i'm basking in the luxury of gliding along on my bicycle on crisp, radiant autumn mornings through the tranquil, tree-lined streets and alleys of old copenhagen to retreat into my cloistered room in the academic ivory tower. two weeks to go to finalise my dissertation and i'm wondering if i'm not feeling too over-confident about the prospects of meeting the deadline.
but be that as it may, it is refreshing to spend some weeks in the rarefied air of academia, be it here or last week at a conference in a faux-tudorian country house in the rolling hills of wales. these settings are so far removed from the realities of the places i write about and so are the theoretical discussions we're engaging in here in these serene surroundings. perhaps that distance is necessary to be able to reflect and analyse, but it does seem to be at least a planet away.
but enough musing for now, the deadline looms.
Mittwoch, 16. September 2009
Montag, 7. September 2009
not in bruges
avec des cathédrales pour uniques montagnes
et de noirs clochers comme mâts de cocagne
où des diables en pierre décochent les nuages
avec le fil des jours pour unique voyage
et des chemins de pluie pour unique bonsoir
avec le vent d'ouest écoutez le vouloir
le plat pays qui est le mien
- jacques brel, le plat pays
unlike colin farrell who was afraid of having to spend eternity in bruges, the forces of destiny (or more precisely, my workload combined with the the occasional hiccups in the services of la société nationale des chemins de fer belges) seem to want to prevent me, not from the first time, from visiting bruges. so the eternal question of whether its a 'shithole' or a 'fucking fairytale' will have to remain unresolved for the time being.
so instead of wandering in the cobblestoned streets of bruges, sampling the gay beers or checking out the alcoves (not to mention some of the more extravagant activities apparently on offer there), i have been criss-crossing le plat pays by train, taking in the immense flatness of the landscape, the medieval villages huddled around medieval churches, the networks of canals, bridges and dykes, the lone monasteries and estate houses.
what i find striking especially in the netherlands, less so in laissez-faire belgium, is the stark geometricity which has been imposed on nature over the course of centuries and which also defines the parts of the cities which have been built since the war. clear lines, marked angles, monochrome colours. in the best cases, the result conveys a hyper-modernistic sense of transparency and lightness, in the worst cases its more like a bad acid trip in legoland.
speaking of bad acid trips, i was also hoping pay homage to the works of hieronymus bosch and pieter breughel the younger. alas, it was also not meant to be, but instead i did find an old statement by werner herzog which is highly appliccable to their works as well:
"es handelt sich hier um ungeheure, gültige metaphern. ich habe nur keine ahnung, wofür."
et de noirs clochers comme mâts de cocagne
où des diables en pierre décochent les nuages
avec le fil des jours pour unique voyage
et des chemins de pluie pour unique bonsoir
avec le vent d'ouest écoutez le vouloir
le plat pays qui est le mien
- jacques brel, le plat pays
unlike colin farrell who was afraid of having to spend eternity in bruges, the forces of destiny (or more precisely, my workload combined with the the occasional hiccups in the services of la société nationale des chemins de fer belges) seem to want to prevent me, not from the first time, from visiting bruges. so the eternal question of whether its a 'shithole' or a 'fucking fairytale' will have to remain unresolved for the time being.
so instead of wandering in the cobblestoned streets of bruges, sampling the gay beers or checking out the alcoves (not to mention some of the more extravagant activities apparently on offer there), i have been criss-crossing le plat pays by train, taking in the immense flatness of the landscape, the medieval villages huddled around medieval churches, the networks of canals, bridges and dykes, the lone monasteries and estate houses.
what i find striking especially in the netherlands, less so in laissez-faire belgium, is the stark geometricity which has been imposed on nature over the course of centuries and which also defines the parts of the cities which have been built since the war. clear lines, marked angles, monochrome colours. in the best cases, the result conveys a hyper-modernistic sense of transparency and lightness, in the worst cases its more like a bad acid trip in legoland.
speaking of bad acid trips, i was also hoping pay homage to the works of hieronymus bosch and pieter breughel the younger. alas, it was also not meant to be, but instead i did find an old statement by werner herzog which is highly appliccable to their works as well:
"es handelt sich hier um ungeheure, gültige metaphern. ich habe nur keine ahnung, wofür."
Freitag, 28. August 2009
kulturkritik
lost the culture, the culture lost
spun our minds and through time
ignorance has taken over
- take the power back, rage against the machine
i continued my journey from the dusty back streets of dili to a city-state which has often evoked contradictory emotions in me - and did not fail me in that respect this time around either.
it is in a way The New Jerusalem, the shining city on a hill, the model which other cities in the region want to emulate. jalan casablanca in my current hometown claims it shall become the new orchard road of jakarta when its newest shopping malls and exclusive condos are ready. its stylistic influence is more than visible in the futuristic, optimistic dreams of dilis urban utopianists displayed on posters in front of the perhaps-to-be-built shopping malls, office towers and casinos.
the real thing, in the meantime, is busy re-inventing itself with more glitzy malls, more high-rise, executive style living, more high-end shopping, and, inevitably, more rules and regulations. more courteously silent but politely insistent 'assistants' to show you with understated handsignals which side of the corridor you should walk on or which entrance you are not allowed to use. more public commons turned into private territory, more notices to make sure you abide by the rules. never is a voice raised, for they never seem to be need to be raised, be it in admonishment or in protest, for pretty much almost everyone except for me seems to not only accept the reglementations but positively embrace them - another trend the airconditioned nation has been exporting to its regional neighbours.
the benefits are of course obvious and i was able to enjoy them myself: an extremely efficient and functioning medical service; impeccable public transport services which are being constantly improved; well-kept parks, renovated old buildings and well-stocked bookstores in which to wander around; even a blue sky on an almost daily basis - a rare treat in jakarta. yet something seems amiss.
maybe its just me and my knee-jerk leftie instincts, but something to me does not seem to be quite right in a society where apparently the average consumer has six credit cards and the government has announced that spending seven times your monthly salary on a designer handbag is not excessive in these times of crisis, yet on the radio you have adverts for personality enhancement and management courses and senior government officials worry whether the average citizens 'might know the price of everything but the worth of nothing.'
i was particularily struck when i was wondering through the extremely worthwhile, eclectic and highly (overly?) ambitious museum of asian civilisations. the museum, in one of those twists of post-colonial irony is housed in a british colonial building lovingly refurbished by the former colonial subjects and which, in addition to the museum, has a franchise of a french-owned global bar which openly draws on the orientalist romanticism associated now by ex-pats and locals alike with the french colonial subjugation of cambodia, laos and vietnam. but enough about indochine, back to the museum: its excellent displays of what were basically snapshots of the immense cultural wealth of the region, of intricately crafted 3 000 year old east javanese bronze drums, of hmong hill tribe child-care and the non-linear geometry of ancient gujarati mathematics, the centuries of chinese political history, the tree-bark books of batak magic and traditional medicine written a mere 70 years ago but now almost forgotten...
all of this reminded me of something i at times forget, especially in places like singapore, jakarta, kl, manila, medan, shanghai, etc.: that there is so much here apart from the ubiquitous obsession with bmw, louis vuitton and prada; the fetishisation of western luxury goods and material wealth. yet i have a lurking suspicion that much of that rich cultural history is being lost, very fast, as the young urbanites spend their days in air-conditioned shopping malls slurping super-size soft drinks, eating western fast-food while playing online games on their i-phones.
culture, is of course not a museum but an interactive, ever-changing process of inventions and re-inventions, of appropriations and adaptations. but still the contrasting of what was on display in the museum and what i saw outside in the shopping district struck a melancholy note with me.
and yes, i do sound very old saying that.
spun our minds and through time
ignorance has taken over
- take the power back, rage against the machine
i continued my journey from the dusty back streets of dili to a city-state which has often evoked contradictory emotions in me - and did not fail me in that respect this time around either.
it is in a way The New Jerusalem, the shining city on a hill, the model which other cities in the region want to emulate. jalan casablanca in my current hometown claims it shall become the new orchard road of jakarta when its newest shopping malls and exclusive condos are ready. its stylistic influence is more than visible in the futuristic, optimistic dreams of dilis urban utopianists displayed on posters in front of the perhaps-to-be-built shopping malls, office towers and casinos.
the real thing, in the meantime, is busy re-inventing itself with more glitzy malls, more high-rise, executive style living, more high-end shopping, and, inevitably, more rules and regulations. more courteously silent but politely insistent 'assistants' to show you with understated handsignals which side of the corridor you should walk on or which entrance you are not allowed to use. more public commons turned into private territory, more notices to make sure you abide by the rules. never is a voice raised, for they never seem to be need to be raised, be it in admonishment or in protest, for pretty much almost everyone except for me seems to not only accept the reglementations but positively embrace them - another trend the airconditioned nation has been exporting to its regional neighbours.
the benefits are of course obvious and i was able to enjoy them myself: an extremely efficient and functioning medical service; impeccable public transport services which are being constantly improved; well-kept parks, renovated old buildings and well-stocked bookstores in which to wander around; even a blue sky on an almost daily basis - a rare treat in jakarta. yet something seems amiss.
maybe its just me and my knee-jerk leftie instincts, but something to me does not seem to be quite right in a society where apparently the average consumer has six credit cards and the government has announced that spending seven times your monthly salary on a designer handbag is not excessive in these times of crisis, yet on the radio you have adverts for personality enhancement and management courses and senior government officials worry whether the average citizens 'might know the price of everything but the worth of nothing.'
i was particularily struck when i was wondering through the extremely worthwhile, eclectic and highly (overly?) ambitious museum of asian civilisations. the museum, in one of those twists of post-colonial irony is housed in a british colonial building lovingly refurbished by the former colonial subjects and which, in addition to the museum, has a franchise of a french-owned global bar which openly draws on the orientalist romanticism associated now by ex-pats and locals alike with the french colonial subjugation of cambodia, laos and vietnam. but enough about indochine, back to the museum: its excellent displays of what were basically snapshots of the immense cultural wealth of the region, of intricately crafted 3 000 year old east javanese bronze drums, of hmong hill tribe child-care and the non-linear geometry of ancient gujarati mathematics, the centuries of chinese political history, the tree-bark books of batak magic and traditional medicine written a mere 70 years ago but now almost forgotten...
all of this reminded me of something i at times forget, especially in places like singapore, jakarta, kl, manila, medan, shanghai, etc.: that there is so much here apart from the ubiquitous obsession with bmw, louis vuitton and prada; the fetishisation of western luxury goods and material wealth. yet i have a lurking suspicion that much of that rich cultural history is being lost, very fast, as the young urbanites spend their days in air-conditioned shopping malls slurping super-size soft drinks, eating western fast-food while playing online games on their i-phones.
culture, is of course not a museum but an interactive, ever-changing process of inventions and re-inventions, of appropriations and adaptations. but still the contrasting of what was on display in the museum and what i saw outside in the shopping district struck a melancholy note with me.
and yes, i do sound very old saying that.
Dienstag, 18. August 2009
new beginnings
WHOOOMP! BOUNCEBOUNCEBOUNCEBOUNCE... SCREEEEEECCHHHWHIRRRRRR.... KLONK! it was a smooth landing at nicolau lobato intl airport. a smooth landing by merpati standards, that is. so i'm back to dili, almost to the day 10 years after i first got here. and somehow it feels like a good place to restart my blog, now that i've finally found the inspiration to do so again, an inspiration that had dissipated out of me about 1,5 years ago for a number of reasons i haven't fully explored but do have a vague sense of. but, be that as it may, the drive to publish the outpourings of my cerebral cortex is back again.
so its back to t-l, and this time i'm here as a mere lowly tourist, with (almost) no other agenda, and i'm seeing the country from a wholly new perspective. instead of trying frantically to arrange research meetings or trying to get my head around the latest political developments, i finally have the time and headspace to appreciate the beauty of the morning mist enveloping the fishing boats and vietnamese freighters in dili harbour, the dignity of the old villagers sitting in the late afternoon sun, the exhilaration of cruising along the hilly coastal road on a motorbike, the colours of the vegetable market, the strong coffee, the casual conversations.
nonetheless, the place has a peculiar, almost surreal touch to it, things which i have written about earlier here as well. the co-existence, in such a small geographical space, of the parallel worlds of the ex-pat malae, the non-ex-pat foreign laboureres and traders, the nascent local upper and middle classes, the urban under-classes and the rural population. and the heavy militarisation of the place, the striking, deliberate and calculated casualness with which the young local and foreign men (and on occasion, women) in uniform strut their assault rifles in public, implicitly displaying their readiness to use violent, lethal force.
since the last time i came here over half a year ago, the stability seems to have taken root in a more, there seems to be more confidence that it might last, but the fear of a communal 'relapse' is also evident. symptomatically, the sound of the siren of a passing ambulance had the cafe staff freeze, with grave worry etched on their faces. and as always, there is a sense of foreboding in discussions about the future. 'if all goes well in october,' then we will be ok was the refrain this time, the previous time it was 'if all goes well in january,' previous to that it was 'if all goes well in august...' nonetheless, things are moving on here, places are being fixed up - strikingly, especially those with a religious connection: the statue of jesus, the cathedral, motael church, the statue of mary. i hope the reconstruction will turn out to be more than just a fresh coat of paint, in more ways than one.
so its back to t-l, and this time i'm here as a mere lowly tourist, with (almost) no other agenda, and i'm seeing the country from a wholly new perspective. instead of trying frantically to arrange research meetings or trying to get my head around the latest political developments, i finally have the time and headspace to appreciate the beauty of the morning mist enveloping the fishing boats and vietnamese freighters in dili harbour, the dignity of the old villagers sitting in the late afternoon sun, the exhilaration of cruising along the hilly coastal road on a motorbike, the colours of the vegetable market, the strong coffee, the casual conversations.
nonetheless, the place has a peculiar, almost surreal touch to it, things which i have written about earlier here as well. the co-existence, in such a small geographical space, of the parallel worlds of the ex-pat malae, the non-ex-pat foreign laboureres and traders, the nascent local upper and middle classes, the urban under-classes and the rural population. and the heavy militarisation of the place, the striking, deliberate and calculated casualness with which the young local and foreign men (and on occasion, women) in uniform strut their assault rifles in public, implicitly displaying their readiness to use violent, lethal force.
since the last time i came here over half a year ago, the stability seems to have taken root in a more, there seems to be more confidence that it might last, but the fear of a communal 'relapse' is also evident. symptomatically, the sound of the siren of a passing ambulance had the cafe staff freeze, with grave worry etched on their faces. and as always, there is a sense of foreboding in discussions about the future. 'if all goes well in october,' then we will be ok was the refrain this time, the previous time it was 'if all goes well in january,' previous to that it was 'if all goes well in august...' nonetheless, things are moving on here, places are being fixed up - strikingly, especially those with a religious connection: the statue of jesus, the cathedral, motael church, the statue of mary. i hope the reconstruction will turn out to be more than just a fresh coat of paint, in more ways than one.
Donnerstag, 31. Juli 2008
to sleep, perchance to dream... (aka freud would cry)
since the conscious part of my brain seems to have switched off for the summer months, i'll go on autopilot, let my sub-conscious take over and jot down some dreams i've had, two older ones and two more recent ones:
old dream 1, approx 1994
i'm sitting in the backseat of a late-1970s model mercedes, dark green, the kind that are still popular as taxis in the middle east, which is rather fitting as this particular mercedes is indeed a taxi in the middle east, more precisely in lebanon and we are driving down the beirut corniche, the seaside promenade. and thats about all i remember...
follow-up in real life: interestingly enough, at least for me, when i actually did visit beirut about 13 years later, they still had the same kind of taxis and the corniche looked much like it did in my dream
old dream 2, approx 1997
i'm sitting on a couch in my friend's old flat in downtown helsinki (where i was actually staying at the moment) reading some textbook or other when a pink flamingo flies onto the balcony and then struts into the living room, which in reality as in the dream is full of books and dvd's. and thats about where the dream, or my memory of it, ends.
follow-up in real life: when i recount the story to my friend and his wife the next morning over breakfast, they laugh and say some words to the effect of "well, you know what they say about guys who dream of pink flamingoes..." later that day i find a book on interpreting dreams in a second-hand bookstore. no mention of flamingoes in it, though. my friend, in the meantime, was diagnosed as having a third nipple in a chilean navy hospital, but that's another story.
new dream, approx. half a year ago
i'm standing inside a multy-storey car park on the channel island of jersey, discussing with a british government official as to whether or not the alleged dumping of lightly radioactive materials by russian submarines within the 200 nautical mile zone claimed by britain in the north atlantic would constitute a breach of international environmental law.
follow-up in real life: none as far as i can tell, unless there is a court case pending at the international court of justice in the hague that i am unaware of (but perhaps sending somnambulant legal opinions to in my sleep)
new dream, few nights ago
am driving around ljubljana in a light-blue battered ex-yugoslav van that used to belong to the managua office of my ex-employer with a friend, looking for a restaurant that we used to visit when i was a child in the mid 1980s. seeing as i've gone veggie since, i couldn't help but wonder what i should order since their signature dish (pljeskavica sa sirom) wasn't really on my menu anymore, until i remembered, with a certain degree of relief, that my parents had visited the restaurant a few years ago and had mentioned that they now had other dishes (the ubiquitous pizza & pasta) on their menu these days as well.
follow-up in real-life: received an invite to visit belgrade again the other day. not quite slovenia but ex-yugoslavia nonetheless....
old dream 1, approx 1994
i'm sitting in the backseat of a late-1970s model mercedes, dark green, the kind that are still popular as taxis in the middle east, which is rather fitting as this particular mercedes is indeed a taxi in the middle east, more precisely in lebanon and we are driving down the beirut corniche, the seaside promenade. and thats about all i remember...
follow-up in real life: interestingly enough, at least for me, when i actually did visit beirut about 13 years later, they still had the same kind of taxis and the corniche looked much like it did in my dream
old dream 2, approx 1997
i'm sitting on a couch in my friend's old flat in downtown helsinki (where i was actually staying at the moment) reading some textbook or other when a pink flamingo flies onto the balcony and then struts into the living room, which in reality as in the dream is full of books and dvd's. and thats about where the dream, or my memory of it, ends.
follow-up in real life: when i recount the story to my friend and his wife the next morning over breakfast, they laugh and say some words to the effect of "well, you know what they say about guys who dream of pink flamingoes..." later that day i find a book on interpreting dreams in a second-hand bookstore. no mention of flamingoes in it, though. my friend, in the meantime, was diagnosed as having a third nipple in a chilean navy hospital, but that's another story.
new dream, approx. half a year ago
i'm standing inside a multy-storey car park on the channel island of jersey, discussing with a british government official as to whether or not the alleged dumping of lightly radioactive materials by russian submarines within the 200 nautical mile zone claimed by britain in the north atlantic would constitute a breach of international environmental law.
follow-up in real life: none as far as i can tell, unless there is a court case pending at the international court of justice in the hague that i am unaware of (but perhaps sending somnambulant legal opinions to in my sleep)
new dream, few nights ago
am driving around ljubljana in a light-blue battered ex-yugoslav van that used to belong to the managua office of my ex-employer with a friend, looking for a restaurant that we used to visit when i was a child in the mid 1980s. seeing as i've gone veggie since, i couldn't help but wonder what i should order since their signature dish (pljeskavica sa sirom) wasn't really on my menu anymore, until i remembered, with a certain degree of relief, that my parents had visited the restaurant a few years ago and had mentioned that they now had other dishes (the ubiquitous pizza & pasta) on their menu these days as well.
follow-up in real-life: received an invite to visit belgrade again the other day. not quite slovenia but ex-yugoslavia nonetheless....
Montag, 7. Juli 2008
reality check
a quick injection of non-fiction into this series of half-baked, semi-fictional, middling attempts at writing short stories:
the other day i (finally) managed to send out the first draft of my phd-thesis to my profs. when i clicked the "send" button, i was overcome with a sense of euphoria, of lust for life, which completely overtook the fatigue i had been feeling all week. but after about three minutes the euphoria subsided, leaving me with an empty feeling inside. having finished the draft, what should i now do with my life? (answer being: enjoy it. soon enough the profs will be back with their comments and you can lock yourself up in your academic chamber again and write the second draft)
due to circumstances, i've also been having a "home improvement"-month over the past few weeks and i can honestly say that no, i'm just not the type for that kind of lifestyle. and i've got the cuts and bruises to prove it, not to mention the new curses i came up with when i managed to both hit my thumb with the hammer and cause the bookshelf to collapse on me simultaneously.
the other day i (finally) managed to send out the first draft of my phd-thesis to my profs. when i clicked the "send" button, i was overcome with a sense of euphoria, of lust for life, which completely overtook the fatigue i had been feeling all week. but after about three minutes the euphoria subsided, leaving me with an empty feeling inside. having finished the draft, what should i now do with my life? (answer being: enjoy it. soon enough the profs will be back with their comments and you can lock yourself up in your academic chamber again and write the second draft)
due to circumstances, i've also been having a "home improvement"-month over the past few weeks and i can honestly say that no, i'm just not the type for that kind of lifestyle. and i've got the cuts and bruises to prove it, not to mention the new curses i came up with when i managed to both hit my thumb with the hammer and cause the bookshelf to collapse on me simultaneously.
l’humanité
as i was listlessly poking at the tasteless nasi goreng which was technically my breakfast in the afternoon heat of jakarta, a man sat down at my table. all the other tables were free, so in spite of my slow hangover mood i was able to draw the conclusion that he probably wanted to talk to me. he was a whitey, in his late 50s judging by his looks, but he might well have been younger. he had a gaunt, drawn face, and the etched lines of his face and burst capillaries led me to jump to the perhaps unfair conclusion that the large bintang beer in his hand was not the first one in his life. he was the kind of person that this street, jalan jaksa, seemed to attract like a magnet. the human flotsam and jetsam of the industrialised countries that falls overboard at home and finds itself, 20, 30, 40 years down the line, washed up in sleazy, second-rate bars such as this one. lost, lonely, hanging on to the last scraps of their dignity.
without any further ado, apart from a swig of his bintang, he told me that he had thyroid cancer. he had been diagnosed just the other day, he couldn't quite say when, though, as he had been on a drinking binge ever since. and in the end, did it really matter now what day he found out? he didn't have any money for therapy, no health plan, he had burned his bridges in britain decades ago but had not been able to build any new ones on indonesia either. nor did he see his chances of finding a loving partner for the last few years of his remaining life as being too great: a dying, old, impoverished, alcoholic man does not really score very high in the highly competitive jakarta social scene.
i had in the meantime stopped eating my fried rice and wondered if i should say something, but there was no need for that, he was the one doing the talking.
and then he stopped. his eyes were fixed on something far away, metaphorically speaking, for in the grubby street that is jalan jaksa there isn't anything one could look at thats more then 25 metres away. after a moment's silence, he turned to me: "where are you from, anyway?"
"finland," i said, adding my first and last word to what had now become a conversation. "oh, finland...," he started, with a new-found dreaminess in his voice... "i remember finland well," he continued, almost as if transfixed, "the olympics in helsinki in 1952." he paused to sip his beer and his gaze was now fixated not only on a place far away, but also on a different era. "i remember it well," he said, looking through and past me with his glazed eyes, his back suddenly ramrod straight, as if in a past memory of better times, of more self-dignity, perhaps even of pride in himself.
lost in his own world, he continued slowly. "it was the marathon. i remember it well. it was the helsinki stadium, and emil zatopek came running in. it was the cold war, you know, and he was czech, but the crowd stood up and chanted his name... ZA-TO-PEK, ZA-TO-PEK, ZA-TO-PEK! cheering on the one who was supposed to be the enemy... oh, the humanity of it! the humanity!!!" tears started rolling down his worn face as he mumbled "the humanity, the humanity..." to himself a few more times, bleary eyes focusing on a better, other life. he then quickly finished his beer, stood up and continued walking down jalan jaksa as if in a trance, leaving me speechless and dumbfounded with my now-cold nasi goreng.
without any further ado, apart from a swig of his bintang, he told me that he had thyroid cancer. he had been diagnosed just the other day, he couldn't quite say when, though, as he had been on a drinking binge ever since. and in the end, did it really matter now what day he found out? he didn't have any money for therapy, no health plan, he had burned his bridges in britain decades ago but had not been able to build any new ones on indonesia either. nor did he see his chances of finding a loving partner for the last few years of his remaining life as being too great: a dying, old, impoverished, alcoholic man does not really score very high in the highly competitive jakarta social scene.
i had in the meantime stopped eating my fried rice and wondered if i should say something, but there was no need for that, he was the one doing the talking.
and then he stopped. his eyes were fixed on something far away, metaphorically speaking, for in the grubby street that is jalan jaksa there isn't anything one could look at thats more then 25 metres away. after a moment's silence, he turned to me: "where are you from, anyway?"
"finland," i said, adding my first and last word to what had now become a conversation. "oh, finland...," he started, with a new-found dreaminess in his voice... "i remember finland well," he continued, almost as if transfixed, "the olympics in helsinki in 1952." he paused to sip his beer and his gaze was now fixated not only on a place far away, but also on a different era. "i remember it well," he said, looking through and past me with his glazed eyes, his back suddenly ramrod straight, as if in a past memory of better times, of more self-dignity, perhaps even of pride in himself.
lost in his own world, he continued slowly. "it was the marathon. i remember it well. it was the helsinki stadium, and emil zatopek came running in. it was the cold war, you know, and he was czech, but the crowd stood up and chanted his name... ZA-TO-PEK, ZA-TO-PEK, ZA-TO-PEK! cheering on the one who was supposed to be the enemy... oh, the humanity of it! the humanity!!!" tears started rolling down his worn face as he mumbled "the humanity, the humanity..." to himself a few more times, bleary eyes focusing on a better, other life. he then quickly finished his beer, stood up and continued walking down jalan jaksa as if in a trance, leaving me speechless and dumbfounded with my now-cold nasi goreng.
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