The Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo, the novel is inspired by true events that occurred during the siege of Sarajevo in the nineties. The story starts with the cellist, who is considered as “the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra”; he is playing Albinoin’s Adagio next to a spot where people are waiting in a queue for buying bread in the market. All of sudden, twenty-two people are killed in a flash by a mortar attack. The cellist decided to play twenty-two days for each of them, honoring their memory.

Throughout those twenty-two days, there are different stories from four main characters: Arrow, Dragan, Kenan and the Cellist about what is happening in the city which is being besieged by the enemies on the hill.

Arrow is a young sniper, who is assigned to protect the cellist throughout those twenty-two days. She is a person with a good sense of justice.  Although it was not her dead father’s will, neither hers, “It’s just something you do because life is a series of tiny, unavoidable decisions”. She does her job for the sake of protecting the innocent people and her city. She finishes her assignment pretty well at end.

Dragan, a 64-year-old man, works in a bakery, gets bread for his relatives. Before the war, to protect his family, he sent his wife and son to Italy, and he chose to stay in the city even though he is afraid of death. During the story, he has interaction with Emina, his wife’s friend, who is on her way to deliver medication; unfortunately, she gets injured in the middle of the way, and Dragan does not help her. She is taken away for medical care. However, at end, Dragan takes away a dead body from the scene of the camera, which will probably be published in front of the whole world. He is trying to protect the social image of his city, and the honor of a dead person.

Kenan, a middle-aged father of three kids, is risking his life for getting the water for his family during the war, which is considered one of the basic needs of life. Also, he tries hard to be generous and kind-hearted to his unkind neighbor Mrs.Ristovki, who gives Kenan some water bottles which are not easy to carry. Anyway, Kenan keeps his promise, showing a strong sense of responsibility.

Despite of separate description as small vignettes of four characters, the novel is well-organized in great detail. Nevertheless, there is a connection among them. No wonder, it is the cellist, which is also emphasized from the title of the novel. The story draws Kenan and Dragan into the orbit of cello music.

At very end of the chapter, Kenan has an encounter with the cellist, which changes his mind about the cellist and his music. At beginning, he doesn’t understand why the cellist plays every day on the same spot; he thinks “it was a foolish gesture, a pointless exercise in futility”. Then after he listens to the cellist’s play, he starts to “feels himself relax as the music seeps into him”, observing that “the cellist’s hair smoothes itself out, his beard disappears. A dirty tuxedo becomes clean, shoes polished bright as mirrors”. Everything around him turns into another way, clean, bright and organized. Even the building behind the cellist “repairs itself, and windows reassemble, clarify, and sparkle as the sun reflects off glass”. Kenan feels his city “heals itself around him”, with the cellist’s music continuing, he even sees his lovely family again with whom he walks, holding hands with joy, love, and hope.

 And the brave sniper Arrow is protecting the cellist throughout every single day of these twenty-two days. “She stays where she is. At four o’clock the cellist comes out and her finger tightens around the trigger”, in spite that she realized the feeling of hatred that grows into her gradually without notice, which she doesn’t like any part of it. For her, “The Sarajevo she fought for was one where you didn’t have to hate a person because of what they were”.

Music has a magnificent effect on this specific situation. It relieves the tension of the war. While listening to the music, people may start to think about the bright side, seize the positive part of life, and get more mental support and strength.

The city is being besieged, and there are shells, mortar-attacks everywhere in the city, especially in the intersections. Under this utterly different living condition, people’s life style has dramatically changed. There are no safe streets for a normal walk, no easy access for the water, no stable electricity supply, no working, no school…just for buying a piece of bread, for crossing the streets, for getting a bottle of water, you could lose  your life. There is no dignity in being a normal human being; you can be considered “a guinea pig” for reassurance of other’s life.

To a certain point, the nature of humanity can be revealed thoroughly, like fear of death: when Emina gets shot in the middle of the street, Dragan wants to help her, “but his feet don’t move, around him everyone is alive with frenzied energy, but he hasn’t stirred an inch”. He can’t move “because he is afraid”, “he isn’t built for war. He doesn’t want to be built for war”; like selfishness: businessmen make profit during the war, they increase incredibly the price for food in the market when normal people don’t have income anymore, life become harder not only because of the war, but also because of these greedy and selfish people make the situation even more difficult; and like responsibility: Kenan, at beginning, left Mrs.Ristovki’s bottles in the middle of way, at end, he find his way back to get those bottles, although they are hard to carry. To Kenan, “a promise is a promise”, he tries his best to keep his word at risk of losing his life. Moreover, there are generosity, cowardice; sense of justice; and bravery.

Through the well-developed narration of each story, we can understand more about war, about life, and about human nature. It shows us a vivid scene of every aspect. No doubt, it shows lots of valuable qualities of human beings. Nonetheless, a big event like a war can change the person in some way, both negative and positive. It can make people cherish more about what they used to have, which even seemed so simple and insignificant. 

Austin & Vegetarianism

Sadie Smiles, 23-year-old graduate student in University of Texas at Austin, is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania and has been in Austin for about one year. She has been a vegetarian for more than ten years.

 

“Austin is a great city to experience both traditional American culture and newer and more diversified elements of society.”

Austin, the capital of Texas, is soaring in its development both economically and culturally. It is one of the biggest cities in the United States. Compared to other big cities, Austin has most of the common features of being a big city; nonetheless, there is something unique in it.

Like Sadie mentioned, “Austin has to do a lot with sort of hip, urban, new-age, sort of like everybody wants to be healthy. I think Austin is sort of like this cool, modern, and healthy city. ”

Apart from those modern terms she applied to describe the city, she mentioned couple of times of “healthy.” No wonder, being a faithful vegetarian, she should be paying more attention to this aspect than other people might. In her words, Austin is a “healthy city.” It stimulates my thoughts, how come?

 

“I think the food here is awesome. Since I’m a vegan, it’s like really refreshing to be in a city where there are a lot of vegan options.”

Considering the aspect of food, although it is well-known that Texas is famous for its barbecue; Austin, being the capital of the state, has wide-open arms and shows hospitality and more tolerance to the people who come here, who stay here, and who decide to live here.  Though it might seem inconsequential, Austin has provided more options to vegetarians.

As Sadie remarked, “Although some may argue that eating animals is natural, I think, the way we raise animals for food is unhealthy. Since we get most our meat from factory farms, the food industry is way more industrial than ever intended.”

Many other vegetarians propose that, to besiege and raise a large scale of animal in farms or factories, is immoral. Humans are at a higher level of the food chain, which is the reason that we recognize that it is part of nature to eat less intelligent animals. But the way we treat animals has changed. Before, our ancestors were using arrowheads, knives and tools that were invented, to hunt animals in order to get the meat. But look at present, people force animals into cages or farms, give them hormones or other chemicals in order to make them grow faster and bigger. The business drive leads this to happen which is not part of nature at all.

Like what Sadie mentioned, “I think that our growing population has led to bigger and more problematic methods of mass farming, and people are turning to vegetarianism as a way to combat this.”

There are actually significant vegetarian residents in Austin corresponding to the statistic I found from the US national Public Policy Polling Survey 2013. Austin ranks the top 10 vegetarian cities in the United States and the whole percentage in the country for vegetarian is thirteen. It is a big number with no doubts.

 “Americans face large increase of obesity and heart related issues and eliminating meat from a diet is a good step to improve your health.”

Certainly we have not found any strict proofs yet to demonstrate that lots of crucial diseases have a direct link to the consumption of meat. However, the scientists confirm that meat definitely contains more fat than vegetables, especially saturated fat, which the human body does not need too much for daily intake. And the cholesterol is only found in animal products. Apparently, those facts can increase the risk of developing these diseases: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, kidney stone, arthritis etc.

“The more meat we raise for food, the faster we deplete a lot of natural resources. We also use a lot of unhealthy gas when we transport large quantities of meat across the country.”

It seems to me, Sadie got enthusiastic explaining to me her point of view on vegetarian topic. To be a listener, I can absolutely feel her strong emotions towards this.

Nowadays, when we are talking about the environment issue, we talk about the climate change, the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide. But she put forward to a new perspective of this topic, which I feel very excited about.

 “Being in Texas, Austin is lucky to have access to a lot of local farms. Grocers are able to get organic food without traveling far; therefore the amount of healthy vegetarian food in Austin is plentiful. The culture of Austin makes these organic options popular, so it has become a city that welcomes vegetarians.”

 

A Story for Halloween...

As usual the little girl was lying on the bed at 10:00 o’clock, tossing and turning, feeling too uneasy to fall asleep. Facing her head, there was a huge window in front of her little pink bed.

 

The window laid open, although she was sure that she closed the window before she went to bed. Capped with an unusual darkness, the lights of the street was gone, as if someone had forgotten to switch up. Nevertheless, the moon was bright enough to provide light for her to see through the window. She was stunned that there was something besides the window holding still but she could not tell what was. It looked nothing like things she had seen before.

 

Inside her body there was a voice that tried to cry for help but she realized she had no voice; and it tried to scream that she felt she had gone mute. The thing leaned against the window was gone. As the girl almost fell asleep, there was an uncomfortable sound sweeping through the window right into her bed. Shivering from the unsecure sense, the little girl crawled to the bottom of her bed, as if waiting for it, from which the sound was coming.

As the strange sound came closer and closer, her feeling of fear turned stronger and stronger. Her eyes were wide-open extremely, and she couldn’t find a way to relax them. All of the sudden, a shadow with long tail whipped the window like the wind tenderly and rapidly. The little girl came out from the bottom of the bed bravely, approaching the direction to where it went. Now she understood, it was only the cute white cat from her lovely neighbor.

Finally, with no further disturbance, the little girl fell asleep soundly……

Mozart’s Coffee in Town

 

Awakened early by the sound of the rain, I approached to the window, lifted the curtain to peak through it; I was like a curious little girl wondering what was happening outside of my small world. How fresh it appeared to me! With abundant energy, I dressed up and prepared myself to start the new day.

Rolling on the road, my roommate and I passed by several peaceful residential areas. The view was lovely enough to start the day with a good mood. Our destination is a coffee bar called Mozart’s Coffee.

I had heard people talking about it often, which aroused my curiosity. They described it as a very quiet, beautiful and unique place in town.  It has become that popular, even is now considered as one of the most interesting places to visit in Austin. That was the reason that I finally made up my mind to take a visit in person.

The coffee was not far, located northwest of downtown, by the side of Lake Austin, or the Colorado River. After around a 12-minute-drive, we finally arrived to the destination. The first thing came to my sight was the lake; it was quite appealing. Swinging slowly yet gorgeously, the waves seemed like a young and attractive woman trying to sway her fine waist in front of her lover.

There was a large open-air –space, with wood table and chairs, facing to the wide river. Chill winds, fresh rain, brisk river, and fresh flowers... The view was breathtaking.

 Inside the coffee bar, there are three sections, I named them: the balcony, the indoor area with the river view, and the indoor area without the river view. We chose the third one without hesitation. There was a table at the corner, right in front of the river. Through the transparent window, you could see the river without any more obstacles.  Because of the rain, that was the best spot we could get, where could keep us warm; prevent us getting wet, while enjoying this natural

view presenting by the river at the most.

The people there were various. Like some family reunions, business meetings, friends catching up, students’ projects or just casual people like you and me.

The choices were plenty: organic teas, hot or cold coffee drinks, yummy cookies and fine deserts. Exposed in this European-style coffee bar, enjoying a smooth hot coffee drink, the whole day leisurely relaxing here, could you get yourself more spoiled?

Mozart’s Coffee, offering more than coffees, it finds you a peaceful place to see yourself inside the nature in a harmonious way. 

 

 

 

 

Keep Austin Weird

Counting days with my fingers, surprisingly I found out that I have been in Austin, the capital of Texas, one month and twenty days. Apart from the extreme weather, I’ve liked it so far. And there is something unique about this lovely city, its unofficial slogan--- “Keep Austin Weird”.

At beginning, I had some difficulties in comprehending this slogan, wondering for long, thinking about what does “Weird” refer to in this specific case? After perceiving people around, I started to understand it, yes, Austin is unusual but it is normal.

People here are very casual and informal. Take the dress style as an example. Wherever you go, you will find people in shorts and loose T-shirts everywhere, they don’t mind how others think about them, if they look too informal, or if they don’t look good enough.  What they only care about is if they are comfortable or if they are confident about themselves. Like a lovely family taking a walk at night around the state capitol; or a group of young people hang out in the 6th Street; or a romantic couple strolling on the riverside.  As long as they feel good about themselves, they already look confident and elegant. That’s something unusual but normal in Austin.

And I still remember one day, when I was waiting my bus for heading home after school, I was standing still, besides the bus station sign; out of sudden, I felt a fresh breeze passed from my back out of nowhere, a school boy running fleetingly with his bag pack just fell on the ground, rolling himself like a poor little cat; without thinking twice, he put himself together rapidly, and started running towards his destination at lightning speed again. People at the cross staring at him through the whole process, without any mocking or any criticism, easily like enjoying a piece of movie scene. That is something unusual but normal in Austin.

Barton Springs Pool, a natural swimming pool in Austin, is pretty famous. I have heard that people here like working out and taking advantage of it. I went there once just to observe. There are lots of different people in different ages. Thus, the most interesting thing I found out is the various tattoos that show from different parts of different bodies. All the shapes and patterns that you could imagine. With no doubt, I call them as a presentation of art; because they are wondrously beautiful, unusual but normal in Austin.

 

As time goes by, there are more and more migrants and immigrants here in the city. The movement of population is frequent every day. I would like to say Austin is become a melting pot, with tolerance of accepting different religion, different culture, different nation, and different race.  And with no social pressure, nor strange condemnation, Austin opens her arms to welcome all of us to her integration.

So no hesitation, we need to help Austin to be unusual, just “Keep Austin Weird”.

My Hometown- Tibet

 

My Hometown

Tibet, a beautiful, mysterious, but remote region is a place where people around the world are eager to come to visit and grasp its beauty. It is my birthplace, my lovely hometown.

I was born in the capital of Tibet, Lhasa. I would definitely consider it as one of the most amazing cities of the world. First of all, the landscape is wonderful here. Because of the very high altitude, approximately 3700 meters above the sea level, the sky seems to be very low, and it is for sure lower than in the rest of the world; you may afraid of touching the sky if you stand on your tiptoes. You could take in the marvelous sights to this clean and pure sky; it is so beautiful that it may make you stare at it wondering things without any specific purpose and distract your attention from the reality.

Lhasa has a very pretty nick name “The City of Sunshine” for its richness in sunshine. Throughout the whole year, bright sun is out in the most of days. It makes the world shiny and more colorful; it turns the people delightful with hope. We take good advantage of this natural gift, using this abundant solar energy to produce power and other things that benefit the people on this land. It is clean and low-carbon.

 

Apart from the natural beauty of Tibet, this land is full of its unique custom and culture. It is believed as one of the most religious places in the world. I have no doubt of it. People have a strong belief of harmony between the human and the nature. The hunting or things like that are not popular here, because it is not encouraged activity, instead; they try to protect the animal, the environment, the whole ecological circle in this land. That’s why here people are living a very peaceful and meaningful life throughout the history.

They often celebrate various traditional festivals, and ninety percent have a religious purpose. During the festival season, people get up very early and dress up in a traditional way. Usually it is a family thing with a large group; when they ready, they will march from their house to their destination, which are often Tibetan Buddhist temples or religious plazas. There are tons of families marching on the road, and you will find the city pretty crowded. They will burn certain kinds of herbs, sing songs and pray with rosaries in their hands.

Last but not least; I admire the people who are born, live, and die here, who decide to spend their entire life staying in this land. The reason is apparent. Since we know the extremely high elevation of this land, and we shall aware of the consequence of it. It brings the result that the air lacks oxygen and it can be especially then in winter time. For the coldness and thin air, you will never imagine how hard the life can be in this poor, beautiful land.

 

I love Tibet, not only for its natural beauty, but for more aspects, like the customs, the religious beliefs, the culture, and the brave people.