In a city, where the paces of life is, slower, you’d, slowed down your paces too, living here, and experienced your life here, translated…
As I’d received the classic book “An Ideal Afternoon” by Guo-Ji Shu, my instructor, I’d reread the passage that everybody was ranting on, of them, “An Ideal Afternoon” mentioned: “An ideal afternoon, ought to be spent, in an, ideal place, and this place is usually, in the city.” “An ideal afternoon, fitted for someone in the afternoon with the ideals. This sort of a person, enjoyed one’s own external environments, and would be willing to drop what one is doing to do so.” Professor Shu’s article was rhyming, painted that scene of comfort, and my thoughts drifted along, in his words, in the end, my heart was at a place of the most comfortable it’d felt in years.
That was an afternoon in Tainan. After I’d managed all of the day’s work, I’d camped at the second floor of our shop on Shennong Street. The shop was a restructured building from the ancient houses, with that beam that’s deep, high, sturdy, the sky roof that allowed the sun to get filtered in just right, a house with so many stories to tell, that we can’t find any faults in. The first and the second floor were used for business by the first owners, the second owners used the first floor as an office, while the second floor became a sort of a residential, stay.
what the city streets of Tainan look like…photo from online
The following afternoon, I lay in bed on the second floor, it was a Saturday afternoon, I’d just had a fulfilling fish skin porridge for breakfast. The perfectly made seafood congee was an ideal breakfast for Fucheng, there’s no need to pick out the foods specifically, with all the delicacies everywhere, my choice was merely to walk, to the entrance of the street, Professor Shu said, “an ideal afternoon, with an ideal afternoon snack. It’s enough, to make this afternoon amazing!”. The fish skin porridge wasn’t for my breakfast, nor lunch, it’s just, a fulfilling, snack, not too big on serving size, I’d not needed to eat it at specific time. No need to follow the clock on my meals, or decide if I wanted the meals for the day, this was, an ideal, start of my afternoon leisure.
Lying in bed on the second floor, I’d heard the sounds of people and of cars that came onto the second floor. Closed my eyes, I’d used my ears, to listen close to these sounds, focused like how I’m, reading the lines on the pages. There were the steps, pacing to and from on Shennong Street, the Shennong Street isn’t too wide, and the voices talking can, be admitted into my ears, there’s the cookie stand opposite, with the cloth bag next to it, the pedestrians talking of the lanterns hung on the streets, this one, that one, from how they’d talked of the lanterns, I’d known that they were, leisurely, strolling; a bit farther away, I’d heard the rumbling of the older scooters from Hai-An Road, along with the cart that’s getting pulled on, perhaps, setting up the stands someplace.
And all of these sounds, all came at, barely audible, slow paces, with nobody hurrying off anywhere, the paces of life, is unhurried. “An ideal afternoon, with the sounds that belonged to that section, echoing inside that section” “slowly, rousing up the sleepiness, people leaning in on one another.” Professor Shu described it perfectly, getting drawn over to the sounds here, and there, whichever place, it’s, sweet.
Just like the light from the sky roof of the attic of this, old place, using that coloration of an old film, falling onto the pale complexions of the skin, sealed that ideal sort of an afternoon, inside my veins.
So, this, is what leisure looks like, and it’s nothing you will EVER get, living in the faster pace cities, because everything in the cities are going, going, going, going fast constantly, people rush to and from, about their lives, and there are, rarely, any moments of leisure, compared to if you live in a place like this one, where everything is flowing along, at a, much, slower, speed………
Life, the Obstacle Course 