Out of tune and holes│Bosnia Sarajevo

The black trousers I wear every day have a hole in the knee.

When Sarajevo was singing, I found a woman begging not far from my performance, whose business was even better than mine.

It stands to reason that even if the woman gets more money from more people, because the amount given is different, it should not be more than me. But the woman can stay silent all the time, and every time I sing a song, my stamina is exhausted a little. These unnecessary trivial matters still hit me, who was not mature enough at the time.

The harmonica's pitch happened to be completely broken that day, and the most frequently played part in the middle was seriously out of tune, as if to announce something.

I had to stop setting up the stall and go back to my residence to look at the rain outside the window and think about homeless people and beggars.

Homeless people are not the same as beggars. When wandering, although they sleep outdoors, they rarely communicate with beggars. Usually I'm also not favored by them, because my presence makes them feel that their business is being hampered. Unlike homeless people, they have no conflict of interest with each other. They just stay on the street for the same amount of time, and sometimes they even have similar smells, so they have a few words. Speaking of street performers, they are just senior street friends with talents and a place to return.

A few years ago, I met a few homeless people under the bridge in Kyoto, Japan. Among them, there was a university graduate, Qing, who stayed under the bridge of Kamogawa for half a year because he liked the outdoors and Kamogawa in Kyoto. From summer to winter, it seemed like lifetime.

Qing’s parents had come under the bridge several times to bring Qing home, and Qing also returned home with his parents, but after a while, Qing came under the bridge alone. After several repetitions of this, the parents gave up. Regardless of Qing's family status, there are indeed people in this world who want to live freely and are pure enough to give such actions.

When I was in Sarajevo, I happened to know SALU from the Internet. Lin Zijun, a college graduate, conducted a one-week survival experiment on the streets of Taichung, trying to exchange food with merchants in a reciprocal manner without paying a dime. From his videos, we can learn about the ecology and culture of those homeless people in Taichung that are not widely known. In Taiwan, 70% of homeless people have jobs, but their meager salaries are not enough to cover their renting expenses.

Having wandered around the world for a year and a half, even if I was in the same mood as theirs, I could understand that they didn't want to. Many homeless people are ignored or even discriminated against by people's cold eyes, even if they are only sleeping on street corners or underpasses, no one is disturbed.

On one of the days of the experiment, Zi Jun came to the SOGO underpass that I was familiar with, and had been singing there for a few months. He put a bowl in the underpass and lay there for 24 hours. Passersby were talking about it, and people were strange. His eyes made Zi Jun feel as if he had become a monster.

Living in the same city, people always have different lives. Sometimes even for the strange unknown, fear replaces understanding. Even if you don't want to admit it, there are still moments of discouragement in the world.

I once thought that if one day I fell into the streets, unable to rely on music, and had to rely on begging to make a living, I would definitely be very desperate. When there is no longer any ability to help others, to communicate and connect with others, what is left of life? How much strength do you need to live in an out-of-tune life?

I finally found out that the hole in my knee may have come from my heart.