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Hi from Phuket!
Out of the past 12 months, I spent one-fourth in Thailand. For another three months, I was in Croatia, working on its coast. And then there was a trimester in Switzerland, too, a country from which I actually write this newsletter at the moment. During the rest of the scattered fourth quarter, this bee was hopping between the Philippines, Malaysia, Italy, Austria…
Soon, I’ll be buzzing off to Africa. But before the next adventure begins, I had to make this short intercontinental and very mental layover in the Land of Smiles, which only briefly took mine away with that overstay stamp in the passport.
I love Southeast Asia; it is among my favorite replacements for the European winter. But as this winter will be cut short for me (I have a new job appointment from February), I thought to myself that, if I want to warm my lizard skin under a Christmas sun, I’d better do it somewhere closer, such as Northern Africa.
A return to Thailand, to its wellness resorts and exceptional vegetarian food, will have to wait for another occasion.
But I couldn’t skip commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in this newsletter, a mysterious celebration I got to experience last year.
I already wrote about the festival that leaves scars a year ago (follow the link to see the gallery of the shrine that leads the first of the numerous processions in that special week).
But now I wanted to bring you to the place where it all started, in 1825. Phuket’s Kathu Shrine was erected on the foundation stone of miracles, and this idea that temporary suffering can bring long-lasting benefits continued to live among Taoists for two centuries. You can experience some of the festival’s mysticism in this YouTube video.
In our disturbing world, exploding with human suffering, traveling has become a practically awkward privilege. I wish I knew how to minimize the feeling of shame that comes with borderless nomadism, and how to truly help those imprisoned, tortured, and terminated due to the very nationality they’d have written in the passport (if they had the privilege to just miraculously leave to a “better place” than home).
Worldly pleasures don’t make sense in a world ruled by pain. I wish Taoists were right: that one pierced cheek could heal everyone, and bring smiles to all other faces.
In a perverted version of what we continue watching in the “Middle East”, human suffering brings not smiles, but evil laughter to those who inflict such disastrous wounds on the history of humankind. It won’t recover like scars.
Have a reflective week,
Ivan Kralj
Pipeaway.com
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