Korea

Busan

Grey, low cloud, close & damp, unlovely buildings clambering up the sides of the hills, as if Genova had been built in the 60s and 70s.  An inauspicious welcome to our holiday.  But reaching Haeundae, the air clears and gives way to a gentle breeze off the sea, the sun begins to light the endless jewels carried by the waves, and the scent of maritime pines and salt water blow away the heavy grime of Shanghai.

Familiar sights and smells resurrect pleasant old memories as we stroll through the local market.  We sit down to a cleansing bowl of handmade guksu noodles in a clear delicious broth, served by a friendly elderly couple, proud of their fare and very concerned that we don’t add too much chilli sauce and spoil their flavours. We feel renewed afterwards.

I’d forgotten about the US Army presence - there are off-duty soldiers everywhere, some of the most unsoldierly looking men you could see, wandering, beers in hand, headphones de rigeur somewhere about the head, looking for “real food”.

Shinsegae Department Store, certified as the largest in the world, full of top brands at suitably large prices and shoppers keen to show they know what’s what.  How incongruous then to see four Buddhist nuns, with their shaven heads and kind, gentle expressions, in trademark pale grey tunics topped by simple wide-brimmed straw hats, shopping for treats, probably gifts, a small expensive, immaculately wrapped parcel or two already in their grasp.

Airport Road

As we blur along the expressway towards escape, streams of pylons stretch in large corridors in all directions to the horizon, like watchmen for silent rivers of unseen energy to fuel the consumptive life of Shanghai as it spreads ever further, absorbing all land, suburbs, villages and towns in its way.  Some valiantly try to maintain an independent identity, like Songjiang which proudly proclaims its modern presence alongside its long history, but all in vain like Canute commanding the tide, as the mega urbs spill on and out.

Masseurobics

Our local massage parlour, which prides itself on a certain class and standard, performs a daily ritual, weather permitting, to drum up business and impress potential customers and neighbours.

In the evening, during rush hour, their staff form 2 lines on the pavement, the leader a little to the side to enable him to bellow instructions.

The performance lasts some 10-15 minutes and involves the team of rather thin, listless, mostly young masseuses & masseurs, all wearing a kind uniform pyjama, doing very gentle aerobics with no great enthusiasm, more like an amateur soft-shoe shuffle.

The aim, I presume, is to demonstrate how well conditioned, energetic & disciplined your massage artist is.  Adding grandeur is music loud enough to shake the leaves from the trees above, accompanied by the monotone chants & claps of the team.

A small group of onlookers lingers briefly on the pavement opposite before moving on.  By the end of a routine that isn’t quite so much spritely as geriatric, the team disperses back inside the bleak, unwelcoming doorway and Shanghai’s normal din quickly fills the void.

Citizen Activists

Neighbourhood activists we are today, congregating on a corner beneath the hideous shapes that announce the Jingan Sculpture Park.  At the start I feel a frisson of concern - how will the police react?  Dissent is barely tolerated after all.  I should not have feared, as this was a government sanctioned group that helps out in the community.

We walk in green T-shirts, some 30 of us, promoting a low carbon lifestyle by marching along our local streets and handing out leaflets & folding plastic fans to passersby.  At least our walking creates no carbon, even if we stir up some of the city’s construction dust.

Aren’t we preaching to the converted?  We might more effectively target the drivers waiting in their cars at traffic lights, though we’d be met with anything from incomprehension to ridicule at the notion of abandoning a hard won right to enjoy motorised convenience and comfort.  Walking back from an innocuous & controversy-free march, we pass a vast, gleaming new Rolls Royce, about the size of many Shanghainese people’s apartments, with beads hanging from the mirror.

It's been a while

Where have the days and months gone?  Where am I now?

Well first, back in China - we returned in mid August after 11 months away.  Can it really have been that long?  I don’t know if those were the longest or shortest months of my life - they seem to have flown by and yet stretch like an eternity looking back.  I feel as if I have lost a year of my life, though in truth I was so very much alive throughout and it was one of the most intense times I have lived, never more conscious of life and fighting to hang on to it.

So I still have my life - thank you up there.  It’s not what it was but no bad thing that.  Cancer no longer defines my life, though it did for a time.  I have to watch out for the beast coming back for another go, but I’m ready for a fight. 

Instead I have been given, or grabbed a chance, a second go perhaps at life and I know I cannot waste that.  So bit by bit, I aim to fill life with a greater consciousness of its beauty, goodness & strength and do things that I have wanted to, thought and talked about for too long, and reach an end one day with a sense of some satisfaction that I didn’t waste the gift I was given and if I am really lucky, and push myself hard, that I might just have made some small difference.

So this is my account of some of what I see, do and think from now on. And ‘Me & It’ is about my life and whatever ‘It’ happens to be on any given day, seen through the lenses of my try-again specs.

See what you think, as a favourite singer, Jake Thackray, once said.  Take what you like and discard the rest.

Cheers

Chemo days

No taste

my skin tastes different

don’t recognise food

everything’s like eating mud

sense of smell deceives me 

eating's just fuel.

Exhausted

waves of tiredness 

drop to sleep at a moment’s notice 

finished by a walk

Wake up at all hours.

Peeing for my country.

Can’t concentrate for more than 15 minutes 

feel rimbambito.

Nausea creeps up unsuspected

fear of swallowing anything

food

the tablets that are curing me

even simple life giving water...

Side aches

wound closed and healing well 

but reminds me it’s not done.

Sooka cries when she sees me down

what am I doing to her?

16 days to go, just 384 hours and then?

Freedom or doubt? 

Up to me I guess

Cruelty & release

Lost a friend to this beast this week.  David, who I’d only met online at the Macmillan Cancer Care Online Community, sadly lost his short battle with Oesophageal Cancer.   My heart goes out to his family and close friends at such a cruel time and I only hope that they take some consolation from the love and happy times they shared with him and that he has been released from pain and passed in peace.  He was a big hearted man, full of courage, wisdom, hope and wise words and he lifted me and many others with his optimism and spirit.  He welcomed me as a friend and I’ll remember his kindness with huge affection and only regret that we will not get to go on the walk through the woods we talked about.  

A bad week also saw friends lose their daughter at just 26 to another cancer.  It’s terrible to lose anyone but a child must be the worst, I can hardly imagine what her parents are going through - where do they find comfort at such wanton cruelty?  My prayers are with you.

Rest in peace David & Katie.