Rick's question* has set me to thinking, particularly at this time of the Chinese New Year, one of China's most obvious manifestations of the primordial human relationship with time's rhythms still beating -- though feebly -- in this modernizing giant. The Spring Festival, as this day is called (January 24 this year - the new moon), is both the first day of the new lunar year and the first day of spring.
The Chinese theories of time involve an immensely complicated intermixing of 10s, 12s, and 60s that create patterns of yin and yang throughout everything, from hours in days, days in weeks, months in years, to cycles of 60 years that define their astrology. I have studied this over and over through the years but truly cannot explain it. And now I have lent my book to my qigong master who is reading it. The old ways are not politically correct (except for the New Year, of course) and are difficult to study here. So much of the ancient wisdom has been maintained overseas and is now creeping back to the mainland after the years of chaos and the still continuing repression.
These cycles of 60 are made up of the 12 earthly branches and the 10 heavenly stems that interact to govern the flow of time affecting everything from the stars to weather to politics to social relations to spiritual cultivation to health. In rural China I am sure that the ancient calendars are observed and understood, but I am in the city where the western solar calendar and the rhythms of machines and commerce and manufacturing and politics (i.e. control) are gaining.
Even here, however, and among the young, people count their birthdays according to the lunar calendar, not the solar, so when we get into a discussion of birthdays, it is very confusing. Unfortunately, instead of continuing to count the lunar months in the old way (month 1, month 2, etc.) they have named them January, February, etc. so there are two sets of months with western names starting and ending at different times each year. When we begin to discuss dates, my students all whip out their little electronic calculator-dictionary-clocks and calculate the relationships between the two calendars. Very ironic; they need computers in order to function in their old calendar! A twist on your question about machines and time, Rick.
For me, part of the reason that living in China feels so right and is so therapeutic is the very different feeling of time that operates here. "Man zou," people say regularly when taking leave of each other - "walk slowly." Life is slower here, and it is restoring my battered spirit. Naps. We take naps and I love it. "Xiuxi" it's called. In the old society and still under the Communist system, people tended to live where they work. The Communists established work units, and people lived as well as worked there. It is easy for me to cross the street at lunchtime and take a nap. Everyone does. As the economy modernizes, more and more people are buying their homes separate from their workplace and commuting to work, making naps impossible.
Everything used to close for two hours at noon. Banks, stores, everything. The university offices closed for two hours at noon when I first arrived last year, but now they only close for 1 and 1/2 hours. Stores remain open at noon. The streets and shops are nearly empty at that time, but restaurants, of course, are busy. The western rhythms are slowly replacing the old, and people's health is beginning to show the effects. One of my colleagues is suffering from nerves. She quit working and is taking tranquilizers because she is too nervous. I took her to my qigong master for massage. Very few of the younger Chinese understand or use traditional Chinese medicine. Qigong massage is hard to find.
I think our society's relationship with time is very damaging. With it goes the ethic that tells you that being busy all the time is good, not only good but essential. I found many of my harassed U.S. friends were always talking about how much they had to do, how many meetings and activities they had, and how they couldn't handle it all. There seems to be a macho one-up-manship in the U.S. that forces everyone to be busier than thou. Many workplaces subtly and overtly demand 70 and 80-hour weeks and if one tries to resist and have a life, there is often a penalty paid in professional advancement.
This doesn't exist yet in China. People, particularly teachers, work reasonable hours, and they expect to spend a lot of time with their families and a lot of time at meals, one of the chief pleasures in China. They value long, rich conversations and laughter. They also study very hard, which is the primary demand on their time - learning this language is not easy, as I am finding. I imagine that the farmers often work long hours, but the agricultural demand on time is different from the clock-based demand on time.
For me, the slowness, the slow-moving qigong and taiji quan, the naps, the language study, and the massage are slowly rebuilding my burned out and depleted qi. I love it here. But I worry that the western rhythms are inexorably sweeping across this society and changing these people, too. I'm teaching at an agricultural university where many of my students are peasants, and I think sometimes that I am witnessing the very cusp of the change. One would think that such a vast reservoir of old, natural rhythms could find a way to bend and adjust the western ways as the two flow together and create a new way of relating with time that is not so destructive.
* Rick Jarow, author of Creating the Work You Love: Courage Commitment and Career, has a discussion listserv (visit Anticareer). He had a recent posting in which he asked about machines using us or we using them, and about observing how machines affect our perceptions of time and space. Janet responded with the above essay and kindly gave Seeker permission to print it.