Fyrisån｜Let It Begin, at Stockholm

Fyrisån is a river that runs through Uppsala, not where I've been in Sweden the longest, but a place of memory. I received a woodcut duck by the riverside in winter, which mirrored the nearly 100 mallards on the frozen river, and the snow-covered furballs. So I wanted to write down some unforgettable scenes, try to find out the reasons for the memory, and write down some memories about Sweden.

Sep., 2019.

Your liking for bands is intermittent. It doesn't mean that you stop chasing after listening for a while, but if you like a certain song from a certain band, you will keep listening to it for a long time, keep listening, and repeat. Hear disgust, or add to a playlist. The voice that survives this unhealthy state of binge eating is often a lifelong listening companion. The most recent round to receive this kind of treatment is Let it begin by the Korean indie band Say Sue Me , which you recently listened to live.

They made their fortunes in Busan, and it seems that the route they take is difficult to have any relationship with the South Korea in their impression. But it's not a reliable criterion. After all, the only Korean bands you are listening to are Hyukoh, who has become popular in recent years, and Dae Kim , who is still unknown.

The music style of Say Sue Me is similar to the surf rock of the youth, but the sound environment created is a bit old-fashioned, which will not make you bored. In recent years, their live performances have swept major international music festivals. This day's performance was held in a bar in a wealthy area of Stockholm, but admission was unusually free. You will learn later that this is no accident: they turned to the European and American markets, received strong support from government departments, and used their voices as a part of the output of Busan’s local cultural strength.

Putting these aside, the members of Say Sue Me are all too young, forming an interesting contrast, "It should be a little interesting to watch the scene, right?"

Half an hour before you go on stage, you step out of the adjacent subway station, look around for the address a few times, and can't find the exact location of the bar. You asked the African-American security guard at the door of the same compound, "Turn right after entering the restaurant and go up the stairs," he replied almost reflexively. Pushing the door open, you pass through a bright but white seafood restaurant that is too middle-class and above. It is bright and boring. The decoration and atmosphere are the safest and most people will love it. You tuck your body into your jacket. In the middle of the room, avoid those things that are too bright: guests, waiters, white magnetic dinner plates with red carapace food, you are like a cockroach with a limescale cover, you quickly find the only dark corner, push away the thick There is a soundproof door, and you step into a narrow and cramped performance space in a room, with a small number of tables and tables configured in a bumpy, lousy, narrow bar, but the toilet design is extremely neat and spacious.

You even suspect that the bar and performance venue are at best reused with the remaining space next to the path leading to the toilet, just an accessory to the toilet of this middle-class white seafood restaurant.

And what do you remember? The tens of minutes before the band took the stage were especially tough - if you don't count the three days you went to the music festival in Aarhus last summer, this was the seventh live show you've seen in Sweden in two years, and you didn't have any. Friends accompany you, so the hot scene before the performance is often embarrassing to you. You have no friends. Or to put it mildly, your friends are either in other cities and countries, or are not interested in the voices you are interested in.

So what exactly do you remember?

The scene is half full, the wine list on the bar is quite satisfactory, the beer options are only Carlsberg Hof, black Falcon and some kind of Cider that you didn't look closely at all, you ask the bartender for a Hof, as always, the Nordic has always had the first drink Choice, probably the best. Just as you were sipping your beer and thinking about how to pass this awkward moment, a Chinese girl with short, light-colored hair thought you were his friend and made an exaggerated gesture to greet you. You were at a loss. When she found out that she had recognized the wrong person, she didn't say much, turned around and hid between her companions again.

"Who am I like?"

Before the time is up, you have to bow your head and read a book review in the Washington Post on your phone, reviewing anthropologist Don Kulick's new book, A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea , a book about the changes in the villages in the inner road of New Guinea, which the author has done field research for the past few decades.

The book review is well written in the middle, but it ends with a kitsch argument: "As human beings, we are more alike than we are different."

It seems that all writers who are not anthropologically trained, who write about anthropology, and who do a little bit of anthropological popular writing, will return to this vulgar position. You can stand, but it’s not impossible to stand, you just feel a pity: if you have spent so much effort, through the social and cultural writing about people in the distance, to teach readers to break free from the mediocre imagination of people, there is really no need to stand so quickly Back to the original position where anyone would make a little sense. It is not necessary to resort to "human nature" as the final solution so quickly in any discussion. After all, anthropology is not intended to be reassured. Moreover, we have no way of defining what "human nature" really is, nor can we bear the bitter consequences of arrogant definition. .

After reading it, you return to reality, looking around the long and narrow bar, the band has not yet appeared. You are the only one of more than fifty people at the scene. A middle-aged man with a yellow backpack hurriedly asked the bar if there were non-alcoholic drinks available. Your Carlsberg Hof is almost finished, the band has not yet played, and you are alone in the audience. In a turn of events, the band came on stage, unexpectedly, like all the unexpected events in life have gone through. Reality slammed for no reason.

What do you remember about the show?

You like to be shy, but actually taciturn. For groups that talk a lot and have no desire, the Nordic orchestras you have seen all have such characteristics, and you will appreciate them greatly. Because they make you feel that even people who are not good at expressing themselves outwardly can be seen if they focus on doing what they love. Although you don't yet know how biased such assumptions and associations are. You wish you could have friends, you wish not to fall into the line of saying "we are more alike than we are different," though it's not up to you, you want to be seen, and it's up to you. The four musicians of Say Sue Me said less than five words in total. And you just wish someone else was there with you, Let it begin is a great song, and you wish someone could dance around it with you.

But it didn't.

You didn't order any more wine and finished the show alone. Walking out of the restaurant, you saw the African-American security guard still standing by the door; you glanced at him halfway, and remembered that you had a smile on your face.

You walk into the mid-autumn starry night in Stockholm, which is speeding down towards the winter night. A place where immigrants from the Middle East live. You stepped on your leather boots and hummed:

 Let it begin
Let it all begin
Let it all begin again.