August 12

Monday. My classes finished Friday, the Games ended yesterday. Time for the drought to end here, if only temporary. This morning I slept in long for the first time in ages, the phone switched off, the better half out on errands. She came back just after I got up, we ate together and then she left again. Leaving me to the desk, a little writing and then more homework. The classes ended but the exam is still to come beginning of September. I watched quite a few bits of the Olympics, both the Netherlands and Korea performing better than ever before, a weird sense of pride taking hold of our sofa. Then Ajax’ first league game last night, a solid 1-0 win, succeeding three wins in European games. Nothing exciting to watch as yet, but it seems last year’s defensive drama is somewhat under control with the Italian taking the wheel.

Before the Ajax game last night, I decided to go out for a late night stroll through the parks, listening to some Krishnamurti audio, hoping that simply listening will automatically direct me to better choices in life. With classes and sports behind me and our Netherlands trip not too far ahead in the future the next five, six weeks should be spend a little more useful.

Our domain name is due to expire on September 11. What do we do with that? I lean towards letting it expire but am not sure how you feel about that. I happily keep writing but the website as such, at least to me, from time to time feels like a shadow looming over me. A creature excreting guilt. Tell me your thoughts. I’m assuming you’re neck-deep into a swamp made of excel reports and emails. Is there space to breathe? And if so, is there space to write?

My oldest of two nephews turns four years old today. Born four months after our arrival in Seoul. His younger brother turning two later this year. Both my parents turning seventy when we are in Amsterdam. I should be grateful to fly home to see them and look forward to see everyone in person, but for now I’m feeling weirdly odd about it. The long flights for one, but those I’ll survive. It’s a feeling of dread to find out things are still so much the same in Amsterdam, while I have changed. One not being better than the other. At least that’s not how I think about it. It’s just the same old, same old that I’ve always dreaded and that I am afraid (am sure) will take hold of me as soon as we land. It’s the knowing too well, combined with constant negativity that Netherlands seems to harvest so well these days. A combination that will drive many (too many) of the conversations to the use of platitudes and smalltalk. I’m terrible with smalltalk. I really hope a few weeks of no major obligations here, preparing for the trip, will help me past the feeling.

We met the Dutch-Korean couple who introduced Inyoung and me last week. They’re here on a holiday. September will be the last time to visit them at the Oude Gracht where they’ve lived as long as I know them. They sold the house and plan to exchange Utrecht for one of the surrounding villages. The house too old, too much in need of renovation, son moving out. Sufficient reasons to move out. A rational decision. But having four floors at the Oude Gracht in Utrecht, the basement door opening directly canal-side, how can you ditch that. To write a few words in the morning with the door open, smoke a late night tobacco on the cobble stones next to the water, dinner with friends under the spell of ol’ Utrecht. I couldn’t do it.

Ok, chop-chop, time to get some things done. May be back soon with a little more time at hand. Wishing you a happy start to the week!

August 12. Utrecht

I’m using this extended coffee break to write back.  Before you start bashing it, you should know that the coffee is free Jitse, free!  Even before that Douwe Egberts machine starts humming I can already feel a burst of energy, if not to be ready for more financial transactions, then for the small talk that ensues, some vague description of my weekend, information that forms part of the perception of me in the people’s minds at work, with some reservation, since 95% of it is bullshit and they know it because they return the favor.  What a shit show.

Straightread has to stay at all costs, as I already indicated.  My feelings toward it are likely different to yours.  I already told you before, when you held some reservations, that it suited my current stage of life – I mean having some fifteen minute obligation to write, even if it was often a journal entry of sorts or just a heap load of total shit that bears the superficiality of the Douwe Egberts exchange of conversation.  Knowing full well the limitations; that the progress was questionable and the end goal uncertain.  If anything, I always very much appreciated some cultural insights, be it a movie, article, book, a song, a stroll along your streets.  You likely can’t say the same with my contributions, I certainly can’t be happy with most of them, yet still I viewed them as laying a foundation for something.  If the laying of said foundation takes several years, I am, personally, fine with it.  During the past few weeks I’ve taken a different approach and at least mentally it has served me well.  It was simply acceptance that all the free time that I used to have is currently no longer available to me, and that my domestic duties need to be served.  There’s been some running and some reading mainly with the little leftover.  And some nights, absolutely nothing, just laying in bed and resting.  There has been a constant thought of writing, but I couldn’t match the mood with the time, and that was ok.  Later today I have a trumpet lesson and I’m going to tell my teacher that I want to take the rest of the summer off.  I’ll dabble, but similar to the writing, I’m ok with a hiatus on any form of progress.  My Spanish teacher has been hounding me all summer, I haven’t spoken a word, aside from a few from Senor Milo, and that’s been fine.  I’m telling myself in the autumn I”ll start with formal classes again.  

Curiosity got the better of me with The Maniac, as well as some poor ‘book management’, meaning I had a few days in between with nothing to read and so I took a gamble.  And well, you know what they say, the house always wins.  More on that in my review coming ??? and keep your eye out for my next review of Zweig.  It will feature a former tennis prodigy turned haute bourgeois.  

Interesting to read about your feelings of coming ‘home’.  I feel I recognize some of that, although that was more in the early phase of being abroad, yes, around the four to five year mark.  These days there is a longing for that familiarity, even a borderline obsession with going home and staying there.

Lots still to cover:  Need to polish off ‘the text’, write about the immigration article, edit your intro.  First and foremost finish The Maniac, fucking hell I am sick of Johnny, and then fake smiling on some Teams meetings.

August 13, Seoul

“Where are you from?” he mimed, as I was standing in the shade of the parasol, awaiting the traffic light to turn green so I could hastily scramble my way across the street to where the real shadow seemed to offer some remorse. Weighing the level of ‘being an ass’, I decided the balance tipped in his favour. He clearly saw I had earphones in and therefore was interrupting me, but I had my hearing blocked off completely, making me the more asocial of the two. Or three actually. I took my earphones out as I was intrigued by their outfits and it was clear I had at least twenty seconds to spare with the lights still red and the law still deciding whether allowing us to cross the street. Two guys they were, looking so alike, they may have been brothers. Sharing my space under the parasol, I’m carrying a bag filled with the yellow melons and peaches I had just bought on the market around the corner. Pretending I had missed the meaning of the mime, I asked what the question was, then answered in honesty. Here is where I find out why the two of them look so much alike. They are from Utah. “You look like you’re a runner” he says, pointing at my shoes, “wearing Altra’s”. I detect a little touch of pride in myself for him noticing this. “And you’re somewhat overdressed for Korean summer” I reply, hinting at the collars of their shirts all buttoned up, double safely closed by the blue ties enclosing it. A pair of perfectly ironed blue trousers, long sleeved white shirts that show hints of perspiration, and matching blue ties. “We’re missionaries” he says. “The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” his partner in faith adds. Foreign missionaries have been around since the late 19th century and have played an important role in opening the Korean mind to the outside world. It’s a common sight in Seoul streets, believers selling the scripture. But it’s mostly Koreans you meet, standing outside the metro exits with a tray full of brochures. Most of them avoiding the foreign passerby’s at the outlook of not speaking the same language. So much for God’s word being an all encompassing deal. I didn’t meet any foreign missionaries though and had blamed the pandemic for this.

When the light turns green we cross the street together, they head left, I right. They carry the voice of the lord for their contentment, I will have to make do with melons today.

I’m reading Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, a little break from a streak of Korean books. I find myself reading the odd Goodreads review (that’s all on you by the way) and am chuckling at the amount of ‘read this book if you want to know real poverty’ or, even better, ‘do not read this book if you are unemployed or homeless’. The sensitivity of these people, it’s hard to grasp. Why would this not be a good book to read if you’re homeless? I’m pretty sure especially the homeless would appreciate the honesty, humour and bleakness of the book. Isn’t it often the minority itself who laugh loudest at the joke on their expense? The sense of relief, and release, through honesty and laughter seems underrated. Also, and yes I am aware of my well-off situation and my privilege, I am aware there still is true poverty the world around. There is the man collecting cardboard in our neighbourhood, his body bent at a scary ninety degrees, stacking cardboard, day in day out. There is the homeless guy near the metro station, lying on an elevated piece of sidewalk to the side of the bank (oh irony). But compared to 1920 Orwell described poverty, in the first world today, in the Netherlands, Canada, Korea, is there really still comparable masse poverty? Should we really warn other potential readers not to underestimate the pain and shock reading this can cause? I even read a review of someone hinting at the possibility of Orwell being a fraudster. A 1920 style influencer pretending to be impoverished for a while, only for the sake of selling another couple of thousand books, to return to the cozy and wealthy bosom of noble Britain quickly after, once the books were sold. But then I saw the latter commenter was you and, realising another Tuesday of slaving away, of battling first-world poverty lies ahead, I decided to cut you some slack.