I was filled with happiness as I sat there in the darkness for about an hour. I felt that I had never been as happy in my entire life. Abruptly I arose out of the darkness.
Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
July 21, 2020.
This past week was featured by a dramatic escalation of US-China diplomatic tension following the closure of China’s Houston consulate, ect. I intentionally restricted myself from grabbing instant news and information distributed automatically across the digital globe...
Tremendous floods, this year in mainland China, have damaged hopes and livelihoods of thousands and millions of people. It rains so hard. Horrendous views of houses, streets, crops and everything being flooded over. Things just disappear. Some of them will come back. Some never.
I went with one colleague to the island last Tuesday to collect a document from a client who operate the buildings we designed. We were unsuccessful. The man we had the meeting with was almost chasing us out of the office. Looking impatient and even a bit annoyed, his replies to our questions were perfunctory, his facial expression and voice got intense, complaining about huge energy consumptions. ‘It’s a luxury design. We had to run air conditioners even in April and May in classrooms and the indoor stadiums. The athletes are trained for the national team.”
While heading back to town, we had to drive through a long tunnel and a bridge. We saw the rising water flooding almost over the bridge, hitting hard against the steel structures. The full landscape was wrapped in mist. Cars passing by, like they saw nothing extraordinary but a mundane world occasionally bugged. We put on some music from Ennio Morricone. It was the Ecstasy of Gold.