Homesick
“Homesick…cuz I no
longer know…where home is…”
Fantastic – switching on
a random playlist, this is exactly the song to lift me up, as I am lying on the
bed in a hotel room like a million others, somewhere in a city in China.
I vaguely remember that
song and the feeling of melancholy, right in the heart, that it used to cause
me at some point….and trying to see through the mist in my memory – when was
that? I guess I have just been away from home and anything familiar one too
many times, I can’t remember when the realization that “I no longer know where
home is” still pinched in a way that it hurt noticeably. Now, that realization
is just a faint echo of a pain that has lost its sharpness. I am reaching a
point where I stop wondering where home is.
Connected
It is rare to meet
someone from North Korea – one of the reasons why I was curious about this
workshop in Beijing, to which a North Korean delegation had been invited.
Amongst them was a young woman, around my age. I thought about her a lot
throughout the week. What is it like to be her, in a country where people get
brainwashed from birth on, and have little contact with the outside world? Was
this her first time abroad? What went on in her mind, and to what extent did
the exposure to more “international”, more liberal ideas and concepts in the
workshop trigger new, forbidden thoughts? Here we were together in that hotel for a few days,
her and I, our paths briefly crossing, where our lives, our opportunities, our aspirations and
thoughts so far must have been vastly different.
I would have done a lot
for a chance to connect with her, but it was hard to find an opportunity. At the
beginning of the week, the 6 North Koreans moved around as a solid block, and
quickly disappeared after each meal. They seemed to never smile. On the last
evening, however, they had apparently warmed up a bit. I saw the young woman
standing in the lobby. She said something to her colleagues, raised her arms as
if to reach for something, smiling. That image will stay in mind.
The morning after the
workshop, I entered the hotel and met the North Koreans one more time, as they
were about to head to the airport. The young woman and I exchanged a few sentences;
she thanked me for my role in the workshop – a connection, even if a brief one,
in the end.
