Sunday 6th
The elevator rockets upward at a dazzling speed. A speed unbeknown to the sole rider of the cage. Apart from ears popping, there are no other signs that I’m on a run to the 79th floor within a time span of, what turns out to be, less than 10 seconds. I felt out of place on the ground floor already, but realise now that I’m set for disaster, I will totally out of place when these doors open. To get to the tourist deck of the Lotte Tower, one of Asia’s highest towers at nearly 600 meters, a minimum of one hour waiting time is common but here I am, all by myself, en-route to be looking down on Eiffel Tower height. The Signiel Hotel (until today I’ve always taken it for Signal Hotel) is a five star hotel occupying floors 75-101 of the tower and I’m bringing a small gift pack to its lobby. Walking in from the street I first didn’t believe the bellboy when he answered ‘79th floor’ to me asking where the hotel lobby was to be found. Anticipating me misunderstanding his Korean, I asked again twice over. He gently forced me through a door and pointed at the elevator doors. The lobby of the hotel smells great but feels as a cigar lounge. It’s brown and dark, lots of teak and Chesterfields. Your typical jazz or gangster movie set. I spent my day walking the city with tourists, of which the last two hours in a busy market. The scent of fish brine and discarded food produce emanates from my Lone Peak’s. It isn’t pretty. I’m wearing the Tom & Jerry jumper I stuffed in my bag this morning, just in case an evening chill required sleeves. It’s childish and goofy in normal times, but here it’s so out-of-place I’m considering taking it off and just short sleeving my way between Armani jeans, dresses and the odd tux. Then I’m drawn to the windows and all concerns fade. Seoul from up above is spectacular. This is Seoul at 9 o clock on a Friday night, somewhere between 300 and 400 meters above street level. Tom & Jerry eat your heart out. Inyoung messages me we should eat something here someday. I reply with a picture of the coffee menu I found on the lobby table. Two black coffee’s will set us back 46 USD, that’s as far as I will go for love.
It was a joy to read your update earlier, even if written in third person. I wonder what made you decide to approach it that way. Is this how far you’ve disconnected from your inner self in the weeks since doubling the breed? I have no understanding of what you are going through, but I’m imagining it being what I consider too busy for me, and then for every kid another dimension of the same level of busy added. I picture you questioning whether to sleep those five extra minutes, sacrificing breakfast or whether to let one offspring cry some more, allowing you that one sip of lukewarm coffee.
I’d like to say things here are uneventful as ever, but I’d be wrongfully presenting reality. The president was impeached when we communicated last. He’s now ousted by the highest court. A unanimous 8-0 decision. Some of the shackles are off, and the country can slowly breathe and move forward once more. Most people I know are relieved and happy. The pro-ousted-president supporters are mostly quiet. If I know a few, they won’t tell these days. They’re as quiet as every Ajax fan was last season. This season though, you may have read the news, we’re on our way to silverware. I’ve been writing before about the Italian coach, about Amsterdam catenaccio, about mixed emotions as we’re favouring tight defence over supreme attacking skills. Combine Ajax getting stronger every match, with the opponents in Eindhoven and Rotterdam falling apart faster than the US democracy, and we’re top of the league. PSV leading by 9 points in December, Ajax leading by 9 points today in April. It’s an unbelievable season.
On a personal level I received very satisfying news of passing the final exam of the study program I’ve been doing the past year and a half. I can apply for permanent residence, but on a less tangible level, I’m simply quite proud of myself for having pulled it off. Language learning, studying Korean society, it won’t ever stop but the formal program is done and dusted. Next up, upgrading the tour guide business. It’s spring time in Seoul, lots of tourists visiting, some of them for the obvious cherry blossom sighting, some are open to more adventurous explorations. And enough of both groups are interested to hire a tall Dutch guy to show them around and put Korean things in understandable context for Western guests.
Then for reading. After a great start to the new year, my reading hit a hard and especially high wall a few weeks back. Hand in hand with a schedule filling up rapidly, focus on the exams, my mind trying to juggle all the tour appointments and trying to remain creative and fresh in its approach, there’s not a lot left to read a few pages. Cartarescu’s Solenoid is one of the hardest reading challenges I’ve ever stepped into. I parked the book after finishing part one with three more to come, thinking I would read one simple book then continue with part two. I’m yet to go back. I picked up a copy of The Shadow of the Sun, which is without a doubt a joyful read, but I’ve had to peel it off my sleeping face more than once in the last few days, and even can’t find focus for it when sitting down for a coffee during the day. I’m sure it’ll come back one day. I like too much to not be slightly dissatisfied, but at the same time I realise it’s a sign other things are working out fine.
Today is a quiet Sunday, there may be reading attempts. Inyoung is out walking dogs. I’m deliberating a short run and there is a late night Ajax match that requires attention.
Friday 18th
It’s tempting to claim I adopted a two months old baby who turned my life upside down and now I’m no longer in charge of my own schedule and I can simply not find the time to read or write. I have no basement to withdraw to for a few minutes a week, but neither do I have the baby. There are no excuses and I won’t make any. I’ve read 100 pages in the past three weeks and didn’t write a single word in English either. Can I upload a weekly post in Korean instead? No excuses.
Friday the 18th. Tomorrow there are no appointments on the calendar. It’s supposed to rain. I’m aiming for back to back posts but realise that’s ambitious.
We ate army stew tonight. Or budae-jjigae. Remember how I recommended you to go and have dinner in Vancouver’s Koreatown? You wouldn’t be all question marks now with me mentioning army stew. It was the same day I send you that stack of Vancouver questions. I had pinned the message that said you were going to answer all those questions. It was unpinned when I checked today. Either you secretly did that (which I doubt) or Zuckerberg tried to interfere with our business (which I don’t doubt). You did try to wiggle yourself an easy way out by that cheeky bookstore comment in your last post. Denied. A nice metaphor but not enough to rid yourself of the task.
Peameal bacon?
Since last week we have been living in Korea for five years. I took Inyoung to the hotel mentioned in my previous post, the one on floor 79 overlooking the city. I thought it an appropriate location for celebratory coffee and cake. Fifty bucks for a black coffee, an iced latte and a slice of raspberry-rhubarb cake. The cake more than worth its value, the coffee horrendous. Inyoung loved the location and the occasion. My highlight a bowl of hearty ramen noodles: Costs 33% of the black coffee’s value.
If you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and check out the highlights of the Man United Lyon game of last night.
Utrecht – Ajax this weekend. The one we always fear in Amsterdam. Five games to play, nine points ahead. Unbelievable. Several Italian teams interested in our head coach. La Gazzetta dello Sport had a full spread interview with him. I’m afraid they’re playing to his Italian-ness and we’re losing the capitano already after a season.
I plan to write more first thing tomorrow morning.
Saturday 19th
I’ve never done this before, but I’ve brought the laptop back to bed. There’s also a jug of coffee that has the potential to keep me awake for the weekend. The boss left the house a few minutes ago, the time it took to brew the coffee, she’s off to walk a few four-legged, furry friends. And I said ‘first thing tomorrow morning’, so first thing it is. It’s a grey day; I switched all the house lights on. It’s that darkness that often befalls us just before heavy rain. No rain is expected though. It’s supposed to be 24 degrees and a bright sun later.
I’m not impressed by the latest batch of coffee beans ‘our’ roaster prepared for us. He’s made a lot better before. The coffee we brew in our own house, filter machine coffee, is by no means a reason for people to change course and line up at our front door. That said, it’s a simple and honest black decoction that lives up to expectation, that does the job and that provides exactly the level of satisfaction (happiness even?) I want from it. There is the obvious first cup in the morning, but a better example is that coffee one looks forward to after a period outside (a few hours, half a day). An appointment at the bank followed by a too-long lunch with family in law. Guiding tourists through the market. A fruitless walk to that particular book store, then a detour to move a little extra instead of heading home directly, only to find that the one critical tunnel is blocked for renovation. That cup of coffee I mean. The one you make when coming home with slight frustrations. Does the coffee we make at home serve as one’s overall coffee benchmark? The coffee at home is the standard to which we measure the quality, the comfort, the joy of all our other coffees consumed. I think it is. I’m thinking about those friends who boast incredibly expensive espresso machines at home. Who serve amazing coffees, truly delicious. But can one really enjoy anything else but that one cup? Then should one opt for no or inferior coffee at home? Your nescafe mix pouches. Add water, stir long enough and drink. I don’t have as strong an argument against inferior coffee as I do against superior coffee. One’s taste buds might deteriorate drinking terrible coffee. One may lose a taste for coffee. In the least worst scenario one may lose the entire appetite to drink coffee. One may even consider stopping all together.
The coffee we were served in the Signiel Hotel, floor 79 of the Lotte Tower, was not good. Clearly a one-button machine coffee. Served in style, well crafted cup and saucer, a delicious bonbon on the side, but a very (very) average caffè. The boldness of charging the equivalent of eighteen euros still makes me chuckle. You don’t blink. It’s probably the same for the buyer and the seller. You meet the one friend with whom you developed an annual routine with to eat something extraordinary. It’s an unwritten rule to not think about the check at the end of the night. To not be guided by restrictions but to simply have what you feel like having. That one night a year. You have the full chef’s menu and the recommended wine pairing. You hand in your credit card upon leaving the several-Michelin-starred restaurant and you don’t blink. Same for the meeting room where the hotel management comes together to determine the menu for the soon to open hotel hotspot in Seoul. Come on, it’s the 79th floor lounge. There’s no other place like it. “But sir, it is just a pack of average Lavazza grind in a De’Longhi machine.” You’re the manager. You decide. You don’t blink and settle on KRW 25,000.
Yesterday I listened to a podcast interview with a retired Dutch chess player. Arguably the best Dutch chess player in history although he never won a world title and another one, his predecessor, did. In the interview Jan—how about that for a name for a famous chess player— is asked for the matches he thinks about most fondly. He reminisces over one of his games against Anatolij Karpov, once one of the two world masters in chess, now a creepy old guy on the Putin hype train. Anatolij plays white, Jan plays black. Much to the annoyance of his Russian opponent, he beats Karpov but it takes a while for him to find out. As is common among chess players, they walk around, pop out for a smoke, have a toilet break, he finds himself at the chess board alone, Karpov has disappeared. This time, he won’t return. Karpov is so annoyed with himself for losing against a random Dutch guy that he asks his wife to return to the table to wave the white flag. He can’t bring himself to utter the words ‘I lose, you win’. His wife returns to the table, congratulating the still-unaware Dutch player on his win.
Do you think you and I could ever achieve a point in life where we take matters so seriously that we can’t face the consequences because our ego doesn’t allow us to back down? I’m sure with the two little ones at home, you reached a sense of responsibility where things become frighteningly serious. But not to the point that you cannot face yourself or another, right? Elite athletes are a special breed. Maybe the coffee quality equation applies here too. To be happy in sports one should never be on the ultimate extremes of the balance. Not ultra-competitive nor laissez-faire indifferent. But one thing that applies across the board. Coffee, chess, raising children—don’t blink.
Thursday May 1st
International Workers Day. I remember expressing my confusion over this being a national holiday in so many countries. I’m off today as well. No tours. A good day for no tours as I’m tired but equally important, it’s one of those rainy days in Seoul. A precursor of what’s in stock for us in the upcoming rainy season. The ticking of the rain the first sound in the morning, and most likely the last sound before falling asleep tonight. I just poured a third mug of black, seeing to bring some inspiration to the writing. I moved from the sofa to the desk for the same reason. Even switched off the music temporarily. Listening to one of Teju Cole’s infamous spotify playlists—there are some really good ones there. ‘In Bamako’ a favourite. Malinese music, Korean rain.
Waking up today with no schedule I read the last few chapters of Kapuściński’s In The Shadow Of The Sun. I tend to be good remembering names, but his I have to double check every time I write about him. A wonderful account. The world would be in a much better place if everyone were to read Said’s Orientalism and Kapuściński. Not that these are the two best books ever written, nor are they all-encompassing but it seems to me a lot of the blinds go off reading books like this. It won’t be the last I’ll read of Kapuściński (that’s a third copy-paste there). I’m pretty sure you mentioned his name once or twice recommending me a few titles, but scrolling goodreads after finishing, I notice you read almost all his works. And most to your liking. ‘A masterpiece’, the sole comment for his Soviet account. A good next read then?
When Inyoung left for her weekly pilates-lunch-food bath journey with mom, I decided to watch a photography documentary. One I’ve been tempted to watch for a while. It may interest you too. But at over an hour and a half of running time, it might not fit the diaper and food schedule you’re running these days. If you’re interested, message me, I can share a code to watch the film for free without pirating and exposing yourself to the Canadian secret services whom, I trust, are on the lookout ever since Fatima’s immigration papers were filed. The film follows photographer Gabor Szilasi, a now 97 years old photographer who was born in Budapest, but ended up in Quebec, fleeing the Soviets. It’s a very quirky film, a young female film maker and an old male, speaking a mix of French, English and Hungarian. It’s wonderful. His photography is great. Sometimes straight forward, almost average, but often beautiful. Human stories. Lots of Canada throughout the past sixty-odd years. His friends, his wife, a trip back to Budapest. Feel good but still non-fictional.
With the risk of making this a boring list of recommendations, here’s one from a few weeks back. Your leaning towards things Italy may be tickled by Vermiglio, an outstanding 2024 film. It’s location a remote mountain village, the northern parts of the country, the language more infused by german than you may like. Poverty, the end of world war two, although that’s just the backdrop, we don’t experience war. A community of people living together, the tension rises when relationships are stirred by the entrance of a single external force. It’s worth your time, if only for its cinematic presence. Empty shots of clouded mountains, greener than green mountain forests.
Looking back, indeed, it has turned into a list of recommendations. Apologies. I know your time is limited. Forget all I said when you close this tab and return to your excel spreadsheets. Happy Thursday!
Sunday 4th
Wrestling is the closest verb I can think of for this scenario. It’s saturday afternoon, some time between three-thirty and three-forty-five. The stairs leading me, leading us, back up to street level. Us is me and thousands of other rats previously trapped together in an air-conditioned vehicle moving along the pipe maze that lies beneath the surface of this vast city. We scurried our way from the metro doors, up one basement level, to where the turnstiles are. Bleep, the machines that scan our rights of passage. There the initial hurry-scurry turns into a desperate sprint to get to the escalator first. We truly are cattle animals, are we not? One starts to run, so does the next, then follow the troops. Hongdae metro station, one of the busiest in the city. It’s always busy here. Then add saturday afternoon to change busy into chaos. No person in their sound mind is walking slowly through the station. There’s a cap on the ketchup bottle that’s just been screwed off, somewhere near the metro exit, and now the sauce flows. It spills all over the Hongdae streets. I don’t want to be here now. Everything in me despises this situation. I try to avoid crowds actively which, despite its size and population, isn’t all that hard in Seoul. Try to be out in the morning, avoid the latter parts of the afternoon. Avoid Saturdays. Avoid popular neighbourhoods. Avoid Hongdae if that’s all you can.
Once I’m on street level, clinging to oxygen and a few patches of blue sky, I start wrestling. Taking the stairs is always the best choice and looking back at the mayhem at the end of the escalator, that choice is once more confirmed. People catching a breath, taking all but a second to look for directions, are being forced out from the station. Human cannon fodder.
Luckily, the reason I’m here lies just around the corner on the fifth floor of an unremarkable building. I’m here to attend a book launch. One of those events you sign up for weeks, months in advance from the comfort of the sofa, a Van Morrison tune spilling from the speakers, a cold ice tea within reach. But speed forward, arrives the afternoon of the event and one really has to get up and get going. Apart from a fair sense of superiority one derives from attending a literary event instead of standing in a tiktok queue or discussing youtube shorts, I liked the author’s first book, and more importantly, I’ve enjoyed the dynamics between the author and the translator in interviews. He, the translator, is very loud and very queer, two things not always considered appropriately Korean. She, the author, on the other hand, appears shy and quirky.
For all of the above, I spend today, sunday, at home with warm drinks and soft surfaces. It seems the Dutch 4th and 5th of may sentiment has also reached the Korean capital—I just watched Neshoma, an account of Jewish Amsterdam between the two world wars, paired with real moving images of the city at the time. It’s wonderful. I didn’t care much for the made up story of a Jewish girl conversing with her brother who left Amsterdam for Indonesia, but the images of Amsterdam in the twenties and thirties. Incredible. Then I’m reading ‘The Broken House’ by Horst Kruger, an account of your average German growing up in Nazi Germany. A fascinating read. It’s always a good sign when I go to bed, thinking I’d dip in the first chapter, see if I like it, and end up consuming more than half of it in one read. Small eyes, little light, the missus fast asleep. How I like my reading. But how I’ve not had my reading for too long now.
Both film and book came per recommendation of my dad whom I’ve been emailing with often recently. I’ve been trying to consolidate a few family tree things, trying to get a bit more information on my grandparents after I found an archival letter about my grandfather’s forced labor deployment to the German war factories. And also here it seems the ketchup bottle theory applies. I’ve been shaking the bottle that is my dad’s interest just long enough for the cap to fall off. And now information, memories and photographs are spilling into my inbox. I don’t have the feeling I want to be back with the parents but rather a sense to connect myself a bit stronger to the family tree by understanding better what the tree is made off.
Back to the book I am. For the reading spell may be broken.