Tokyo 2016

It is funny that I don’t have many friends, but I always like to be in a crowded place. I love watching people. Choosing a seat in a coffee shop at the corner of the most crowded street in the world, I may see a lot of different stories passing by. For other people, when they look at a busy street, they only see two types of walkers: Those who are just looking to get from places to places, and those who are looking while going from places to places. For me, I usually add my own music into the chaotic streets and put all those walkers in their stories. It is fascinating to think of how much we can learn about people just by observing them. They don’t aware of my existence or my brief window into their world. I realize that even they are walking there in the crowd, yet each individual is still isolated and alone from the one beside them. You could read it through their eyes, or you can see it in how they walk, how they present themselves to the world around them. I could see a college student, tries to walk fast, but still shows his tiredness because of an all-nighter for his exam tomorrow. I could see an older couple in their mid-60s, walking, hand in hand, and on an ice cream date. The women sometimes look at him, smile and likely to ask where if he would be back in school if he could. “Been there done that” he replied.

Or there is a kid, around four years old, she is chasing her parents ahead. Unlike other try to walk to get to their places, the kid seems to enjoy the chaos, she is weaving in and out of people on the street like her feet are on fire. The sheer happiness I can see in her face is something you can’t duplicate.

Then in the corner of the street, near the door of a tall building, there is a young couple kissing. They are trying to slow down the crowd and making the world like there are only them existing in this real-world at the moment.

A businessman passes by. He is in an expensive suit and talking loudly on his phone. His suit is nicely ironed and his shoes were carefully polished. He must be a guy really care about his appearance, but it still cannot hide his red and angry face and his aggressively moving toward.

A girl once compared me to the main character from A wild sheep chase, a book by Murakami. It is the first time I am being compared with a character from a book. I love that. But her comparison is partly true though! The guy from the book likes watching people and he knows that each person is not like they appear, each one has their own stories and the man tries to learn from them in order to find out his own identity. I am not. I have my life, my passion, my desires, and my dreams. Watching people is my hobby, something that could add to my life and make it more colorful.

My coffee is cold, and the man in the suit is gone.

“All of the things above are just an imagination”