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Cecilia Lim | all galleries >> travel >> malaysia > We've Got Time
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1 September 2007 Muar, Malaysia

We've Got Time

Shopkeepers idle away in their clock shop. Modernization has not really caught up in Muar. It's as if time had stood still in this town for decades


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Cecilia Lim11-Jul-2008 22:55
Thanks Cecilia W for another wonderful comment, and Phil too for coming back to this image and leaving me such a great compliment! I always learn something new from feedback, and today I whipped out the dictionary to look up "laconic" Wow! I agree with you Phil-it's the perfect word! Cecilia W, you have an amazingly lucid and colourful way of seeing things AND expressing your thoughts. Thanks for gracing my work with your beautiful soul.

By the way, I noticed another thing in my image today - how each man uncannily has their own wall of clocks. Something keeps reminding us that every man faces the same fate of being bound by time. And there's no escaping it. And this message repeats itself over and over again. This is getting so "Twilight Zone"ish don't you think?!!
Phil Douglis10-Jul-2008 22:01
Ceci puts it so well, Celia. This image is really about man's futile attempts to stop the inexorable march of time by recording it, to the second, over and over again. Man is the only species of living things that keeps the time, and these men keep time not only for themselves, but for all of us as well. Laconic is a perfect word for his posture, too. Bravo to Cecilia Lim for seeing the ironies here, and bravo to Cecilia Winston for so eloquently defining them.
Guest 09-Jul-2008 18:11
I love this, it caused me to giggle out loud. It's almost as though these gentlemen had staged it. Your title is perfect, and the laconic body postures totally bely the terrible evidence on the walls: that it's 10:10 and ticking, with all of us moving inexorably, second by second (that is, if you believe in TIME), towards our next incarnation, and there isn't a thing we can do about it; except of course, eat, drink and be merry -- especially merry, and cheerful, loving, kind, sweet, thoughtful and compassionate!
Cecilia Lim04-Jul-2008 21:53
Thanks Phil for your wonderful description on the incongruous nature of this image! I remember the guy in the front asking me why I was interested in photographing his shop. If only they could step away and see themselves the way we see them. What was even more incongruous was my answer - I told them that I wanted to document life here before it changed, when infact it doesn't seem like it was going to change much!
Phil Douglis04-Jul-2008 18:07
A surreal image, Celia. And very incongruous. The redundancy of 60 clocks, all set at the same time, ticking away around these three men who look at us as if they have all the time in the world on their hands, is bizarre. And the guy in front even wears a wristwatch, in case he needs to know the time.