From ‘Asian Absences. Searching for Shangri-La’ by Wolfgang Büscher

  

My first impression remained. This town had none of the anarchy of Indian towns with their intense spiciness and sweetness, their absolute physicality and pervasive dampness. No betel spit, no beggars showing off their bodily defects in dramatic poses. No children, who immediately surround a stranger and start massaging his legs quickly and roughly, breaking off to make equally quick and rough eating signs. Grab leg, rub tummy, grab food.

 

Arabia’s sun was not the friendly son of our songs. It was naked, red-hot violence. Now the flaming ball shot up angrily, the terror of the world. In minutes it had asserted it's despotism - everything bowed its head and covered itself.

 

You don't stare at people in Tokyo. You don't do it anywhere, but in Tokyo no one does it.

 

The night didn't fall like a black cushion suffocating everything- the day took its time leaving.