The Hong Kong Museum of Art (MOA) has been recently renovated and it was very much worth my second recent visit. Due to its enviable location, facing the beautiful bay, as I moved from one exhibition hall to the next, from one floor to another, I could experience some astonishing views of Hong Kong island through the full-length windows. It was a particularly clear day. The Star Ferry was crossing the harbour, while a Chinese junk with red sails moved slowly on the waters, which glimmered under the sun rays. I sat down and quietly took in the landscape through the perfect frame as if I were admiring another work of art. This was my first ‘zen’ moment, to which another one would soon follow.
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Hong Kong's southernmost area, past the refined Repulse Bay and the quaint Stanley Village, is a fascinating sequence of bays, beaches and unspoilt nature. Heading towards Big Wave Bay, a surfing destination, there is a roundabout where a road sign points east, to “Cape d'Aguilar”.
For years, I have been charmed by this name, which made me imagine a lonely and mysterious place, even more so as it is a restricted area, accessible by taxis only or walking 4 kilometres on a pleasant road that runs alongside the sea, not particularly busy, especially on weekdays.
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With the arrival of the winter solstice on 21 December, we entered the Age of Aquarius. Not being interested in astrology, this revelation didn't particularly affect me, but ever since that day, the song ‘Age of Aquarius’, masterfully performed by the powerful voice of Marilyn McCoo of Fifth Dimensions and part of the memorable opening of the film Hair, directed by Miloš Forman, rings in my mind:
When the moon is in the Seventh House
and Jupiter aligns with Mars
then peace will guide the planets
and love will steer the stars.
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It has been some time since my second visit to Cambodia, but I still have vivid memories of my walks in the sun among the ruins of the temples, or of their silhouettes as they slowly took shape at dawn, half hidden by a sky veiled by thin clouds.
To visit the famous Angkor Wat temple complex, Siem Reap is the starting point. It’s a town that still maintains the legacy of French colonial and Chinese-style architecture around the Old Market. I remember Siem Reap as constantly swarming with tourists, bars, night markets, restaurants offering all kinds of cuisine, as well as tasty Khmer food, even excellent pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven.
The Meriden Hotel in Siem Reap was built on the site of an old cemetery.
"No one here is afraid of ghosts. Not anymore," says our tour guide, John (not his real name), as we pass the hotel on our way to the temples. It is not difficult to understand why, when you think of Cambodia's tragic history.
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Kennst du das Land, wo die Citronen blühn?
Know’st thou the land where lemon-trees do bloom?
(“Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship”, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Ours is the land of lemons, and not only.
Lemons, of which Sicily abounds, because, according to the German writer, you have not really seen Italy if you have not seen Sicily. Lemons as on Lake Garda, with its famous lemon groves that so much struck J.W. Goethe on September 13, 1786, while he was sailing from Torbole to Malcesine.
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Giuseppe Ungaretti died on the night of June 2, 1970, after spending an intense life between Alexandria, France, the Karst front line, Brazil and Italy. He was first Catholic, then atheist and then Catholic again while, politically, he sympathised with and later moved away from Fascism. Ungaretti’s literary education was based on French literature. He read the poets of Decadentism and Symbolism, including Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Baudelaire and then Apollinaire, and later came into contact with the Italian Futurists and Dadaists. Ungaretti should be credited with formally and profoundly renewing the traditional Italian verse. For this ability, he was considered by the poets of Hermeticism as one of their forerunners, and by many poets of the second half of the 20th century he was seen, together with Umberto Saba and Eugenio Montale, as a reference point.
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I visited Laos in 2018, and I would like to bring out the memories as they are, letting them flow like a river, a waterfall. Like the water that has so much marked this experience.
I remember that while reading 'Lonely Planet - Laos' in preparation for departure, what struck me most was a statement about a characteristic of the Laotians, the 'móoan', translated into 'fun'. Theravada Buddhism, practiced by most people in Laos, emphasizes detachment from human passions, and karma - more than devotion, prayer or hard work - determines one's fate in life. Following this principle, Laotian people tend not to worry too much about the future and to feel sorry for those who "think too much". Avoiding any excessive psychological stress remains a cultural norm. Unless an activity contains an element of "móoan", or ‘fun’, it will probably lead to stress.
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Some have defined Tai O as a small "Venice of the East". To me, it stirred other memories instead. There are places that immediately take us back to others, to which we feel we belong. We recognize them as ours, we love them, we always want to return. We develop a special and sometimes inexplicable 'connecction’, and to them we reserve magical and personal moments. Other times, we need to talk about, to write about these places because, as Joan Didion said, 'A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively...'
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There has been no shortage of graffiti in Hong Kong during this period, where regular protests have been going on for the last six months. The discontent with the government and the police has been widely expressed with ideograms and writings in English on a variety of walls, footbridges and zebra crossings. Some are still visible, others have been badly erased, often leaving an aesthetically unattractive mark behind.
In the city, however, there are also artistic graffiti, as well as expressions of what we will call 'Street Art'.
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My Apulian summer is as white as the lime that covers farms, bell towers and churches that dazzles even at night and shines under the moon; as white as the houses of Old Gallipoli, Καλλίπολις, the "Beautiful City", an island surrounded by a wall built as a mean of defence from invaders.
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What happens when you adventure in the Ghetto at the Centre of the World: an incursion into one of the most talked-about, infamous and peculiar buildings of Hong Kong. From trade centre and market for rich merchants, to a backpackers’ dream of cheap hotels… and shady businesses. And now, in a city with prevailing Chinese and expat traits, the ghetto becomes a sought-after world on its own, a blend of different cultures we’d like to understand more.
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There are always shining stars to bring home after a night spent with poetry. ‘Toco tu boca’ by Julio Cortazár, a fine example of prose that turned into evocative and sensual poetry.
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It is quite ironic that the Super Typhoon that is now battering Hong Kong bears the name of a tropical fruit. Mangkhut means ‘mangosteen’, in Thai. This fruit has a deep reddish-purple coloured rind that hides soft, sweet and juicy white vesicles. It’s a delightful promise sheltered by an inedible shell.
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Rain, rain and rain again.
This is how Hong Kong has welcomed me in the past two days, ever since I landed.
Summer in Italy has been graceful, as usual, and very, very hot. Just as I liked it.
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