May

May 1

It’s the first of May already. International Labor Day. It’s an official bank holiday in Korea, people are enjoying their day off picnicking on the river banks, soaking up some well-deserved spring summer warmth. Labor Day holds no special meaning to the Dutch, safe for the sparse and persistent (or naive) leftovers of the hammer and sickle movement. Also in Canada and the US no official remembrance or day off today. And Denmark. I wonder if we should consider these four countries the true axis of western capitalism. Other countries one would associate with ‘the west’ like the UK, the other Scandinavian countries, Australia, Germany, France seem to officially uphold the importance of an annual day dedicated to the honourable act of labor. The hard physical labor one finds in harbours, in the backrooms of a butcher store, on the back step of a garbage truck, and around the corner from our house where the street is prepared for heavy June rainfall. Welding, mining, fishing, nursing, moving, slaving, carrying, hitting, roofing. Laboring.

But also the sweat and tears of the anonymous data analyst of a bank who slumps in his office chair, two computer screens in front of him, righthand on a mouse, left hand close to the giant flask of water his wife bought him because ‘you should really drink more water’. There are post-its of course, written never to be read again, there’s a picture of the analyst team grouped together after a recent 10-mile running event, a stack of reports that need filing, a stamp with company details, a landline phone he’d love to unplug and hand back to the IT colleagues, a rugby-shaped stress ball, an afternoon Mars bar (she knows he prefers Snickers), and a tea mug so stained he’s about to re-label it from dishes to dispose-off. It’s eleven-nineteen on a Monday morning, the team just finished their ‘weekly stand-up at ten’ fourteen minutes late because of the soggy home-baked carrot cake muffins his colleague brought. 47 years old last Saturday and he couldn’t wish for a better team of colleagues to work with, he’d said. His colleague has been on a baking spree ever since the pandemic, first sourdough breads, and now soggy muffins. The other colleagues seemed truly interested in the goings of David Dowie – yep, he named his sourdough starter – to the point that the colleague felt the need to send pictures of the bubbly mess in a glass jar in the department’s group chat.

Eleven-twenty-three now and he wonders if he can pull it off to sit still for half an hour, not doing anything and jump up first calling for the department to have lunch at twelve.

That labor is commemorated too today Jack. Any special emotions you’d like to share on International Labor Day?

May 2

We decide to meet at Ttukseom Station in the afternoon. He’s off from work, and I, well some say I’m on a fulltime holiday anyway. Ttukseom is what they call a lively area, squeezed between Han river on the one side, two universities and Seoul Forest on the other sides. Four bookends all together making this area popular amongst younger generation Koreans, late teens, early twenties, all flocking to Seoul’s appendix, the area that resembles a little peninsula, smack down in the absolute city center. The metro’s green circle line circumcises the town horizontally, were it not for its elevated tracks, leaving the world below uncut but under constant threat of the guillotine coming down. I wait for him outside exit 1 of the metrostation, at the bottom of the concrete stairs that led me back to street level just minutes ago. Some office steps serve as a temporary haven in the sun, my journal open on one knee – if only I could write comfortably in poses other than behind a desk or table – I’m trying to take notes of what I see, hear and smell. There’s the metro high above serving as a roof, there are high rise buildings everywhere I look, and there’s the street underneath with four lanes of motorised traffic and sidewalks on each side. The sound of cars and buses seems to bounce between the buildings on the sides, but also from the metro tracks above, back to street level below, and up again. It’s both horizontal and vertical sounds. The bright afternoon sun light adds to the confusion by flickering in glass facades, from bus and car windows, and off the ever-present phone-in-hand of passersby. It’s a weird sensation sitting here. It’s warm too, I take my jumper off and regret mildly having opted for jeans over shorts. And then there are Seoul’s favourite spring flowers, the azaleas. One can’t walk around these days without tripping over a bunch of ‘m. Were this in the US I’m confident the public would ask for a wall and demand for the azaleas to pay for it. A pretty flower, yes, a lot prettier than the cherry blossoms if you ask me, but overwhelmingly pink and spreading a heavy aroma too.

My friend arrives rescuing me from a potential sensory overkill.

We walk to a coffee place I was reminded of earlier when flipping through my March Straight Read log. I found it on March 31st and remember the chairs outside facing the afternoon’s sun. Perfect for today. We order coffee inside and grab two of the four seats, one is taken by an older guy who removes his stuff from one of our seats hastily. A big smile on his face, eyes narrowed because of the sunlight. He strikes up a conversation in Korean, no hello, no introduction, just the question whether we like the personalised gold leaf money pins he shows us. My friend hides behind my back, pretending my wide shoulders are the barrier, and not his language skills. I answer dishonestly that the clips look nice. They don’t look un-nice, I just have no opinion about money clips. I’ve never owned one, my best guess is you contain a stack of banknotes in a clip like this. I rarely carry cash and also, isn’t a clip like this for people showing off their superficial wealth?

Anyway, mister and I steer the conversation in other directions. He is surprised, almost shocked to hear we are both living in Seoul, we’re not tourists. When I tell him I’m married to a Korean he nearly faints, and cries out with joy. Where I live? I tell him I live in Changsin-dong. This is the moment he decides to adopt me on the spot, he is the owner of a coffee place himself, located in Daehang-ro, bordering on my town. Even though it’s still a stiff 15 minutes walk, we are practically neighbours, and if that’s not enough we’re now in a godfather – adopted son relationship too. I take note of the name of the coffee place, it sounds familiar, but the pictures I see aren’t, and I promise to visit him soon. Just as abrupt as the conversation started, it now ends too when he jumps up from his chair – it’s only now I realise he had no drink, all the time we were talking – he shakes our hand, and walks into the bar, only to appear moments later again, jump in a parked car on the other side of the street, driving off, leaving us somewhat dumbfounded. We laugh about the weirdness of situations like these, situations you only get into because of your non-Koreanness, and situations every non-Korean in Seoul is used to.

Our conversation has wandered off in other directions when one of the waiters steps out in front of us and places a giant hazelnut-choco chip cookie in front of us. Courtesy of the old man who just left. The waiter laughs awkwardly as if we’re a girl at the bar presented with a drink from the creep over there.

That’s ten minutes in Seoul. This city never forgets to put a smile on my face.

May 3

A bit of a change of direction today. Advanced apologies if boring. I’m a little limited on time today so am posting what I just wrote within a more business oriented realm. I’m about to head out to meet two Dutch travellers who arrived in Seoul today. I met both of them ages ago and I would categorise them under ‘friends of friends’ and therefore a little courtesy coffee and walk, so they can ‘pick my brain’ and snack a little on the extensive list of recommendations I have for Seoul visitors.

With that said we get to the actual point of today’s post. It’s largely due to the pandemic restrictions all being lifted, but there’s also Korea’s current popularity on the world’s stage, tourism is rapidly accelerating. Since a couple of months I started receiving messages frequently asking me for my help and recommendations, family and friends first, but it’s now also ‘could you help my friend from pilates’, and ‘oh, a colleague is visiting Seoul, you wouldn’t mind…would you?’, and ‘Someone I follow on Instagram is in Seoul, he likes to meet you for some tips!’. It’s understandable, you know someone living here so why not connect the two. I don’t want to disappoint the people close to me and also feel strongly for Seoul’s image as experienced by outsiders, but it became a little too much. Me filling in the lack of knowledge, ideas and inspiration people have, writing the same list of ideas over and over, so I am considering a different approach: Creating a living document full of everything Seoul I’d recommend anyone traveling here, sharing that online but putting it behind the payment of a small reward (e.g. a 4-euro Buy Me A Coffee payment).

This Sunday I’m hosting a paid photography tour for someone who’s visiting the city. I’m thinking this tour to be the formal kick-off for my tour guiding services, and this document with personal recommendations available for everyone as part of the total package.

Here is the introduction I wrote for the document. I’m expecting this to grow rapidly to some 20 pages filled with interesting places to visit, rough walking route outsets, hole-in-the-wall Korean eateries. The types of things one can expect in a travel guide, just one with a Jitse twist.

Were you to travel to Seoul, would any of this sound interesting to you?

May 4

April ruined the routine. Totally ruined the routine. It’s 23:46 here. I could probably get away with 22:46, pretending we’re still 8 hours ahead here, as we are during winter, but no, it’s 23:46, 47 now and I just got home. I drank too much. Enough for a good Thursday night with the friends from friends I mentioned earlier, Korean barbecue with sufficient beer and soju on the side to oil the throat. The guys wanted to see what a Korean bar experience looks like after the restaurant, so we had a portion of dried squid, mixed nuts, and more cold, draft beer. It’s been a warm and humid day. A pre-summer sweaty day to be precise. I can hear the first raindrops falling outside, foreboding the rainfall expected to fall the entire day tomorrow.

So I was saying, April ruined the routine. I came home twenty minutes ago, after joining the guys halfway towards their hotel, ensuring they’d make it home sound and alive, and also hoping a little stroll to add to a multitude of preventive anti-hangover measures to be taken. It’s been a great afternoon and evening together. We took a bus up Namsan, Seoul’s central mountain, so they could enjoy the spectacular 360 degree views from above, the only location where one can truly get a grasp of the sheer size of this insane city. We walked down, back to Seoul’s reality, along the city wall and then made our way to Gyeongdong Market, the best market in town, perfect to combine with a little walk through the streets of the traditional Korean medicine market. Inyoung joined us for dinner and drinks after and now she’s laughing from the other room about me on my alcohol cloud.

Ah, wait, so I was saying April ruined the routine. I came home, had a shower, got ready for bed and just before grabbing my book for a final chapter I realised I had completely forgotten our daily writing commitment.

Tipsy, late, unwilling, but here you go. 0:04 in Korea now. It could be worse.

May 5

In a byline you described the two minutes of silent remembrance yesterday as ‘an absence of noise’. It crossed my mind several times today. Not only because I’ve been in a state of semi-slumber at home all day, I have the house all to myself, all windows are open to enwrap myself in the continuous rhythm of unending rainfall, a sound so pleasing to my hungover ears that I consider only to drink again if the weather app assures me thick, dark clouds pregnant with infinite amounts of water the following day. But also because it’s such an intriguing way to look at things, important things, such as two minutes of silence to commemorate. It’s as much about the ever-present noise that we can use the silence as a statement, or maybe it’s not about the silence at all, just about the noise. I too was silent during those same two minutes, but it’s the lack of noise surrounding that silence deeming my commemoration completely hollow and useless.

We’re often told, and rightfully so, that beauty can only be experienced because of its absence, the sound of Chet only trumps high because of the intermittent quiet moments, the highs we feel from up the mountain only stand true because of the painful crouch up, the beauty of color is in the absence thereof. Our incessant search for the everlasting, forevermore state of happiness is humankind’s greatest act of self-deceivement, a pipe dream, a hallucination. It’s only through our occasional suffering those slivers of joy obtain a sense of value. I’d even take the bet stating that on average the balance should best lean heavier towards suffering, to ensure best results on the happy end of the scale.

Korea’s four seasons are more explicit than the Dutch ones, it’s colder in winter, warmer and more humid in summer, spring and autumn are heavier on colours, skies are usually blue and sunny, and when it rains it truly rains. Like today. When people ask me what my favourite season here is, I have no answer, I just love the variety, the cycle of trimonthly differences. Or rather, I love the absence of the other nine-months-characters during the current season. Not sure if there’s anything here (like so often), but I guess what I am trying to tell myself is, the hangover may be miserable but there’s light on the other side, it’s for a good reason, one day when you look back…blablablabla.

May 6

The rain seemed to settle a little, half past nine last night, I hadn’t left the house all day, the only movement from desk to couch, to desk, to kitchen, and couch again. Lazy would be too active a description. But now, with sleep knocking softly at the door, a little runner’s twitch started nagging. Knowing a run will be just sufficient to let me go to bed with a feeling that resembles satisfaction, I decide to give in and get changed. I leave a towel at the door, I may have registered the rain sound inaccurate, I plug in my earphones, and lace up.

Usually I take the shortest route, up to the city wall and take a left back down to avoid too much climbing at the start, but today I feel the need to climb the entire hill first. A form of self-flagellation, but also leaving the possibility open to just stay in the park that covers the hill, limiting the potential distance dramatically. It turns out the legs seem happy, so I decide to go for the regular loop, down the hill to the busy crossroads followed by a minute and a half standstill awaiting the traffic lights. Somebody re-opens the rain valves, it starts pouring again. The green light. I sprint to the stream, knowing it’s the only way I can catch the next, and final traffic light. Made it. The fences through which one goes to stream level are closed because of flooding danger, as expected. I turn left with the cars. The next six minutes will be me with the cars – or me versus the cars to be more heroic – not unsafe, but sufficient to keep all eyes and ears open. Luckily the fences are open again where the smaller side stream parts from the main one, and I make my way down the stairs two steps at the time. I’m back in the world of pedestrians, but there is no one in sight. It’s me and The Wolfe Tones here, Irish protest songs pushing me forward and I realise it’s the coronation tomorrow, a good weekend for anti-England protest music I guess. I’m not too keen on monarchies, tone-deaf symbolism, and if I had a say in the matter, I’d suggest to stick their coronation up their British arse. A scepter inlaid with stolen gemstones symbolically up the newly crowned king’s backside. See if he can still pronounce Koh-I-Noor afterwards.

It’s perfectly quiet on the bike path, the occasional single umbrella braving the rains and I switch from humming to rambling the ‘The Boys of the Old Brigade’ together with the band. The legs are good, the mood even better. All strange looks are forgiven, it must be a weird sight, two meters of foreign meat running in the rain, shorts, no umbrella, mumbling out-of-tune, unknown folk songs. I push onward, clocking more wet miles, back to street level, it’s all familiar now, there’s town hall, the police station, a little dash to cross the street before the cars, then the one way street in the wrong direction. On and on and on some more. Then left at the 7/11, the last turn before the final section, steep up from here to the peak of Naksan. Just under four minutes on very good days, anything over four if other. I increase the rhythm, still fresh, breathing deeper but appreciative of the clean air. The story of Kevin Barry who fought and fell for Irish independence. Running in a country that’s been colonised, listening to stories of a country that was (is?) colonised, and coming from a country that only has colonised. Knowing full well I drew the longest straw possible, in moments like these I feel indebted, ashamed too, growing up in a world of absolute no worry, and it makes me wonder whether my life experience would have been richer had I be ‘on the other side’. There’s no way to know of course.

4.02 minutes today. It doesn’t lift the weight of guilt of my shoulders but it’s not bad for an end of hangover-day run in the rain. Atop Naksan I can now see how thick and low the clouds are hanging over Seoul. The radio tower on Namsan, usually its head in the clouds, is completely invisible, high-rise buildings generally not near high enough to touch the sky, today covered in grey fogs. It’s as if the cities’ light pollution is collected in the clouds, as if all the lights got stuck on their way up in the thick, grey texture of the clouds looming over Seoul today. It’s ten thirty now, it should be pitch dark, but it isn’t. Several crosses pointing up between apartment buildings, marking a church down below, lit in their typical red-neon lighting, completing the apocalyptic painting in front of me.

Time to head home where a warm shower and a little sanity awaits.

May 7

You’re right, it could be a match made in heaven. With a Korean barbecue restaurant available almost on every block, it should be incredibly easy for me – 6.7 feet of stretched Dutch pork belly – to visit a stranger’s whose boasting a charcoal or gas-lit grill as part of a dining table, surrounded with chairs and a fridge full of cold drinks nearby. It appears to be somewhat complicated though to obtain the passcode to unlock full access to a deep and meaningful Korean friendship. I’d pin this down to 50% Korean-ness, Koreans often make friends early on in life, they stay loyal to the same group of friends and unfortunately often still favor Korean-to-Korean friendships, and the 50% remainder a lack of energy on my part to work hard to develop deep-rooted friendship ties. I have made several friends, both Korean and non-Korean, all of them through shared interests (trail runners, photographers, book nerds), and I love to spend a lot of time with each, but it’s always on neutral ground, we don’t invite each other over to our houses for a home grill. Not yet. We do so with Inyoung’s friends occasionally and I tend to wake up with a cloudy head the following day, testament to the success of those nights.

On a complete different note. Should we set ourselves another reading project some time soon again? My reading is a bit all over the place lately and could use a structure of some sort. Is there anything on your to-read list that could be converted into J&J’s latest synchronised reading experience? By lack of a better alternative for me inviting you over for some roasted meats and a couple of glasses. You’re always welcome in our humble abode, of course, it’s only 10,000 kilometers after all, and were you to visit, I promise to be very non-Dutch and not show you the door immediately but I can imagine that’s not what you were after when challenging ‘the Dutchness’ in me in your latest post.

May 8

With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to proclaim life would have been richer, more satisfactory or maybe even more valuable, had I been born in another era. I wonder whether, and if so how, we would know we’re experiencing important times when we are. Times that future generation human beings or other intelligent, sentient life would look back at wishing they could have experienced a bit of our current days. As much as people run around screaming fire, I don’t feel as if we’re going through particularly exciting times or as if we’re living up to anything near to the true meaning life (whatever angle you take or through whichever distorted mirror you look to determine meaningful).

There’s the war in the Ukraine, devastating and important yes, but valued nowhere near as serious as was for example the Cold War. This one has actual bullets, and bloodshed and personal lives being destroyed, the other mainly known for just suspense, but all we have to offer today is three seconds of our attention on social media and a little cry of obligatory outrage when other topics of conversation have long dried out. As long as our own vain existence is not impacted.

Then there’s the rise of AI which some call the next earth-shattering event since the introduction of the internet. The latter a debatable achievement in itself. Looking around in a peak time morning metro, taking note of my fellow metro travellers here in Seoul, I’d say zombies are more alive than most of us. Some even call for a pause to the development of AI as they’re afraid it might spin out of our control. They speak of the creation of an intelligence that might undo of us humans when it objectively determines we hinder the planet’s and its inhabitants’ progress. It’s probably right. Maybe it should spin out of our control. Maybe a shared enemy, a truly frightening antagonist could break us through the walls of our sedated existence in which all we care for is maximised pleasure – yes you know who I’m talking about! – and our slow but steady march towards a state of semi-dead. A beating heart but a mind on standby. Too heavy to stay upright, too tired to form an opinion, too numb to read a book.

And then there’s climate change. I mean and then there’s the long lost battle with climate change. All we can hope for, and all that’s left to fight for is that things will take their course in a rather painless manner. Again, a new intelligence that disposes of us by a simple click of their enter button could be a welcome solution.
Be it for ourself (that would be the righteous option, and therefore preferable) or for the ones that follow (that would be injustice, and can therefore be expected), let’s hope it’s a quick one. Not the slow chops of the man-operated machete, but the quick and easy slice of the gravity-stimulated guillotine.

Last month I read both The Years by Annie Ernaux and The Prisoner by Hwang Sok-Yong in a short time frame. Completely different in style, but in other ways very similar: Two memoirs in which both writers describe their own lifes through the second half of the 20th century, well into the 21st, but both simultaneously focus on important historical events and the development of their country of birth through these years. Both echo a sentiment in favor of times past, a society that is both more social and also slower paced. Both in their own way battle with a France and a Korea split over the appearance of commercialism, the rise of capitalism and the decline of socialism. Both books were beautiful. Ernaux’s is a compact read with lots of bullet lists with very specific memories and events, every chapter starts with a description of an old film photo containing herself and sometimes others, adding a sense of personal development to the story. Contrasting this she creates an interesting perspective by using ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when telling her personal story, deliberately steering away from the book being just about her. Hwang’s is a hefty one in which he describes his life of protest, in prison captivity and on the run from South Korea to the very detail. His interesting twist is the non-chronical order in which chapters follow one another, rendering me in a state of alertness for the full 650 pages.

Seemingly in good health still both are nearing the final chapter of this thing here, and have, with these accounts, crafted something wonderful and both succeeded, probably unintended, in leaving me pondering my life lived in…let’s say…the seventies. The seventies in Paris, or New York. Amsterdam. Seoul. It seems the seventies were generally interesting all around the globe. Things were happening, and people cared. People cared about things. They protested. They made art. They were close friends who had barbecues frequently. They read and they wrote.

May 9

You travelled a lot further back in time than I initially had done. The 70s seemed a feasible dream but you took it to another level. Storytellers around the fire. No older than 50. For the benefit of the tribe.

Side note, should you find yourself back in the cubicle one day, approaching the corporate moloch as your tribe may be a good way to keep your sanity dealing with things. You’d be having (and causing) a few good laughs and it make for an interesting research project seeing if with that approach the dread becomes more bearable. Your daily standup, your weekly update calls, the continuous hunt for prey to satisfy the tribe’s rumbling bellies. Converting your .xls pivot tables into captivating .ppt slides, the new storytelling around the fire. See what happens when you offer to groom the vp’s backside, removing teaks and other bugs while chatting up his ego.

Several thoughts crossed my mind while reading your post, but not that one initially. Hence side note.

What I actually thought of was: Inyoung and I are watching Outlander, a Netflix drama, a historical fiction and fantasy hybrid that centers around a group of people, mostly Scots. The fantasy aspect is fairly small and I don’t spoil the story when I say it’s limited to one main character having the ability to crossover from Scotland post-WWII era to Scotland during the Jacobite uprising, 1750-ish. She travels through a group of standing stones, resembling Stonehenge, but it’s irrelevant. The series are fun to watch, well made as one would expect of a streaming service these days, and I’m reminded of Scotland often, a good thing as it’s probably my favourite travel destination. I’m not sure whether you have travelled there before, but if not (and if already, then still) you’d be amiss for not taking Fatima and Milo there once. Rent a wooden cottage along one of the Lochs, say somewhere north of Fort William, on the way to Fort Augustus and spent the week walking, staring at the rolling hills on the opposite banks of the lake, then lighting the fire place to read one of many books you brought and ultimately falling asleep to the sound of inevitable rain.

Another thought, to the prospect of dying at age fifty. Again, I was talking about the 1970s not pre-industrial times, and certainly not hunter-gatherer times. Those would be times for short travel trips, not times to live through. I’d live in the seventies like I’d live in Stockholm, I’d travel to early medieval France for a week or two like I’d travel to Mumbai and Delhi. An interesting trip but I’d have the certainty of a retour ticket in my back pocket.

No, what I was thinking of, or rather who I was thinking of, was a lady I got to spent most of this weekend with. She reached out to me, referred to me by a friend, if she could hire me for a photography tour through Seoul. Not to have her pictures taken, but just for me to guide her. Two likeminded street photographers wandering some of my favourite streets of Seoul. Paid. Of course, let’s go!

Chantale, 69 years old, I was a little afraid the walking distances and the hours on foot would get to her but nothing could be further from the truth. Turns out she’s the most energetic, happy and inspiring 69-years-old I ever met. Chairwoman to the Asian Development Bank, appointed by Mr. Biden himself. A position she held twenty years ago under the Clinton administration too. Now brought back from retirement after several years of being personal photographer to congressman John Lewis. Living in Manila where the Bank’s HQ houses, on a continuous travel-work routine between Asia-Pacific and DC, trying to make the world a better place. Battling for the rights of minority groups, against the impact of climate change in the region, changing the lives of the poor. The concept of 40-hour work weeks completely alien to her and whatever free hours remain, she spends on walking streets doing photography. She had just spent a week in Korea keynote-ing a congress discussing the future of Asia, welcoming the South Korean president and other hotshots, and still managed to pull of twelve hours upright looking through a camera. Half her energy at age 69, where can I sign?

Here is one of her pictures of John Lewis standing in front of a monument commemorative of slavery: https://chantalewong.format.com/johnlewis#no18

May 10

Five minutes before arriving at my point of destination, a sudden feeling of being mistaken creeps up on me. I walked here all the way for a steamy and hearty seaweed soup, I shifted the directions of my walk to the big supermarket to include this restaurant in my morning program. At 9 this morning I was on the brink of making breakfast but decided it wouldn’t be worth it if I were to have seaweed soup anyway. It’s 10.30 now, I’ve walked for 35 minutes, it’s sunny and getting warmer rapidly and my body is in need of food. Not in dire need, no, it can handle another hour on the sidewalk, just a combination of years of breakfasting routine and the prospect of something delicious being prepared. The restaurant of choice is part of chain of seaweed soup restaurants, but in a location I haven’t visited before. And now I’m almost there when I realise their sister location, the place I usually frequent, only starts from 11. The shame wave of sudden heat rousing up is soon confirmed on my navigation app, it’s from 11 here as well. There’s half an hour to kill. That’s unfortunate. There’s my ereader in the bag, I could just sit down on the steps of some meaningless office and engage myself for a while in the wondrously strange but enjoyable world that is ‘Tower’ of Bae Myung-Hoon. I weigh and discard the option of changing the order of things by going to the supermarket first instead. I sort of passed the supermarket on my way here and don’t want to walk back there before walking up here again. The obvious solution of simply picking another restaurant near the supermarket never crosses my mind. Of all the possible options I pick the one that’s probably the weirdest to anyone else, I decide to continue walking in the same direction, away from the restaurant, slowly steering a little to the right through a neighbourhood I haven’t been before. I’m walking for the sake of killing time on a course that can only be described as somewhat autistically avoiding to walk the same streets twice. Then, after a good ten minutes, I find the perfect street for a relative sharp turn left, it takes me back to the main street where said restaurant is located. Another fifteen minutes later, a loop of 25 minutes of complete aimless wandering richer, I return to find the doors of the restaurant wide open. The things one does for seaweed soup. The things one does with an inflexible mindset.

May 11

Were someone to pay me one euro every time you apologise for your writing, for waiting to write until the dying minutes of the day and your promise of change in the future, I would collect a steady stream of coins, sufficient to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner one day a month. February would be somewhat scant but the Januaries, Augusts and the like would even have a coffee for desert dessert.

Really though, why the apologetic state? Don’t apologise. Don’t because I enjoy your reading and if it were in any way repetitive – it is and so is mine! – I can still stand the two, three minutes of reading a day. Friends keep sending me brain numbing videos of other people tripping over spades, being hit in the face with a football or ‘here is the fluffiest monkey’ that especially I should really watch. I shouldn’t but they think I should. So don’t apologise and keep writing and uploading. If you feel the need to change something, simply do, but don’t apologise. I will not absolve you of your sins.

If there are other topics you wish to write about, try those. If you just don’t want to write about it being late in the day, don’t write about that. Or do. Stand up to the nagging voice in the back of your head, resist, rebel, combat if you have to, but don’t apologise. You owe no one anything with your writing Jack. You have to feed Milo several times a day, one could argue you have to compliment and hug Fatima often, but when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning, wiping your ass after the toilet, and whatever the other eight commandments are, you don’t really have to. You don’t owe the world anything.

I could finish nicely buttering up the parts I may have roughed up today, but I won’t. I don’t owe you anything either Jack. I’m simply enjoying this little daily thing we have here, both the writing and the reading. It’s often the first thing I read when I fire up the laptop after other morning routines. The first thing after I allow the digital world to merge in with reality. You are often the first person to speak to me in the morning Jack and it’s ok, we’re not married, you are allowed to nag in the morning.

Now tell me about The Derby della Madonnina. Or give me your best lasagna recipe. Send me a list of some futile thoughts you had recently. Describe your first time in Lima. Or your mom’s food. Or tell me again how you intended to write early but didn’t and therefore wrote to me just before bed time. Isn’t that comforting in itself, the idea that writing is the last thing of your day and the reading my first thing?

May 12

Oh man, the sounds of a late evening in a Dutch snackbar, now here’s a good reason for some longing for the mother country. If I understand it correctly the taverner of choice, Bambi, chose his stage name ironically, the exact opposite of a cute, fragile, wide-eyed deer. I’m picturing lots of tattoos and iron, enough hair to make the groundskeeper at Anfield jealous, a thundering voice designed for the dominance required to restrain the late Friday night, flushed crowds and hands so numb he grabs the frikandellen straight upon lifting them from the oil.

Patat ketchup though Jack? I see the integration process has not taken its full course. Here’s your Canadian you doing business, not your Dutch you. There are several options for your patat. Just ketchup isn’t one of those. It’s no sauce for the healthy people awaiting their order outside in fresh air. It’s met mayo (or just ‘met’) for the majority of the people. It’s speciaal, ketchup-mayo or curry-mayo, either with or without uitjes, messy but good, with the added side benefit you could dunk a plain frikandel in the saucy part. And then there’s patat satésaus, a tasty leftover from our colonial history, which if you add mayo and uitjes too is called a patat oorlog. Curious to see how that stands the current tides of wokeness, in a Europe at war.

I’m on board with your stance on ambiance. Your potential performance in the Dubai marathon stirs up a little afterthought on the apparent perfect living state that is Oman, but I’ll let that pass. Ambiance, yes! We agree. Paris sounds promising. A cabin at a lake too (please refer to my earlier words on you taking the family to the Scottish highlands). I think there is something to be said for Broodje Bambi and the like for having the right ambiance too. There’s a lot to write about at Bambi’s, assuming you don’t get punched in the head by some moron who had one bottle of jenever too many. Late night snackbars have always been an intriguing project for me; fly on the wall, camera in hand.

Writing at Bambi’s requires another dimension of peace of mind though, a mindfulness and comfort level in writing you and I are yet to achieve. One day to be able to write amidst the distractions of every day life happening all around me, that’s one to strive for. First in the library, then the noisy coffee bar, practise the notebook-on-knee acrobatics, maybe standing upright in a metro and ultimately at Bambi’s. Squeezed in the corner next to the slot machines, where the entrance of the toilet is, the destination of the guy who got thrown out from Mick O’Connells just around the corner. Careful with the notebook though, it looks like he might not make it all the way to the toilet.

May 13

May 13. A Saturday like any Saturday. Dennis Rodman’s birthday. Cult leader Jim Jones’ too. And Bruce Chatwin, author of the masterpiece that is In Patagonia. I’m reading it now. A coincidence. Tradition has it that on May 13, cardinal Richelieu, or to be precise Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu., a name so French even camembert cheeses bow their heads, invented the table knife. Living in a part of the world where table knifes are fairly obsolete – we use the far more appropriate table scissors to half our octopuses, our pizzas or our ribs – and in thoughts still enjoying Bambi’s companionship, the invention of the table knife seems a fairly insignificant event. Try cutting a Hema tompouce with one and thoughts of a table-knife-less life will immediately arise. True, this morning I spread my peanut butter on a baguette (halved with a bread knife) using a table knife but I’d happily accept an existence in which we dip our baguettes or sourdoughs in peanut butter like we dip our naan in curry, or our pita in hummus.

The invention of the table knife. Talk about something irrelevant.

Were there any cutlery competitions, I wonder if the table knife would cut it in the big leagues.

I can see you are puzzled, wondering whether the table knife then truly has no purpose at all, but don’t be disheartened. One has simply to find a sustenance firm enough to withstand manual pressure, but at the same time soft enough to still part by the underdeveloped slicing skills of the table knife and I happen to know just the right thing for this Saturday. A weekend day average to most but special to you my friend. Find yourself a good Utrechtse pâtissière and ask the maître for his/her best apple pie. Back home you will find that no other tool cuts apple pie better than the often underappreciated table knife. And I’m sure Milo will be all too happy to help you with a comparative study on the wide range of potential apple pie cutting tools. It’s the table knife that will come out on top.

Have a great birthday Jack. Gefeliciteerd!

May 14

Towards the end of Bae Myung-Hoon’s ‘Tower’, a collection of stories about a 674-floors tower named Beanstalk, there is a story named Cafe Beans Talking. It’s the best part of the book if you ask me, it’s about a coffee place and I would have loved to hung around a little longer, sipping coffee and trying to get a better grip on the Beanstalkians and their dystopian society. Or utopian society, we’re not really told. We just base our opinion on how we experience life developing in Dar-es-Salaam, Utrecht or Seoul (also known as the Golden Triangle) and if we do so, I’m sure you and I end up calling it dystopian but walking the streets of Seoul I can see many people opting for the utopian label as they go about their life more and more anonymous, embracing the benefits of rapid gentrification. Ordering their coffee’s through a tablet behind the entrance of the latest all-consuming, life- and loveless, take-out coffee franchise.

The point the author tries to convey in this part of the book and I’m inclined to agree is that the societal decline that follows gentrification is not caused by us, the simple and unconscious nitwits we are, buying our coffee somewhere else but by us no longer conversing with each other. It’s not that we, from one day to the other, decide to buy our coffee at Starbucks instead of at Peter’s around the corner, it’s that we stop talking to Peter, and to old, weird Emily and to that guy we have never seen before. It’s the conversations that form part of our societal roots, not the cup of coffee itself. Obviously it helps that at Peter’s we always get a sweet freebie, and we can take the coffee even if we forget our wallet, but it’s the small talk, the wink, the broad smile and even the grumpy snarl that keeps things together. With the commercial franchises now omni-present, they’re here to stay whether we like it or not, it seems we need to take another approach trying to stop things falling apart. Find ourselves our local Mac, Dunkin’ and 7/11 and start talking to staff and customers; striking up conversations, sharing feelings and emotions, dropping puns. All the while trying not to get arrested for harassment.

Koreans are not known for their open armed approach to people they don’t know, especially not if these are of the kind that is over two meters and not stemming from Korean soil. Since I moved here I make it a point in our neighbourhood to greet anyone who looks me in the eyes. Happy, grumpy, no exceptions. It took a while for people to get used to this, some are probably actively avoiding eye contact or hiding in nooks and door openings when I approach, but with most there is a common understanding of weirdness established, we greet, we laugh and we talk small.

May 15

And with that post, written half an earth away while I was vast asleep, you sent me on a music rollercoaster down the YouTube rabbit holes. It was a joyful ride but I shouldn’t be allowed access to the algorithm. I watch one video, then click onwards and I keep spiralling out of control from there. When I switched from watching videos to reading a wikipedia page titled ‘Rock music and the fall of communism’ I managed to pull myself away but only just. I now feel relatively safe and stable in the confinement of my writing app.

The Metallica concert is a true gem. I’m not too big on Metallica but their live performances always seem off the charts. This one especially. Indeed, it’s the helicopters hovering over the crowds, but also special attention for the apocalyptic color settings of the video. The result of bad quality 90’s film, or a terrible VHS to digital conversion or, and here’s what I hope, the actual atmosphere off stage, a Mad Max type of dystopian air that only confirmed the doomed world which prophetic communists had been fighting against since the Russian revolution. (And looking back thirty years later, weren’t they right?)

I am also reminded of a concert registration of Michael Jackson of which I am pretty sure I still own a VHS which I bought in Fame, the now closed record store in the basement of Magna Plaza, just off Dam Square. The recordings of his Dangerous concert tour in 1992 in Bucharest. With the jolly couple Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu being shot less than three years before, MJ’s performance must have confused many an elderly Romanian.

The concert starts with Jackson being launched in the air from inside the stage, fireworks surround him. He is wearing his typical bling-bling fashion, tight dark pants, a pair of aviator glasses, a massive belt and what looks like a golden crotch to a babies romper. His outfit is perfected by a pair of white socks in black leather loafers, a combination tried by many Korean young men these days but no one pulls it off as well as he does. He stands frozen for a minute and forty seconds, we can see he is breathing heavily even though he is just standing there. Needless to say he was as nervous as a rabbit caught in the front lights of a car, it could be a simple adrenaline rush, but I wonder whether the heavy breathing is caused by some pre-show amphetamines.

A statue adored by the masses. He makes his first move, then removes the glasses and kicks off dancsinging ‘Jam’. In the span of the first five minutes we see a Romanian crowd going absolutely psychotic. We see people cry when he tightens one of his leg muscles, they cry true, honest tears, then we see the first of many girls faint. The entire recording is full of overheated girls, large 90’s curly haircuts being lifted from the crowd by wide shouldered man in black tees. Girls on stretchers being rushed away from the excitement through fenced off area’s. A premeditated and incalculated risk, the collateral damage of inviting the King of Pop over for a little hokey pokey in front of 90,000 people who had just parted with an era of torment and repression. It’s cold turkey detox the reversed way.

It’s common knowledge that many authoritarian leaders throughout history secretly enjoy(ed) the conveniences and pleasures from the western hemisphere, while withholding these from their submissive peasants. Do you think a cheerful Nicolae on a Friday night, boozing after an extravagant banquet with fellow comrades of The Party, would play Off The Wall for Elena to arouse her carnal desires?

May 16

‘For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.’

Yesterday I decided to watch Lost In Translation for the umpteenth time. Once every so often I receive a message from friends in The Netherlands that I should really watch it if I haven’t yet. I have though. And although I understand the sentiment, a westerner in the far off regions of Asia, it’s not really the same, is it? It’s a movie about two travellers from the US who find themselves at night in a hotel bar in Tokyo, awake and dog-tired by jetlag, bonding over their respective failing marriages. I’m not in a hotel, not in Tokyo, I don’t have a jetlag and my marriage is going well – from my perspective that is. It’s a good laugh though, Bill Murray and a young Scarlett Johansson are a great team and the image of Tokyo at night is brought perfectly. The flashing of lights, gusts of loud sounds, reflections of faces, the everlasting twilight over the craze and chaotic that is Tokyo.

Somewhere halfway the movie I decide to also watch ‘Her’ again soon, not umpteenth but a second time. A story line quite similar to the one I’m watching, a lonely writer dwelling over his impending divorce finds new love in an AI system. The AI’s vocals are provided by Scarlett Johansson, coincidence?

When the credits of Lost in Translation start rolling (side question, are you a credits watcher or a credits skipper?), I veer off seeing where I can find ‘Her’ for later watching. While reading a couple of reviews, I find that ‘Her’ is directed by Spike Jonze who based the initial story line on his autobiographical experience having a relationship with Sofia Coppola. Wait. What? But isn’t she? Yes, Sofia Coppola is the director of Lost In Translation who based one of her main characters loosely on Spike Jonze, I come to find out. Oh the wonders of the world wide web. But is this the algorithm talking to me? Are we truly living in a simulation where free will is nothing but an empty shell?

I’ll leave it at that for now but should you need two movie recommendations, I’ll offer you the Lost In Translation + Her combo package. Goes well with both salt and sweet popcorn. And a Suntory of course.

May 17

It’s difficult to describe Seoul’s humidity during summer months. The Dutch hot summer days are humid, yes, but they don’t stand a chance in comparison with Seoul’s. It’s early summer days still but we’re well into the first course of the hot dinner already, the lukewarm appetizers are long gone. The rainy weeks of end June, early July will bring some relief but other than that it’ll probably remain like this until the end of August. I finished a little jog around the block almost an hour and a half ago, I even had a shower in between and I’m still sitting here by the open window enjoying what little breeze makes its way inside, my head covered with a towel, a bottle of ice water close.

Our circadian rhythm will shift the next few months, I’ll ‘live’ more in the early hours of the day, or the later hours of the evening. A daily sacrifice, skip the empty mornings, or the cooler nights. Or choose both and slowly exhaust myself over too little sleep. Let me check the dictionary to see what siesta is in Korean.

This and next week it’s awake at night so I can watch the Giro d’Italia which finishes around midnight. I was looking forward to images of endless Italian landscapes and sleepy Umbrian towns. The sloping hills of Emilia Romagna, the dry Calabrian coast lines, the blues of the Adriatic Sea and the verticals of the Dolomites. So far it’s rain though, and flooding, and cyclists dressed in long, black, rain attire, indistinguishable from each other. Covid sweeping the peloton too, but with a daily diet of six hours of rain and mist I guess regular pneumonia isn’t all too far either. Today’s route will see a thinned peloton heading north from Tuscany. Camaiore to Tortona. Place names I haven’t heard before but which still sound bellissima. Here’s a little snippet from a promotional text about today’s region on the website of the Giro:

Among the most exclusive products of the area we mention the S. Pastore ancient wheat bread, the “Nobile del Giarolo” salami, the “Montebore” cheese in the shape of a wedding cake, the Tortona strawberry, the Volpedo peaches, the Garbagna cherry, and among the typical Tortonese dishes the “Anlot” or “Agnolotti” are served with the sauce that was used to make the filling; they can also be eaten in a clear soup or broth. However, the true anlot-lovers prefer to eat them “drowned” in Barbera wine.

Meet you in Tortona for dinner tonight Jack?

May 18

‘Chaos. But I love it.’

‘Just when my photographic life is coming to an end, someone gives me the very best camera’s that you could ever put into your hands. It’s a tragedy.’

We’re thirty seconds into a video that was released four years ago, and these are the first two quotes of Don McCullin, the leading figure of this video who is exploring the chaotic maze that is Kolkata, India. It’s a promotional video for Canon, the brand of choice for his camera gear, but that seems irrelevant, the branding is hardly visible throughout. Seeing McCullin in action is always a joy to me, and so are these 19 minutes in Kolkata. He’s a little overweight, his shoulders leaning forward, sweat circles appearing, he touts his mouth when he points the camera as if holding his breath until he clicks the shutter. There is a camera on his left shoulder, and another in his right hand, he’s constantly clicking pictures, constantly framing. I rarely carry two camera’s myself, it’s simply too heavy but I envy the ones that do. We catch a glimpse of one of the lenses, a 35mm prime lens. If I had to guess I’d say the other is a 50mm prime lens. At the risk of sounding boastful, true street photography is done with prime lenses, not zoom, but that’s my humble opinion. You work the shot, you move your ass to find the right frame, you don’t have the lens do it for you. The main downside of non-zoom lenses then is the need to carry two camera’s to have a choice of focal lengths, or to constantly change lenses with the obvious drama of missing out on some magical moment. My late grandfather could roll himself a tobacco, single-handed, in less than five seconds, but changing lenses on a camera is a different ball game.

So yes maybe I should carry two camera’s but that’s not the point here. The impressive bit here is that Don McCullin is already 82 years old when this video is made (he’s 87 now). This seems to strike himself too when he confines to us that Kolkata makes him feel like a young photographer again. Whenever there is a camera following him, I’m always amazed by his energy and vigour.

McCullin is best known for his war photography, but his later street and landscape work too is among the greatest of all time. Combine this with a persistent willingness to talk about the craft and one of the best English accents one can have and Sir Don makes for a perfect subject.

We see the master in action but there are also feelings of discomfort creeping up on us while we watch. Here is the old colonialist Brit taking advantage of the poverty and suffering that’s everywhere in Kolkata, but interestingly enough (for a promotional video) McCullin addresses these topics as soon as they arise, as if he were sitting next to us. He speaks of British colonialism and the balance between good photography and poverty tourism all the while walking and creeping up on people.

‘You’re always under the spell of photography, it’s the one love affair you will embark on, you don’t ever turn your back on.’ – Sir Don McCullin

This may be today’s key truth for me.

May 19

For a second your political thoughts confused me, I started doubting my basic topographical knowledge of Italy. The level of stupidity of the idea for the Dutch to take charge in the Italian boot, not virtually, no, true physical presence, is obvious and need not be addressed seriously but for a second you caught me off-guard as I thought I misjudged the size of the Italian population. As if it were in some way comparable to the Dutch. A quick check confirms that at almost 60 million people Italy is substantially larger than the low lands. Therefore indeed, where do they go? I came to know Italians as proud, vain, conservative and stubborn, they’re not too keen on change, especially not if said change is suggested by the world outside Italy. Ask an Italian to weigh the importance of Italy and the rest of the world, I’m pretty confident he’ll land on 50-50, Italy being as important as the rest of the world combined. Or even 51-49 to better stress the nation’s chauvinism.

Another way to look at it, and an even more striking example of this being a bad idea, is to look at a Dutch family driving their Opel Zafira through the Gotthard tunnel to claim settlement on the shores of Lago di Garda for a period of three weeks in July. They’re ready to spend a well-deserved summer break here after the hardship of cubicles and schools they’ve endured since that week in the all-in-ski-resort near Val d’sere back in February. Take a look at the luggage they bring for three weeks of glamping on a five-star Garda campsite and you’ll quickly realise that humans will live on Mars sooner than the Dutch will settle in Italy permanently. There’s the obvious kilo-pack of jong belegen kaas because Italians and cheese, well we all know, not a good partnership. There is one jar of pindakaas at least, most likely two, with and without peanut chunks to satisfy the refined but differente preferences of the family’s son and daughter, and only a savage can expect these two to survive on the fruit jams from the Veneto or the hazelnut spreads from Lombardia.

Last week at their monthly consult with the relationship therapist husband agreed with his wife he shouldn’t refuse all her suggestions point blank and immediately, not resist her tendency for adventure a priori, so he has agreed to join her on parts of her journey into the Italian unknown, a search for the primeval, a little bite of the indigenous staple she’s planning to have them served. But that’s all well and good, there’s a limit to everything, and therefore she allowed him to bring two 500 gram packs of his favourite Douwe Egberts Aroma Rood filter coffee. “He is a different person after he drinks that.” she confided to the therapist. “It’s the one his father, his grandfather and even his great-grandfather used to drink. Isn’t this what they call family heritage?” she added while trying to remember if Italians ‘do coffee’ anyway? There are stroopwafels too, because, well, biscotti. Only a wildman.
There’s a family pack of toilet paper, “softer than any of those sandpaper disasters on offer in the campsite’s store”, and coincidentally in de bonus. Coincidentally, six weeks prior to departure that is but better safe than sorry. They brought five wholewheat breads but that’s only because he forgot to cancel their weekly bakery subscription in time and that would be a waste, right? Side benefit is the calmness this brings, as they don’t have to search for the local artisan who bakes an acceptable dough, immediately upon arrival. Having some Dutch bread for breakfast will allow them to more naturally flow into the Italian routine of things anyway. And wait, there’s another treat disclosed, two large tupperware boxes containing leftovers of last night’s farewell-from-home pasta dish. Her twist to a pesto pasta. The one in which she replaces most of the basil by spinach, the parmesan by those tasty and chewy bits of the belegen kaas on the rinds, the parts you can’t really access with a cheese slicer, and in which she leaves out pine nuts because both her husband and son, well let’s say they are just not too fond of nuttiness. “Nuts are for squirrels ma!” She was preparing the pasta already so why not make an extra portion. You can never be entirely sure that their favourite campsite restaurant is still open after seven in the evening. They will be tired after the drive and she knows full well there is a thin line they’re treading between a cozy holiday or a vacanza disastrosa if pops starts things hangry.

No, even if the Italians were, I don’t think the Dutch are up for the task.

May 20

It will happen yesterday.

It would be fair to say a large part of our writing here, maybe the largest part, deals with memories of the past. A similar sized part deals with our daily movements and (in)activities but memories of times past are a commonly accepted subject and also an easy go-to. If both past and today are justifiable, then why does it feel like cheating if I write about the final hour of May 19 as my May 20 post? It feels as if I’m secretly abducting something that should have been written on the day itself, or some time in June. Or December. Of 2025. The way our brain continuously, and almost immediately strangles itself into preconceptions and routines is an incredibly strange way to deal with life. So many problems would be solved if it wouldn’t. Think only of the reduction in depression and burnouts and the total collapse of an unnecessary part of the pharmaceutical world that would follow.

It’s fine though, right? We are allowed to write about eleven at night the previous day. Right?

Right?

It still feels off. I may postpone it after all. The date stamp doesn’t even matter, I can simply decide it happened tomorrow, and call it the artist’s freedom. I wouldn’t even have to address it. Or would I? Although my reading public is fairly small in size, am I required to disclose any untruth in my writing? Would it automatically transfer the post from the non-fiction shelf to the fiction shelf? Can tomorrow’s fictional post already be considered historical fiction?

How this works I have no idea. Where it leads I have no idea either but it does remind me of something else that I wanted to drop here for you so we can chew on it together.

I’m reading Isabel Allende’s The House Of The Spirits again, it’s been over twenty years since I first read it but I still remember how much I enjoyed it at the time. One of the first books written for adults that captivated me completely, from the first page to the last. It’s doing the same now. The novel is categorised as magical realism and therefore makes a perfect pairing with warm and sleepless nights. Magical realism, a concept I find difficult to set apart from fiction, fantasy and realism, a category explored by many of the great Latin American writers. On Allende’s website we gain some insight in the author’s craft by reading a compilation of interview questions she has received over the years. We learn that she spends ten to twelve hours a day, alone in a room, writing without any distractions. Here’s to these fifteen minutes a day we manage to scrape off from other more important things. But what I wanted to leave you with is the following question and answer:

Q. I think transcendence is what you are talking about, the ability to move above and beyond this real world to a transcendent understanding of feelings and emotions. Would you say your novels are defined by that characteristic more than any other?

A. It’s strange that my work has been classified as magic realism because I see my novels as just being realistic literature. They say that if Kafka had been born in Mexico he would have been a realistic writer. So much depends on where you were born.

Kafka born in Mexico. Now we can take this two ways, or three ways if you add the option to completely ignore it. There’s a trail that leads from the hypothesis what would have happened if you yourself had been born in another country (maybe Russia, or Spain), and there’s a trail that leads from another well-known author (maybe Knausgård) being born in another country (maybe Italy). The latter being the more accessible option, extrospection probably favourable over (read: easier than) introspection.

May 21

Today I bought a map. A large, foldable, 1:40,000 scale map of Seoul. I’ve been searching for one for quite a while and am stoked owning one. “Just order it online.” the average reply I received when mentioning my search, but those people miss the point. Not surprising as they are the same ones that would start by asking why on earth in 2023 someone wants to own a paper map. Its usefulness long overtaken by navigation apps, it seems an incredibly cumbersome process to use this for any practical purpose but still it makes me happy. It’s more than a meter wide unfolded and made of a thick type of paper, hufter-proof we say in Dutch but I’m sure I wasn’t part of that calculation. They call me Jits-the-Ripper for a reason.

I found it hidden in a crate, under the lowest ‘official’ shelf in the back of a second hand book store, in an alley near the Cheonggye-stream. I go there often, it’s nearby, but I usually only glance over the stacks of secondhand books, rarely finding anything to my liking, mainly overwhelmed and confused by books stacked on top of each other in piles standing taller than myself. The wise guy that I am though, this time I came prepared, I promised myself to ignore the books and I studied three possible translations for ‘map’. Not knowing which of the three was the right one (how many different concepts of map does humankind need?), I blurted out all three in a rapid fire of questions at the owners of two adjoined stores, who I interrupted in a comfortable Sunday afternoon chat, and I’ll be damned but both understood me straight away and I was guided into one of their book havens and directed to ‘that corner, over there, in the back, somewhere below’. It’s where was a crate with maps. Possibly the only paper maps in Seoul. A dusty treasure. Maps of all major Korean cities, but also hiking maps of mountain ridges. And demographic maps. And a map of Seoul 300 years ago. And the one I own now, Seoul late 2021. An English version available too but for aesthetic reasons I decided to take the one written in Hangul. A choice I’m happy and proud of now and one I’ll surely regret later.

Now I’m sitting here on the floor of our tiny house with my latest catch spread out in front of me. Inyoung just came back home from errands and looked down at me briefly. She started laughing a laugh all too familiar to me, one that originates from surprise but holds a strong sense of desperation too. Still when I listen carefully it has the tiniest sliver of hope echoing from it as well.

May 22

Only fragments of memories remain of my first time in Seoul; small details of an alien world, splinters of visual recollections and – of course – mysterious flavours and smells I’d never smelled before. The gate in Incheon airport, a white, almost sterile walled gate, from the plane to customs, adrenaline levels up, but jetlag-tired at the same time. And carpet. Incheon airport was a member of the unofficial group of airports with a carpet floor. Thick, low-key colored carpet, faded by the pressure of thousands pairs of feet treading its surface and trolleys and tired babies being dragged across. For as long as I remember Schiphol has been part of the other group, the group of airports with shiny, concrete floors. Floors that require constant polishing, floors as impersonal as the tax-free stores that line the walls around it. Incheon switched membership to this group in the years since but all memories of those first eight or nine days in Seoul, of all the trips after and of anything I am still to come across, it starts with the carpet in the airport. There was the drive from Incheon to Seoul, the first time I saw the concrete jungle around Han river, twenty floors and up. There were my first cold noodles, cold but also spicy, and they cut the noodles with scissors. And there was the coffee place where they gave me a small device that turned out to be an alarm announcing the coffee being ready. There was an indoor market, and a metro station, and a street with souvenir stores, places I couldn’t navigate because of a language I had no knowledge of. I ordered dumplings on the street without knowing the content, the voice of my GP echoing in the back of my head, reminding me to be careful. We went for Korean karaoke after a night of heavy drinking and there’s a vague memory of me standing on a stage, a mic connected to an echo machine, and me quashing my image singing about the Summer of ’69 with a colleague from New Zealand.

It was all new, and I had no idea how new. And I had no idea how unique new is and that it should be cherished. Because new is thin and new always fades. Like carpets in airports. New never stays. New is always now and never more.

Things we experience in a virginal state, the books we read for the first time, the places we never visited before, the movie that caught us off guard that first time, the new restaurant we accidentally found. All too often it’s only the first time we get to experience something new, that it turns out a magical experience. It can still be great after, but never magical. The spell that caught us disappeared, the seal is broken, the veneer too brittle to hold, it’s gone with the wind.

The House Of The Spirits is still a great read today, but it’s not like the first time reading it, all those years ago. I remember reading Zafon’s The Shadow Of The Wind the first time, completely consumed by its pages I finished the book in one go, reading all through the night. Then trying it again some years ago, a beach read during a week on Crete. Not even close.

Now I’m showing visitors around in Seoul and I envy these people. Whether they are amazed, surprised, overwhelmed, disgusted, they are meeting the city for their first time and I wish I could be them for an hour, or two. Half a day. Just for a while.

And here’s your father in Utrecht, plunging himself into the islamic quarters of Lombok and enjoying it. A first time for him? I don’t know for sure but I’d like to think it is. His son’s hands and language skills nearby, a safety net, but still courageous, eyes wide open, other senses too. A child having bubbles blown in his face for the first time. I loved reading your last post Jack, you are excused for no-shows, very-short-shows or late-shows while your father visits if that means the two (or better even, three) generations Miskiewicz are out exploring new worlds and creating memories. We may not be privy to granddad’s thoughts, but we may still see corners of the veil lifted through the eyes of his son, now a father himself.

May 23

Little kids who fall backwards and land headfirst on a hard floor is something for which my anxiety can get the better of me. When I’m with friends who bring young kids who are not yet stable on their feet, still wobbly, not the faintest clue what balance means, running around recklessly, I am constantly on the lookout to safe them from their first ambulance rush to the hospital, from potential brain damage or even worse. It’s apprehension I even feel when video calling my sister and seeing my little nephew racing over the couch behind her, balancing himself on the sofa’s armrest, my hands immediately get clammy and focusing on the conversation becomes twice as hard. Now this is not the reason for us not having kids, that’s a whole other conversation, but I have to admit it’s a great side benefit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for being not too protective with kids, falling is part of life, eating sand is not a big problem – eating poisonous berries is though, speaking from personal experience – and we all learn that fire is hot by holding a finger in a candle’s flame just a tad bit too long. No, my anxiety applies only to the sound of skull hitting hard surface.

This is why I can’t wait for May to pass so I no longer have to read how your May started off with a bang. The bang of Milo heading the floor, having lost his balance just a second before. It’s where I start scrolling to your latest post, and my eyes seem incapable of just ignoring the first few lines of the page. Every May day I feel that same ripple of heat rushing up through my backbone to my head.

Here’s a salute to June and what’s to come! And to Milo being happy and healthy!

May 24

This may be a disappointing update. A response to your yesterday’s request to disclose the thought trails and official processes that lead me to picking my next book. There’s not something as sophisticated as yours, I’m afraid. Did you work this out in a nice visual as well? A simple yes/no decision making diagram that leads you to a ‘read’ or ‘don’t read’. Jokes aside (sorry for the mockery) this may work, but I’m sure it’s not for me. The magic of book reading for me is more a somewhat intangible, mood of the day experience, not a rationalist one and this starts from the selection process.

I have a few trusted sources for book leads and reviews. A carefully crafted database consisting of some friends, family members, podcasts and recreational reviewers. Many of those who once entered this group were tested unworthy for the cause and were removed. In case of friends they remain just friends, not book friends. Every remaining individual source I’d take their advice blindly if need be, but typically I take two or more recommendations of the same book before it sticks.

Yes, in recent years, maybe since the Korea move, I lean heavier towards the non-US world but that’s simply because I find there’s already sufficient US thrown at me in decades before, I find the world unnecessary US centred, I disagree with the idea that all good literature stems from the US, but most importantly I just enjoy the opportunity to go places, to travel while home, to explore countries, cultures, histories by reading diverse stories from around the world. The International Booker Prize is hit or miss, you are right, but for me more often hit than miss. And yes, it helps when the setting, the background or the topic sounds appealing upfront. For example the German book I suggested. Berlin after the fall of the wall. I’m already sold there. I started clubbing and attending techno raves when I was 14, 1997-98, most of this techno hype originated from Germany (another part from Detroit, I’d read about 80’s and 90’s Detroit too), especially from East-Berlin just after die Wende when Berlin ravers started using old, disbanded buildings in the eastern part of town for their anarchistic party purposes. Therefore, give me everything on this topic. Same for Germany antebellum. I only know stable, quiet, developed and friendly Amsterdam. What made things go so terribly wrong after 1918 in Central Europe? How was life between ’28 and ’33? It’s still possible for the author to screw it up but the setting already has me.

Albeit written on a whim, let’s see what you wrote more. Now here is an interesting one, the book reminds you of the Belgian book. I understand that and had you not liked that book then it’s fair enough. But now it sounds as if your selection theory is a little conflicting your reading practise. Ah well, a little conflicting, welcome to life. But at least the conflicting part may explain where our opinions part ways here. How does your argument of ‘been there (done that)’ hold when reading Ferrante, Knausgård and several others never bores you. Again, it’s fine, it’s just where I am still on board reading this one too.

Then there are the anonymous Goodreads keyboard cowboys and girls’ opinions. Somewhere in the first top ten most liked reviews someone rants and hates. I rarely read these reviews. There’s so much rubbish out there, I don’t know these people and since I disagree with most of humanity – in a friendly manner but still disagreeing – I can’t say someone ranting is a red flag. It’s as much a green flag to me as a stellar review could be a. You mention you rarely drop below a 3.8 star review threshold. Again, not something I look at when choosing. It wouldn’t be a nice thing of me to tell you it was quite easy to check your book reviews to find books you star rated five even though they are well below your threshold. That would be too simple of me, so I won’t. Even though I could, I won’t. Don’t worry. In the Dutch school system tests are scored on a 10-point scale, 1 being terrible (‘you start on 1 because you wrote your name correctly’), 10 being superb. 5 being insufficient, 6 being sufficient, and 5.5 (or 6-) being ‘phew, I passed but that was close;. I was known to be a ‘zesjesjongen’ (let’s see how your Dutch fares these days) and that probably established a favourable sentiment for the underdog. A 7.6 threshold after conversion, there is a whole world of stories out there that deserve your attention!

Side note. When debunking the star threshold I came across a list with the GR worst rated books. I highly recommend scrolling through the titles a little. Some true gems there!

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/23974.Worst_Rated_Books_on_Goodreads

‘I may have been guilty of some Bulgarian literary racism, in that I’ve never read a Bulgarian, as far as I know, and felt it was a little too exotic for my tastes.’ Here you write the exact reasoning why I want to read it. I never have, therefore I’d like to. Isn’t life full of I never have and still I tried’s? Turns out Time Shelter won the ’23 IB prize. I’ll let you know my experience in due time.

That’s all good and fair but it’s not what I set out to try to describe, my selection process. There are my parents, both avid readers with good taste, my mom devours fictional novels, she is happy to cross the occasional country border, and is a safe go-to for more philosophical reads if I’d want. I’d text my father in times of non-fiction or more thrilling needs. There’s my friend Gideon who I can rely on for books, and there is you Jack, our writings here and your reviews. I just made a note of David Bezmozgis’ Immigrant City when I was off to dismantle your 3.8 threshold. Ah shit, there I said it anyway. I remember asking you if there was a book you’d recommend on Toronto and you said there wasn’t really. Now there’s this thought, and although with dramatically low numbers, it could be a start. ‘Something Toronto’ would be enough reason for me. Then there are three, four other GR reviewers who are not friends but who have an interesting taste and an eloquent, amusing, sometimes hilarious, sometimes foul way of writing reviews. I’ll take their advice. There is Tony’s Reading List who sends one or two reviews a week; Tony mainly reads novels but reads across the globe. That’s my favourite part. He has a Japan month, reads a lot of Korean literature, reads in different languages, chairs an IBP shadow panel (their winner Cheon Myeong-kwan’s Whale (here’s one that didn’t make the cut of my suggestion to you), with an honorable mention for While We Were Dreaming) and sends a monthly email with his reading stats where he appears to be very woke by describing his reading’s gender, language and other ratio’s. I don’t mind a little woke. I don’t mind a little un-woke either. There’s de Groene Amsterdammer, renowned Dutch magazine and now book podcast too, and there are some awards (Booker, IBP, Nobel, etc.) that give a nice indication of what’s out there. And there is a life span that will never fit all the books I’d like to read.

And lastly, there is simply me reading the book’s cover, a few pages, and thinking to hell with everything, let’s read the damn thing. I make to-read-lists, usually hidden between journal entries or in my agenda. I made some digital ones too but I like the idea of these lists getting lost to eternity and that seems not to happen to digital files. The lists are by no means definite, neither are they binding. There are no boxes ticked, no strikethroughs, no amendments. There is the list, and there’s the reading. And then there is a new list that better reflects my latest mood. Here is a list I made two weeks ago, the freshest of the harvest. I’d say it’s a good list if I manage to read 25% of this. Or better, I’ll be very happy if I read 25% of all lists combined when I switch off the final lights and exchange the earthly for the eternal.

May 25

In front of us lies the river, we can see it disappear in the distance several kilometers away where it bends beyond the skyscrapers in the east. We sense a similar spectacle behind us, the river flowing beneath us and then towards Yeoui-do, the financial district, but we can never be completely sure until we verify if the river is still there by turning ourselves. Seoul metro’s are of the type in which benches are lined up sideways along the wall, one always faces the people on the other side and we see only in one direction. Unlike in the west Koreans will immediately try to be supportive and react when I turn to see through the window behind me, allowing me the bodily space to do whatever I plan to do. Therefore I don’t. I assume the river continues behind me and to date it does so without failing. A reassuring sensation in a world of change.

A bright early summer sun hangs over the city and combined with clean air it creates a spectacle of light glistening of the river surface. Add to this the light reflection from countless vertical apartment windows on both sides of the river, it dazzles me. I can only make out contours of a city that I know lies in the distance. My mind immediately starts calculating the option of finishing this errand faster to allow for going home, jumping in my runners and sprinting off for some 10k’s along the river, soaking up this light. I know it’s unfeasible, it’s the brightness of morning sun light and it will have vanished by the time I’m back. I settle for the option of walking back across the river instead, after I’m done.

It’s 8.30 am on a Wednesday morning, I’m on the green line heading south. Every Seoul metro at this time is crowded but the ones crossing the river southwards are especially sensitive to rush hour with office people making their way to the corporate molochs they sold their soul to, the majority of which are in the southern districts. Without exception everyone in this compartment is either glued to their phone, or dead-tired, head leaning against the wall, trying to catch a few minutes of missed sleep. Nobody’s notices what happens outside. The light. It makes me mad. They’re all encapsulated in a world of ten second commercials, a goat kicking its owner, a new pair of sunglasses (but for what?!), a few quick words to a friend, an apology for last night, a crypto wallet crashing, a dog licking a cat, a blue or a green skirt, not again fried chicken tonight. I want to quash their phones. Melt all phones into a big boiling soup, then mold it into a large sign that reads ‘look outside, read a book, talk with your neighbour’. Ah well, who am I kidding. Let’s see who made it to the NBA finals. The river will still be there tomorrow anyway.

May 26

Turned out the river was still there this morning. In need of some walker’s solitude I cancelled both half-half plans I’d made with friends today. There’s a can with cold beer next to the laptop, the pizza lords are at it for the other half of the godly spices that will catapult us into the weekend. The heroes on bikes will ascend to Tre Cime di Lavaredo later tonight completing my evening of passive amusement, the matadors entertaining the people, an arena made of hard rock and snowy peaks. I, the proletariat, am in need of adrenaline and parade and demand you, down there in the ring, to jump and dance for me. Don’t give up so soon, I’m sure there’s some left in the tank. Booo! Giving up already? What are you, some insignificant bum, some negligible nobody? Faster, faster, faster! You’re getting paid for this, right? No, no, don’t help the man! They can handle a little pain, right? Imagine there were cinque cime, tre is only kids play. Hop, hop, on you go.

Isn’t it a beautiful thing how we all think it’s normal for us to sit on the couch, legs up preferably, and tell professional athletes how they could be better doing their thing? Millions of people all knowing better how their national team’s 4-4-2 should obviously be a 5-3-2 formation. How a 72nd minute sub should have been on the team from half time already. The same people criticising the Kipchoge’s and Kipsang’s of this world for their slow starting pace, or commenting a peloton of cyclists for not attacking earlier, on the first climb of the day. Too lazy to walk to the fridge to grab their own beer, having a scooter delivery guy serving them their own nutrition, but no the guy on a 14% gradient after 6 hours in the saddle, he’s the guy who needs change.

I think we can agree there’s a lot we can criticise little Leo and vain Ronnie for but not for their performance on the pitch. They’re being blamed for getting older, they’re getting shit for only 30 goals a season and for a year without trophies. It reminds me of my father commenting to me scoring perfect on a school’s test, asking me what remains for the next test after perfect. They’re victims suffering of the expectations they created themselves earlier. That said, the whole Saudi journey, the years in Paris, interviews with Piers Morgan and recent years’ behavior on respective national teams is a large damper on how we should judge both.

Ah, there’s the sound of the delivery scooter who hunted today’s meal for me. I’m off to lay my legs to rest and watch the clowns perform. Faster, faster. Up, up, up!

May 27

Slightly envious of all the miles of Spanish walking path you have laying ahead. I’m picturing lots of gravel roads, never boring as twists and hills will break the monotony. A local church on the horizon announcing another sleepy town up ahead, Spanish seniors lining up the sidewalk leading into said town, their lunches on the stove, you can smell as much, first glasses of vinho tinto being poured. Some smile at the walkers passing by, some don’t even notice the parade anymore. To some you’re no more than the mistral blowing through the street, to some you’re the confirmation the outside world still exists, they’re still significant.

As I mentioned in the message I sent you yesterday, I was moved by your story. I’d been hoping for a long time to read a bit about your experiences in Peru, little did I know you would pull of an adventure like this. A little less dramatic for a start would have been just fine; the fruit and vegetable store near your in-laws where you ate your first Peruvian guave, the thing that surprised you most the first time you walked the streets, the first meal you’d choose upon your next arrival in Lima. Or simply the go-to coffee corner with the sunlight falling through the majestic tree on the square in front, a fan on the roof whizzing, providing air circulation but no relief from summer heat, a cocoa biscuit on the side, too hard to chew but surprisingly delicious. But nope, none of that. There’s no careful wrapping the innocent reader into a soft, handmade poncho, on the contrary we’re being slung over the shoulder of an Andean mater familias, dangling upside down while being dragged up a hill to Los Haciendes Emocionès. No time for a little settling in, a bit of acclimatisation, even though you of all people now know the relevance of this, we’re off to altitudes where a lack of oxygen chokes us and where the words were reading make us tear up.

Every now and again we come across people like Char-les, people who not only have unlimited empathy for the people around them, they also have seeming unlimited heaps of energy to share this empathy with. These are fascinating people. When seeing them in action I usually get confused by a mix of awe, inspiration, confusion, and overwhelming tiredness. It’s difficult to wrap my head around how different some of us humans are wired. I find myself in many a situation where a little empathy or social responsibility is required, and most of the time I’m more than happy and able to provide it. I actively tell myself often to do so, to do more and to do better, but just like most of us, in the majority of cases it comes automatically, unconsciously almost. The aspect where I differ though, where I veer off from the path the Charleses walk, is where one is and capable and switched on any wake moment. Seemingly without exception. Friend, acquaintance, total stranger, no matter the time of day, no matter the receiving end, they have and they can. An amazing trait. A trait I’m afraid that cannot be learned. The knife can be sharpened, but it cannot be enlarged.

For now let’s be grateful it was Charles you had sitting on the donkey next to you, and not me, or someone similar to me. Please keep an eye out for stranded chairs along the camino, will you? And should you hit a low at some point, don’t call me, I wouldn’t know where to find the donkey to pick you up.

And besides, all donkeypower corrupts anyway.

May 28

A short one today for me too. I overslept. We’re off for a day and a night outside Seoul, in a town called Dongducheon where one of Inyoung’s friends has some kind of holiday house. She invited us to stay there for the night with the idea that I can take some photographs of the place so she can use these on her website. I would probably have made the photographs without the reward of a stay over, but it made Inyoung especially happy to know the place comes with an in-house jacuzzi.

The excitement has faded somewhat as it’s pissing with rain outside. It started over the course of yesterday morning, it hasn’t stopped since and according to the weather forecast it will continue well into tomorrow. Not the best conditions for a trip north to the countryside, the village set at the foot of a mountain range and with this weather there is not a lot we can do apart from moisturising ourselves with repetitive stints in the jacuzzi. We planned to fire up the barbecue which every Korean holiday accommodation has, but have already decided to try out the kitchen instead.

The oversleeping today was caused by wanting to see the dramatic turnout of the cycling in Italy last night. I went to bed at 1.30 after the final time trial on an insanely steep Dolomite turned the general classification around. Main actors in the drama were a Slovenian former ski-jumper cheered on by what seemed to be half the country Slovenia and a 37-years old Brit with a facial expression that always seems to ask for another pint. The Brit was leading the ranks by 26 seconds going into the time trial, they started three minutes apart and for the first half seemed to go at exactly the same speed. When the Slovenian had to dismount his bike on the steepest parts of the climb due to technical problems, it looked as if all was done and dusted. But doomed were those who decided to do something else (go to bed!) because the Slovenian miraculously found some spare powers. Yelled on by thousands of fellow Slovenians, raging with adrenaline after the technical despair, he managed to turn things around in a matter of only two, three kilometers. He won the time trial by 40 seconds, setting him firmly on top of the charts with a 13 seconds difference after three weeks of racing. Today is the final stage, a tourist ride into Rome, and the unwritten cycling laws require the last day to be for celebrations only, so no final attack from the opponents. It’s a Slovenian on a Dutch team taking it home in Rome today.

Gotta go now, Inyoung’s eyebrows demanding me to get moving.

May 29

You’ll probably read this post at some point in the very near future, maybe today already. Still, the idea that I’m screaming into an empty well, writing a message in a bottle, is a different type of writing thrill. I hope you read this only when you are back on Utrechts home turf, that you allow yourself to disconnect as much as you can. With Milo and Fatima only accessible through virtual mediums completely off-grid seems unreasonable, but nonsense like this, or worse social media and news platforms, hopefully you do without. Dusty miles, the occasional cool drink, big meals and a book at the end of the day, should suffice.

As for off-grid, on the train back from Dongducheon, where we spent a night surrounded by mountains who themselves were covered in mist, Inyoung and I had a conversation about all the smartphone zombies around us, and how society’s addictive tendencies frighten me. How I would rid myself of the device in my pocket if not for the family in The Netherlands and the ability to send them a daily message or image, making sure they don’t forget me, ridding myself of the ever-present feeling of guilt and simply just making sure they get to experience a little Korea with us every day. Losing this ability would be tough, it would make being here a lot harder, or rather it would make not being there a lot harder. During the conversation I deleted several (of the already small amount of) apps from my phone, keeping only the absolute bare minimum, and I created a…I don’t know what to call this…a profile on my phone, a setting I can switch on that further restricts which apps are active and which are not, but also for which contacts I receive notifications of messages or phone calls coming in. Discovering that such an option even exists made me strangely happy. Now there is a ‘phone status’ in between being on flight mode, completely displacing me from virtual society, and full on active mode, driving me crazy because, well, notifications.

You may be wondering whether something actually exciting happened as well because this is just nuisance. If so, you’re right. It’s dumb chatter into empty space. But no, nothing exciting happened the last 24 hours, not something worthy of description at least. We spend a night in the garden of our friend’s accommodation, they fired up a barbecue, I got cold when the grill died out, normal body temperature was restored by an hour in our in-room ryokan, the evening’s highlight, a bath of a size that even allowed me to stretch out under water, hot and steamy, all made of wood to please the eye. I regretted not buying a couple of beers from the machine downstairs for ultimate bathing pleasure. The moment I realised this, I felt too naked and lazy to dress up and go back out again. Instead we had to satisfy with water. Water instead of beer, so far the thrilling nature of a night out in the countryside.

It’s almost half past eight here, I ran a little loop between five and six, I had a long cooldown and shower since, and we also just finished dinner. I’m still sweating like a pig though. Korean summer heat. Ain’t no Japanese ryokan beating that. Be it the dripping from my forehead or the nonsense I’m screaming into it, the well seems full for today. I assume you are still trotting along the Basque Country and that’s a great image to close off with. Be well out there!

May 30

Yesterday I mentioned the message in a bottle here. A concet, if I remember correctly, I’ve never tried. I remember in primary school we all participated in a similar concept though, launching a little note for a stranger into space attached to a little helium balloon. We did this as part of a day on which we raised money and were made aware of the ideas of charity and helping someone less fortunate than us, the spoiled brats living in well-developed Western Europe. The day also included a running event in which we were to run as many laps around the school as we could and have our family, friends and neighbours pay a small amount per lap. All for the benefit of a charity that I don’t recall the name of, but if I were to guess it would be Unicef. Since all my friends and I did, was kick footballs – before school, during breaks, after school before dinner, after dinner, in our dreams – this was my first experience with running from a start to a finish line. Both being the same white painted line on the same side walk, can I still call this from one line to another? Anyway. Regarding the balloons and the scribbled notes attached, I’m sure they convinced us that some of the luckier messages would make it all the way to children in need. How difficult could it be for a balloon to cross half of Europe on its way south, then cross the Mediterranean, possibly the Sahara too and then land somewhere in dry, poor Central Africa? The idea that plastic bags filled with helium were damaging to the environment was still to be invented by the way. I’m sure the ducks in the stream around the corner from the school were all too happy having their habitat spoiled with rubbery substance in all colours of the rainbow.

Thinking about this I’m also reminded that kids back in the 90’s used to participate in these chain letter projects (is chain letter the right English name?) where you send a letter to, say, three friends, they forward the letter to three of their friends and onwards it goes. The letter would contain some reference to (or even an address of) the kids at the start of the chain, leading back to its origin, in hopes some random receiver in Toronto, Abu Dhabi or Rio de Janeiro would then contact the ones in Abcoude who started it. I don’t think I ever received a message back after playing my role in the total. These projects always seem to fade out a lot earlier than planned for at the start and also result in disappointment or frustration of some kind. A broken kids heart then, an empty wallet after a pyramid scheme now. The means change but the drama continues.

While on the topic of individuals inter-communicating. Today I met a German guy, a friend of a friend, who works for a Korean company named Azar. Azar is named after the founder’s fandom for Eden Hazard, at least so I was told. I like to believe that to be true and therefore don’t want to kill it by fact-checking. Azar has one product to sell. An app. As if we really needed more. It’s an app in which one can make a personal profile and meet a random stranger for a random chat through a random video conversation. Another dent in my already mutilated faith in humanity. So we’ve got to the point where we don’t want to talk to strangers in a bar, a bookstore or a swimming pool any longer because we are so attached to our virtual spaces, we live so deep in the digital swamp that we can’t drag ourselves out, and we now satisfy the need to connect to the same strangers through the app that keeps us away from strangers in the first place. It’s saddening. The need to connect to strangers apparently still exists. Weird. And all the while we thought it was gone.

Looking at the bright side though, should you find the solitude on the Camino turn to loneliness, I’m sure you can find yourself a local cantina along the road, with a solid wifi connection to help you download Azar. And in case you not yet drifted off that far, try striking up a conversation with the cantina’s owner. I’m sure the Basques love to hear a story about technology that’s named after the biggest and most expensive failure of the pretentious royal football team down in the capital.

May 31

It’s 6.28 am when the ear-splitting roar of the air raid alarm violently yanks Seoul from her dream state. At least it did so for me this morning. First the air raid alarm, then minutes later a warning message on our phones requesting everyone in the Seoul region to prepare themselves and be ready for potential evacuation. Is the apocalypse upon us? Are the enemies marching into our lands as we speak? My mother-in-law calls, she’s frightened, Inyoung nervous, I’m only dazed and confused, not yet in state of panic. We switch on the tv where announcers repeat similar messages, unknowing to what may have caused the stir. Then – it’s 6:48 am now – a message follows telling everyone to remain calm, the imminent danger has dissolved, a sense of relief befalls us but do I taste a hint of disappointment in the dungeons of my almost flawless conscious? Being the brat that I am, raised in a world where the idea of danger is only an abstract idea, a tiny part, the sensational part in me would have enjoyed having to quickly pack a bag and rush for one of the many signs saying ‘shelter’ that I see so often. It’s only a little fraction of me, I promise, just a few thrill-seeking neurons somewhere in the…help me out here…amygdala? I obviously don’t wish any harm or disaster to the country that welcomed me and allows me to call it home but a few excited hours on a raised heart rate and on tiptoes, in a candlelit, concrete basement, it would certainly make for a good story.

It appears to be an incident report related to the Northern neighbours launching a rocket of some type. Most likely the satellite they announced a few days ago to be launched some time before half June. It’s easy to picture the wide grin on Kim Jong Un’s face when he learns about the commotion he started in Seoul on this average Wednesday morning.

It’s a thrilling way to start the day, it seems to outdo the sunrise shot of caffeine even. Everyone is awake, I hear people on the streets reclaiming their stance in the north-south conflict, friends and family are sending messages on the Kakao chat app (I’m sure the news broadcast later today will tell us of record high data loads), and my feeling of safety in Korea is further strengthened. All the rust and dust collected in the last decades has not affected the countries’ warning systems, that’s reassuring. Everybody can safely go back to bed, allowing me a bit of quiet time to journal some and enjoy that cup of coffee. Not to wake me up for once, today it’s just for taste, smell and good-looking blackness.