past, a time in which a "purer" existence could have been experienced. But he is wiser than I. What he argues is that had he arrived earlier, he would have experienced the same wish, the wish to have seen the society at hand another 200 or 300 years earlier. For every present, there is a purer past. It is impossible to find the right moment, in that sense. And what's more, he says - and here he is very much in his role as a fairly scientific anthropologist - that arriving earlier would mean forgoing data sets and lines of inquiry that are available to him now.
The clock, then, is an elusive thing. It can always be turned back. One can always turn it back further, and once one steps out of the time machine in that earlier present, one is still looking for an earlier present. And so it is with me. Had I arrived in Mae Sot in the early 1990s, I would have decried the state of the town as beset by damaging business interests even then - and I would have longed for the 1980s. The lesson, it seems, is to recognize oneself - not without a tinge of sadness, but not, also, without an amount of redemption - as endlessly, hopelessly contemporary, despite all wishes for the crystalline past. As Levi-Strauss says, "Yet I exist." (That is a sentence I can quote without the book in front of me.)
I haven't loaded any new pictures onto my machine yet, so I'll try to get some of those up soon. For now, I hope my sketched out - and sketchy - thoughts may be something more than rambling.
posted by Soe Lin Aung at 10:01 PM
4 Comments:
I just feel the need to point out that Tesco is a British supermarket chain (and the only thing that keeps me alive on weekends, as it's conveniently located across the street and is open 24/7.) Ah, globalization: we can shop at the same supermarket on different sides of the world!
(p.s. I miss having someone to discuss theory with. No one here is as Frankfurt School-obsessed as us. It's a pity.)
Sweet: I'm reading "Tristes Tropiques" for class next week. Sweeter: you're in Mae Sot. Enjoy!
I sometimes feel that way about Park Slope. When was it at its purest? Was I alive? Did that time even exist? The Sunset! Ah!
Hmm. Maybe I can see feeling this way about a small town. But at least for me, part of what is so intriguing about cities like Accra and the developing world is the juxtaposition of "the modern" and "tradition." (I also don't really believe "purity" of the type you are speaking really exists, it is generally something imagined in the West that does not exist in reality, but that's a separate thought.) I'm not saying globalization as it is happening is good for everyone in the developing world, but it is definitely amazing to see how fast things change, for better or worse.
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