[A version in English translated with DeepL and not edited is below the Italian text] Sono di nuovo a Jakarta. Quest’anno è la seconda volta che vengo qui. Ieri sera sono andato a casa di una collega con la quale ho lavorato per salutare lei e la sua famiglia. Vive nella parte sud di Jakarta, a Pejaten. Ho preso un taxi per andare da loro. Come al solito, il taxi è rimasto bloccato nella zona […]
When I was a kid we went on a family vacation to Tuscany, Italy each year. We never stayed in fancy hotel or took a flight back then. We would drive the whole way down from Germany in our old VW station wagon and stayed at a rustic farm house a friend of my parents owned. For my sister and me this holiday was always a big adventure. We would explore the surrounding countryside with […]
I listen in my earphones this Italian song. Outside the windows the roofs of Hanoi. Ten of thousands of houses and homes with their daily lives, their happiness and their sadnesses. Lorenzo, in the meantime he is singing his ‘Mi fido di te’, and yet yesterday his life changed and is now missing, all of a sudden, such a big part of it. Yet his song tells a story of some years ago and I […]
I have attended an interesting seminar about the Chinese experience in the transition to market economy with socialist characteristics. The aim of the seminar was to help Vietnamese scholars and researchers, who usually claim to be 10 years behind China in terms of social and economic development, to reflect on the challenges that the transition poses to Vietnam today. One of the conclusions of the seminar is that Vietnam is committed to modernization and market […]
Arnaldo in Hanoi. Today I attended a workshop where I heard something that made me think. It is now two months that I started my work here in Hanoi and I am still in the process of understanding the structure, currents, streams of my working environment. A work environment which, as the whole society, is under the influence of two main forces: State and Party. All this is new to me. To be in the […]
Ha Noi. One month. I look from the window of my office at the 12th floor of the Vietnam Academy for Social Sciences. Hi see high rising buildings that are being built all around the town. I hear the beat of the town, the ten of thousands of motorbikes and the car of this town which has about 2ml inhabitants. The sky has been gray most of the time. It is winter time and as […]
Ha Noi. One month. I look from the window of my office at the 12th floor of the Vietnam Academy for Social Sciences. Hi see high rising buildings that are being built all around the town. I hear the beat of the town, the ten of thousands of motorbikes and the car of this town which has about 2ml inhabitants. The sky has been gray most of the time. It is winter time and as […]
Perché le parole di Terzani colpiscono così a fondo? Perché parlano al cuore, vengono dal cuore. Affrontano le nostre incertezze, le nostre debolezze, la nostra paura atavica della morte, ridimensionano la civiltà occidentale e la confrontano con un Oriente con la O maiuscola. Un’ Asia che, nonostante progresso e sviluppo economico, riesce a mantenere una dimensione spirituale. In alcuni paesi più che il altri.
I am working on my PhD dissertation. The last stage. Putting things together, trying to fit into a readable text experiences, books, articles, and data collected during the last four years in Cambodia. I have met many people who have gone successfully through this stage and they all described it as a difficult, challenging, intense, lonely, frustrating time. However all agree that it is worth it. I have been thinking which metaphor better describes this […]
Oggi sono rimasto senza parole a pranzo. Ero la Ministero degli Affari Esteri per un meeting con la perosona che segue i progetti di Werde. Mi ha invitato a pranzo alla mensa del Ministero. Un altro collega viene con noi. Una bella mensa, self-service, funzionale, pulita. Ci sediamo. Parliamo di sviluppo, progetti, Cambogia. Dopo qualche minuto, mi accorgo che Erkki Tuomoja, Ministro degli Affari Esteri, si avvicina vassoio in mano, la tavolo del pane e […]