La giovinezza è felice perché ha la capacità di vedere la bellezza. Chiunque sia in grado di mantenere la capacità di vedere la bellezza non diventerà mai vecchio.
(Franz Kafka)
All by Paola Caronni (En)
In my many trips around Asia, I never prioritised travelling to Vietnam. I was always searching for more ‘remote’ locations, and I admit that my very first impressions of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi had not been that remarkable. Therefore, this time, I gave it a second chance. My 8-day trip to Vietnam, with my travel companions Nunzia and Kathia, was quite ambitious, as we travelled from North to Centre to South.
I connected with Anil Singh – an accomplished sitar performer – after a recital that took place at the Hong Kong City Hall Theatre. A meditative and highly calming, mesmerising experience, which rekindled reminiscences of the time I spent in India.
On Friday, May 3rd, I had the privilege of being one of the guest speakers at The Aftermath in Hong Kong for Jun Pan's presentation of her debut work The Palm Reader, a captivating collection of interconnected short stories, poems, and photos, filled with vibrant and colourful pages, published by CP Cambridge.
If I close my eyes, I’m still there, revelling in the multi-sensorial experience of Amazônia, an exhibition of photographs by Sebastião Salgado, accompanied by the specially commissioned soundtrack composed by Jean-Michel Jarre, held at the ‘Fabbrica del Vapore’ in Milan.
Entrepreneur who has always been involved in social work, as well as director of L'Indice dei Libri del Mese and former president of the Turin Book Fair, Mario Montalcini has an innate love for culture in all its forms of expression. We met him on the eve of the launch of Index Review, his new global publishing project.
Some of my friends found it amusing that I had decided to spend the Easter holidays (vacanze di Pasqua, in Italian) on an island called Malapascua. The association of ‘mala’ with ‘male’ (meaning ‘bad’) was immediate. If only I were a bit superstitious, I should have come out with another destination.
Visiting the Biennale of Art in Venice is in itself an experience of wonder, as much as visiting Venice: ever-changing and yet floating in stillness, surprising, and splendid even in its most secluded corners —especially so the more you tread off the beaten path. Wherever you turn your gaze, the city offers glimpses of enchanting scenery, everlasting and lingering for a long time, even once you’ve left it to get back home.
As the first scenes of Drive My Car unravelled, I thought ‘Yes, this is definitely something Murakami would write about…’ and yet, it was not. What happened in the film opening, was a very original and welcomed ‘addition’ to Haruki Murakami’s short story that bears the same name.
The Hong Kong Museum of Art (MOA) has been recently renovated and it was very much worth my second recent visit. A particular exhibition caught my eye: When form matters: following the path of Lui Shou-Kwan to Zen painting.
There are many stories surrounding the origins of these very particular structures that can be found in various places on the Adriatic coast. Some think they might date back to the Phoenician times, others that they have more recent origins, and that they were a clever invention to assure a safe shelter to the fishermen who did not have, in this way, to adventure out to rough seas.
During our classes, Adele* likes to call me ‘Professor’, and every time this undeserved title makes me smile. I tell her that I’m not a Professor, but rather someone who is just sharing with them her passion for writing. We sit in the room that is also a storage for textile products, and read and make comments on what she and the others have written. Adele is an asylum seeker from Togo. Francois*, who likes to write long and detailed stories, is from Congo. Some students come from Nigeria, Cameroon, and other African countries.
Sometimes, you can talk about a place only if you get to know the people who lived there, fell in love with it and work to make it better. A few years ago I found myself at Gaia House, a beautiful, bright-coloured Balinese-style house on top of a cliff on Lamma Island, overlooking a small beach. It belonged to Bobsy Gaia, a truly inspired man whom I had the pleasure to meet again later, in SoHo. Over a long conversation, we talked about living a sustainable lifestyle, based on diet and its impact on our beloved planet.
