The disappearing act - Florence de Changy

I remember the MH370 case very clearly. I was in S.E. Asia at the time, chilling out in the Philippines. I knew Malaysia airlines very well, having flown with them numerous times. Not Kuala Lumpur to Beijing (the actual route of MH370), but from KL to Bangkok, Singapore, Manila and also Kunming in the PRC. I might even have been onboard that same aircraft, or have met some of the unfortunate flight crew members.

I remember the airplanes, the airports, the cabin crews and their uniforms, the food and all the amenities. It was one of my favorite airlines. Then came 2014, the annus horribilis of Malaysian aviation: first the disappearance of MH370, then the destruction by a missile over east Ukraine of MH17 bound to Amsterdam, and finally the crash of an Airasia flight that had just left from Indonesia.

An original character, maybe in spite of himself - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

...he slowly walks away.

Among the herds of businessmen, office workers, tourists, shopping girls, immigrants looking for a better life, losers of various types (and this is the category I belong to), looking carefully once in a while in Kuala Lumpur one can spot some original characters. Original in spite of himself maybe, as in this case.

Jackson 5 hairstyle, a pair of trousers ripped right where his asshole is, stitched (so to speak) with a piece of ribbon of the type used for christmas presents. One of the numerous patches on his torn jacket is a fake dollar bill: a sadly ironic detail, considering the guy's conditions. He's wearing a sport glove. Only one. Maybe he's a discus or a javelin thrower. I've been looking at him for some minutes and he's never stopped sucking his fingertips. I don't know whether he's only imagining that they are smeared with chocolate or whether there actually was some, a few hours ago I mean, as right now his fingers are as polished as German sausages: come to think about it that curious optical illusion might exactly be the reason why he's licking them. 
After a while something captures his attention, he takes his hands off his mouth and, with penguin-like step, leaning left and right, he slowly walks away. 

An impertinent pertinent question

A happy family...such alert expressions!

I'm writing this post when I am in Kuala Lumpur but it is just a mere coincidence: I could be looking at similar scenes anywhere else. In any other big Asian city for sure.
Look at them, bent over their screens with a blank expression on their face. How many are they? A lot, too many, almost all of them actually. Gathered around cafe tables, in the subway, at the restaurant. Checking Facebook updates, playing games, chatting, even taking photos of themselves, smiling in front of their same outstretched arm. 
I won't add yet another criticism to an already long list, a new pedantic opinion on this absurd addiction. I'm just asking myself a question: what the fuck were these people doing when these devices didn't exist yet? I don't mean when there were no mobile phones at all, as most of them were still little children back then, but a few years ago, when the expression smart-phone would have sounded like some sort of oxymoron to most of us, when the screens used to be green or gray and the text plain black. When all you could do with a phone was calling or texting someone.

The chicken choir - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Look at those nice dresses

Just a few seconds after I've entered a clothing shop someone yells something that I don't understand, some other guy repeats the same thing, then it's a lady's turn and after that many other voices overlap. It seems that they are all shouting the same sentence: "Welcome to Uniqlo!". Yeah, sure, that's exactly what they are saying, and as I am the only one who's just entered the place they must necessarily be talking to me. Gosh, what a silly prank. In order to clear any doubt I turn towards the entrance and watch what happens next. Another customer gets in, an employee spots him and shouts: "Welcome to Uniqloooooo!" He's done it with a pseudo-nice tone which actually turns out to be irritating. It's as if he were focusing more on his performance than on the greeting itself, thus making the gesture not only insincere but ridiculous as well. His colleagues, who are all busy hanging shirts or folding t-shirts, hear him and repeat the sentence, parrot-like, without taking their eyes off what they are doing, using random techniques such as falsetto, trilling, rising and falling. They are using the old dazing-sales-technique, but it feels like being back at kindergarten again, or rather to have entered an tropical aviary.

When in Rome...wash your ass as the Romans do - with photo gallery

My friend LMB's Florentine bidet

I've often happened to hear some Italians complaining after finding out that in some country there is no such a thing as a bidet, something that made them wonder whether people there wash their asses or not after taking a shit.
Well, as a matter of fact in some places they don't. They use a lot of toilet paper, they scratch and scratch, then throw and throw, until the last piece of paper they've used doesn't show any of those typical brownish skid marks we all know so well. Unfortunately sometimes they have to scratch so much that the vanishing of the shit residue is matched by a simultaneous appearance of blood traces. The skin of the sandpapered area is in fact quite sensitive.

However, sometimes the lack of a bidet doesn't necessarily mean that in that place people don't actually wash their butt before standing up from the bowl. I'd like to emphasize the word before. In Italy in fact - or anywhere bidets are commonly used - we have to stand up, take a couple of steps, turn around and sit down again, on a ceramic surface by the way, which, lacking any sort of plastic cover, can become annoyingly cold. Bidets in facts are not necessarily the best solution to a dirty ass issue.

Cosmetic surgery: manga faces...for real!

Lum invader, once only a fictional character, nowadays you could meet her in real in an Asian metropolis

Recently, talking with a Malaysian friend of mine who lives in Singapore, I found out that a new ghastly trend is spreading among Asian girls. Ghastly for me, of course, as for them it seems to be a fantastic idea.
It's about plastic surgery. "Come on, new trend...are you kidding me?" You will be thinking. "It's been going on for decades!" Sure, but I'm not talking about getting firmer boobs, buttock lifting, inflated lips or wrinkle removal. Let alone sex change. I'm already puzzled by these practices, but I've found out that there is much worse stuff than that. The models this girls are trying to imitate are Japanese cartoon characters. Do you remember Candy Candy, Lady Oscar or Lum invader? I'm sorry about the outdated examples but, due to generational reasons, I can't provide more recent ones. In short, the ideal of the western woman as the Japanese in the '70s and '80s imagined her, with huge oval eyes and lake-blue irises, cutter-shaped nose, heart-molded mouth and plectrum-like chin. Have a look at this, this, this and this. And these three girls who even got identical plastic surgeries...now they all have the same face! Well, you understand what I am talking about. It's not about appearing younger or sexier (no wrinkle-removal or porn-star lips then), something that already seems rather perverse to me, but about looking like a character that doesn't even exist, something out of a manga author's creative mind!

Like Rocky Balboa - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Every evening, after the class is over, I take off the teacher cloths, I wear shorts, a t-shirt, trainers and I go out for a jog. From Brickfields, near KL central station, to Bangsar, a half hour along the streets of some residential area. 
Malaysians exercise too, of course, but I suspect that they do it at those nice air-conditioned gyms or in some other area: in here I'm the only one trotting about. And those who I meet on the way must think that I am an eccentric westerner or a serious athlete who's preparing for an official contest (in the second case they probably didn't look carefully at my body). Anyway I must appear like one who you ought to smile, talk or show your sympathy to. The illegal parking attendant giggles and says: "He he...running, running...yes, yes..." The luxury condos security guards greet me: "Good evening, Sir!" And the passersby ask me, a bit rhetorically: "Going jogging, right?" Everybody laughs, sympathizes, encourages me. I normally set out to mind my business, stretch my muscles, do a couple of push-ups and then go back to my room, tired and satisfied. 
But I can't pretend that all this doesn't mean anything. So I reply, smile, greet, and their approaches infuse energy into me. I didn't know I needed it, but their humanity enters my bloodstream, invigorates, refreshes and excites me. I gain speed, lift my gaze and move more smoothly. I almost feel like Rocky Balboa training on the roads of Philadelphia, and when the street goes uphill it's as if I was climbing up that famous stairway, surrounded by kids. And when I am on top I could stop, throw my arms up in the air, jump and scream: "Come on Apollo Creed! I'm right here, your Italian Stallion, ready to kick your ass and rip that golden belt away from your waist!" 
But I don't do it. I turn around and get started on my way back instead. I also start to feel a bit tired actually: that damned hill, and that meaningless acceleration are taking their toll. Fortunately physics is coming to rescue me: what used to go up must necessarily go down on the way back. I just have to control my strides and watch my joints. 
Rocky Balboa my ass, right now I feel more like Danny Devito, Benny Hill or Mr. Bean. Still, what an adrenaline injection a stranger's smiles and nice words can be, especially in an alien place. Just like some kind of doping, only without side-effects.

Day trip to Genting Highlands, photo gallery included - Malaysia

Cable-cars or, as they call them here, gondolas

This could have been one of those foolish posts describing what one did on a day-off. If there is a fool here though, that one is me, as per my posts...never! They have to be taken over by humanity, with its good and evil ones, cynicism, hope, irony, preferably aimed at myself. Otherwise after a few lines I get bored and I throw everything in the trash bin.

I've been in Kuala Lumpur for almost a month and I haven't enjoyed a day of leave yet. On weekdays I teach from 9:30am to 4:30pm. On Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 7pm. I believe I am one of the few people who can't wait until Monday to have the chance to relax a bit. Today is my first day off and I wanna go somewhere for a day trip. I have to choose between the Batu caves and Genting Highlands. I've already been to both places some ten years ago. Well, let's see: the caves...very hot, al lot of steps to climb and all those monkeys jumping around. Genting can boast a cable car gliding over the jungle and the green-mountain-cool-weather. I'm gonna go for the latter.
As I still don't know what time I want to come back, at the ticket counter they convince me to buy a one way trip. "You'll buy your return ticket over there, it's a mere formality." It might sound like a prediction full of dark implications, but let's not start to be paranoid.

Merry shopping! Christmas wishes from Citibank - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Citibank Malaysia sincere christmas wishes

Merry Shopping, that's the christmas wishes that Citibank decided to extend to its customers in Kuala Lumpur this year.
How sad! Irreverent! Offensive! So materialist!
These are some of the first things that people might think upon reading that ad, especially those who have, or pretend they have, an entirely different idea of christmas. And yet, come to think of it, this is exactly what it is all about. Christmas, for big firms and retailers, is just an instrument to boost their sales. And the majority of their customers share the same opinion. Everybody knows it, and everybody acts accordingly. Why hiding behind a bunch of hypocritical expressions, thoughts, images and tunes then? This year Citibank decided to steer clear of all that, getting straight to the point. Maybe it was an unintentional excess of candor. We'll never find out. But if we only take notice of the actual effect, without questioning of anybody's motives, as far as I am concerned this is perfectly fine. 
Merry shopping to you all then!

Re-read last year's Christmas poem here.

An ancient Venetian saying applied to a luxurious shopping mall - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Look at that fine round toilet bowl...

An old Venetian saying goes: "The weather, your ass and the rich will always do as they please." (Original version: "El tempo, el cul e i siori li fa sempre quel che vol lori".)
And in fact, no longer than ten minutes ago I was surrounded by a crowd of arrogant little assholes on the hunt for christmas presents in the luxury shops of this fancy shopping mall, while a monsoon storm was raging outside. There you have it, you proverb-loving readers: as expected, the weather and the rich are doing their part. Only my ass is missing, I was thinking, but I was underestimating the jet of plutonian atmosphere that was hitting my guts while I was absentmindedly watching those fanatics coming and going. I kept thinking about it while that cold air was working away at my ribs and, most important, at my belly.
And that's probably why I'm conceiving this silly post in a restroom while, seated on a toilet bowl, I'm trying to relax my stiffened bowels. Finally my ass (never before so proverbial) has started to do as he pleases too. Fortunately in these shopping malls even the bathrooms are spotless and luxurious. Moreover, though it might seem paradoxical to someone, the pieces of shit that float in here are less sniffy than the ones that trot out there.

Passage-brothels in Brickfields - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Photo of a passage-brothel, taken hurriedly and on the sly

Brickfields is a neighborhood close to Kuala Lumpur central station (KL Sentral, yes, with "S"). Unlike other areas of the center it has remained rather untouched by the waves of modernity that altered large parts of the city, even though the imposing lines of skyscrapers and infrastructures besiege it assiduously. The district is home to a picturesque Little India, budget hotels, little multi-ethnic restaurants, street stalls and places of worship, including numerous Christian churches. 
The most bizarre joints, though, are a series of long and narrow passages facing the sidewalks. The entrance half-hidden by a rag used as a curtain, a pale pink light coming out of the clear sides, from which it is possible to peep at a sequence of run-down doors, each one watched over by a scantily-clad lady leaning on a doorpost or seated on a plastic stool. A pimp with the typical attitude of a human-spider (I was about to write spiderman, but I've read comics and watched cartoons and I know what the difference between good and evil is) is sitting or standing just outside. The customers enter and leave the places quite hurriedly, perhaps to comply with their embarrassment. Other people, with countenances ranging from the shady to the cutthroat, loaf around yelling, laughing, jeering at or shoving each other. A summary of urban social dreariness.
Family-run tiny brothels: in some of them you can even catch a glimpse of a kitchen and, in the back, as in every respectable Chinese house, a small and colorful Buddhist shrine. There are dozens of them, shameless, dismal, dirty, undisturbed. 
The pimps invite the passersby to take a look at the offers of the day. I often walk past some of them and am systematically ignored. I might cherish the fond hope that I am different from those other men, that I don't have the whoremonger's demeanor, but I know better than to fool myself like that. The shares of sexy man! and handsome guy! - all of them strictly fake -, that over the years the Thai bar-ladies have yelled at me too, wouldn't allow me to do that. 

Durian: the real forbidden fruit, i.e. the measure of freedom - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

A durian, split open with a machete, one of the flesh-beans still intact and a pulp-less seed

What does durian, a tropical fruit, have to do with freedom? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot.
Durian. I tried it for the first time many years ago, when I had just arrived to S.E. Asia. It might have been in Singapore: at Bugis Junction in fact, where I was staying, as soon as the picking season was under way the area filled up with street-stalls selling it. Even though I didn't find it disgusting, like the majority of the other westerners, I was not particularly impressed, but I wouldn't be able to tell why. I was not even stricken by its supposed, terrible stench. And to think that in Singapore, due to their bad smell, durians are forbidden at hotels, subway stations and other public places, even with illustrated prohibition signs. Then again, in Singapore it is even forbidden to import chewing gums, imagine eating stinking fruits indoor. In Asia I have eaten much worse smelling food than durians. Some varieties of chou doufu (stinking tofu) in China and Taiwan forced me to hold my nose when I was still fifty meters away from the source-restaurant. An intensity similar to the one that 20 years ago, in a small Appennino Lucano's town, was rising from a cliff where the carcass of a cow was rotting, and entered through the broken window, saturating the room, keeping my brother and me awake all night, looking for dead rats under the bed and checking our retches, while we couldn't stop laughing incredulously. Durians vaguely smell of kitchen gas, but it's not an unbearable odor.

They sold the shopping mall entrance - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The late mall entrance, recently replaced by a shop

In Bukit Bintand, right in the heart of the city, there is a shopping mall. Like any other shopping mall this one also used to have its entrance, with large automatic glass doors, fancy lights and stylish floor. Those who run the mall decided to sell it. Yeah, they sold the entrance. The mall is still open, as usual, but the entrance was replaced by a clothing shop, that you have to walk through in case you wanna go in or out of the mall. With its smaller doors, aisles and the typical shop-feeling to be an intruder.
Let's try for a moment to go back in time and imagine the following scene. The steering committee of the company that owns the mall is having a meeting. An important client is willing to open a new outlet and wants a lot. 
"We've got nothing to offer him."
"What do you mean we got nothing? The upper floor is half empty!"
"You don't give this kind of clients the upper floor. They want the first one, possibly close to the entrance..."
"Moreover we don't have any rental contract expiring before the year 2020."
The room is suddenly wrapped in silence. Nobody has even the slightest idea of something to say. A young assistant, a recently hired graduate, rather bored leans over the map of the structure and points a finger at it. Then, almost to himself, he mutters:
"There is a vacant space right here.."
The boss quickly looks at him, starts to laugh in an arrogant way and dismisses him with a scornful remark:

KL Monorail: the world's sweetest means of transport - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The KL Monorail mouse-like nose

KL monorail looks like a toy, a model city train, a sort of Lima elevated railway line.
With its tiny stations, tiny tension structures, tiny bulbs, tiny signs, tiny traffic lights, tiny stairs to move between the tiny platforms, tiny cars, tiny mouse-like nose, tiny headlights, tiny seats, tiny doors, tiny alarms that signal when they are being closed, tiny voice announcing the tiny stops, tiny wheels, tiny rails, all those tiny curves that make the tiny route so winding. As a matter of fact the monorail, poor thing, has to adapt to everything and nothing in this city ever bothers to budge even a little for it. On top of that they only gave it one rail: for such a train two would have definitely be too many.
In Bangkok the Monorail has a bigger cousin: the bulky, self-assured, haughty Skytrain, which proudly advances in a straight line over the main city thoroughfares: few curves and obstacles to get around.
The Monorail, on the other hand, is some kind of a joke, and a tiny one at that, of course. Yet, it is so sweet: every time I get aboard it's as if a ghost pinched the corners of my mouth, stretching a big smile across my face. The further I walk into the car the stronger the ghost's fingers pull my flesh and the more that smile expands. Torrid heat, monsoon rain, traffic, smog, the situation outside can be desperate indeed but the KL monorail never lets you down: every time you use it you get in a good mood.

The business class humiliation - Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur

I had often heard people talking about it as a quality choice, as compensation for overbooking or damaged seats issues or even as a shortcut to making useful acquaintances. I had always managed to stay away from it though. A proud member of the common people as I am, prompted by wild aversion for the parvenus' habits: golf, exclusive clubs, showy cars, jewels, middle class cottages and, precisely, business class. Finally, after a lot of uncomfortable and dusty journeys, cattle trucks, groups of prisoners, buses in unstable balance on the brink of deep ravines, long waits in no man's land, anti-illegal immigration control procedures, I ended up suffering that ignominy. I can't believe it was me, the same person who complained about getting from Venice to Bangkok in only 32 hours and who intends to do it overland one day just to make up for it. That guy, me, in business class, sneaked in on the sly. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't my choice, of course. The people who hire me to teach the courses booked my flight at the very last minute: all the economy seats were already sold out and they had to opt for an upgrade. Hadn't they done that they would have had no teacher for the first day's class: definitely unfeasible.
That's how I found myself stunned by a sequence of privileges that I have never needed before: dedicated check-in desk, outbound immigration premier lane, luxury lounge, priority seats at the gate, priority boarding, flying sofa, wide selection of glossy magazines, flight attendants stopping by to have a casual conversation (you have never noticed me when I was packed along with the other sardine-passangers there in the back of the plane, are you on the hunt for a rich husband? Well, you can keep looking then...), cool drink after take off, selected nuts (less than 30% peanuts!!! Isn't that great?), brocade tablecloth, tungsten cutlery, crystal glasses, a neighbor that smiles, thanks and nods like an Eton student and then again immigration premier lane upon arrival. Had they caught me walking the few hundred meters separating the airport shuttle station from the hotel, carrying a big bag and a guitar on my back, they would have banned me from their luxury club for life. 
Don't get me wrong, it is all very convenient: those details can totally change the way you travel. They actually make you feel as if you were not traveling at all. Yet, I have to say bad things about them. Even though these whims are not my cup of tea one can easily get used to them. When I come across anything that shines too brightly...I prefer to adopt the tramp's mistrust.

Photo by caribb (CC)

The earth shakes - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

WARNING: BAD WORDS!
I was about to tell one of my students to fuck off, thinking that he was having some fun shaking my desk, when I noticed my expression - and my same intention - mirrored on his face. Then we both looked at the water dispenser and noted that the liquid surface was obviously swaying. So we calmly stood up and, elegantly and with style, keeping a cool head, without using the lift but gracefully flying over the stairs instead, we made a bolt for the exit.

By the way, while with self-assurance I was getting out of the building, fearing losses of memory due to belated panic attacks, remembering the precious lesson of Tom Thumb I decided to leave a trail of shit crumbs behind me. The following day I was still able to find my classroom without having to follow it but, as they say, one can never be too prudent.

Breaking news - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

I'm staying at a fancy hotel, which I'm not paying for, of course. It's not a luxurious one but it's good enough to make me feel some sort of moocher. Sometimes a bit out of place too, as if I had been the object of a name mix-up. Actually it used to happen especially at the beginning, because one quickly gets used to superior standards and starts soon to take certain privileges for granted. Never mind, there is no danger of permanent damage: within few days the fun will be over, I'll jump down from the comfortable mattress covered with silky linen and soft pillows and I'll return to bite the dust raised by the soles that thump on the hard road surface. Well, so to speak, just to give a couple of brush strokes of vivid melodrama.

Tropical cold - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Cold. As impossible as it may seem, I'm feeling cold. And it happens quite often: I'm forced to take shelter from cold in a city where for most of the day, twelve months a year, the thermometer needle exhaustingly staggers over 30ºC.

No, I'm not under a violent attack of tropical fever. The fact is that in Kuala Lumpur, for some reason that escapes me, the unrestrained use of air conditioning must have been enforced by law. I've been wondering why. Could it be the ancestral terror of the equatorial climate? The rather questionable choice of a status symbol? A substantial difference in the perception of heat between the local population and myself?

The LRT ride from the hotel to the training center is brief, only three stations long, and it doesn't take more than ten minutes. And yet, if I don't adopt tactics worthy of a polar expedition manual, chances are that I'll get off the car with the clumsily symmetrical limp of the penguin. Or worse, belly-flopping like an adult male walrus.

Asian street characters

A patient of a large mental hospital is looking outside from behind the gate. He plucks up courage, stops a passer by and asks him: "Excuse me, just a question, how many of you live inside that place?"

Old funny story about points of view

Let's start with Kuala Lumpur.

The first one is an Indian man, bare chested, flapping pants made of light fabric, no shoes. His hair is long and ruffled, his skin is dark - Tamil chromosomes mark. His bones are exposed and his muscles darting, thin and tensed. He could be a sadhu whose saffron robe has been snatched by a thief or a natural catastrophe. His face is not thin as other thin faces are: it's a skull covered with dark leather and bristly hair, and little more. His eyes are two huge floodlights, goggled, like those of a hunted down beast. You can spot him everywhere in the city center, while he walks, almost running, fleeing from the enemy, only partly imaginary, that has been chasing him for years wherever he goes.

Then there is a bearded man, who constantly holds a banknote with his right hand, turning it over again and again, making it twirl between his fingers like a magician, while he carefully looks at it, studying it as if it were a mysterious object, fallen there from another world or another time. In the meanwhile his left hand is gently stirring in the air, leading an orchestra of ghosts that, no matter what direction he is facing, is always arranged in front of him.

In another road you can meet the one who never stops talking to himself, fast, mumbling, in a low voice, in god knows what language, continuously walking along the sidewalk, transversally, from shop to road, from road to door, from gate to road...

Another one, long haired and bare chested, always walks holding his pants with one hand, as if they were loose and he didn't wear a belt to keep them up.

There is also a guy who lies down on the sidewalk, his back leaning on the wall of the building and his legs stretched out, ready to trip up the wealthy and respectable passers by. The same cigarette, unlit, in one hand, while the other one plays an invisible piano. Muttering something with a satisfied look, he's stretching out there not really with the air of one who doesn't know where else to go but as if this was actually the most comfortable couch in the coolest living room in town.

However, the leading figure among the KL street characters, their archetype, their undiscussed quintessence, is the great globe guy.

When you have left the Malaysian capital and you've landed in Bangkok, across the taxi window the most bizarre character appears. A skinny guy, with broom-like hair and tow beard, walks around wearing only a filthy t-shirt: he's stark naked from belly-button to shins, his skin protected by a thin layer of greasy soot. Two stuffed plastic bags, tied around the ankles, wrap his feet like homemade Moon Boots. With other bags hanging from his hands, neck and shoulders, he's standing on a sidewalk, waiting for the green light among housewives and office workers. It's such a surreal sight that it could well be a mirage.

I met the old lady of the picture in Hoian, Vietnam. She came begging, hunched: thousand wrinkles were twisting about her face, forming ever changing shapes around the four fixed objects while she was imploring us to give her something. I pulled a note out of my pocket and handed it to her, along with an amused smile. She got hold of it and swiftly put it in her mouth. I don't know whether she did it for gratitude, to store it in a safe place or as a talismanic gesture. All I know is that she left, holding that precious worthless gift between her lips.

Cinema as a Zen practice

When I'm in Kuala Lumpur my days tend to follow a sequence that rotates and wraps itself up in a gauze of soft invariability. The mental weariness caused by a day of lecturing and its physical counterpart due to some jogging and a couple of push-ups come to meet me in the evening: they take me by the hand and walk me to a movie theater downtown.

Most of the times I'm not really interested in the movie itself: in Asia the multiplex cinemas often feature American and Chinese blockbusters or local stuff that you can't really trust. I rule out by default the ones of the second category and I chose the less toxic title of the first one: it often turns out to be a concoction of action, deafening noise and special effects: the usual bore meant to stimulate the production of adrenaline that ends up making you sink into a state of hypnotic daze instead. As far as I am concerned a good movie depends on: 1) story and director, 2) actors, 3) photography and music. Any other frill can only serve the purpose of concealing the lack of those main ingredients.

However, as I said, what really draws me to the theater has nothing to do with my passion for visual arts: I take care of that with some DVDs when I need to. No, what I really follow enchanted while I'm on the escalator are the notes of a different piper: getting swallowed by that black world scarred by slanting lines of white lights, being vaguely aware of the air-con blow that cools without freezing, reaching the seat next to the aisle, possibly without neighbors, carefully chosen at the box office, stretching out on the armchair - comfortable but not too soft - and letting the hum muffled by the sound-absorbing panels tickle my eardrums during the minutes that lead up to the commercials. When the show (show?) has already started, ignoring without the slightest spot of irritation those who talk and disturb a movie that is not really worth of respect, adjusting to the light air of an awkward drama or of a silly comedy, relaxing my muscles, activating my soul, meditating, slackening the reins of my brain, thinking, being pierced by such a beautiful sentence that it feels as if it was thought by someone else and jotting it down on my phone. Peeking now and then at the deer-like face of the pretty girl who's sitting a few seats away, then feeling ashamed for this fifth grader's instinct and directly jumping to the eighth grade by looking at the legs of a hot chick wearing a jeans miniskirt and high heels, while the tough guy who's sitting next to her is bewildered by a monotonous sequence of fast scenes and deafening sounds. Moistening my lips with a fake pervert air, laughing to myself for this form of self-inflicted sense of humor and while my temple is scratched by yet another sentence - somewhat less philosophical than the previous one - grabbing the phone again and challenging my creativity by trying to write some longshoreman's obscenity with the most poetic verses I can think of.

It's an alternative to Vipassana, Yoga Nidra and Tantra: the experience of a lousy movie as a Zen practice. As it turns out, the ways to reach Nirvana appear to be countless.