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The morning sunlight is peeping through the veil curtains in my bedroom and gently touches my eyelids. Still in the light dream, I refuse to accept the warm invitation and hide myself somewhere between dream and reality. However, the sun is relentless – I keep feeling the move of morning jazz on my closed eyes – conspiring with the breeze and the branches on a tree out of the window to wake me up. I finally surrender myself to the ‘power of nature’. It reminds me of the first part of T.S. Eliot’s poem, ‘The Waste Land’: April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain ……… How paradoxical it is, but it’s not totally unfamiliar with us at all especially in the world we are living in now. The warm sunbeam can be like a loud alarm clock which wakes you up every morning. It’s actually cruel to people who want to forget reality and not to be woken up. The experience of ‘Cruelty’ is subjective of course and it can be transformed into ‘Creativity’. We can choose to either proactively innovate ourselves or to stay with the status quo. The latter might give you a bit of comfort or even distort your reality for your convenience for a while, but you wouldn’t be able to go further anywhere, and you would feel that you are stuck, you are a victim, and you even blame it on the outer world rather than you look into your inner world. Perhaps, I may say yes to the Covid-19 world to a certain extent, but I would like to ask you what YOU could do if you ever wanted to change the route of your thought or your situation. Have you ever tried to do any experiments in your life? I think it’s a way of becoming more creative. It can be anything if it’s against a pattern you usually follow. It doesn’t need to be too big or too different – it can be just simple but involve some level of discomfort – it’s not your usual pattern, so you will likely feel nervous and some risk-managing mindset takes you over. Whenever I feel that, I pause and try to observe myself from the third-person point of view – Hal Stone and Sidra Stone called this ‘Aware Ego’ in their psychology theory – it helps a lot when you detach yourself from the experiment itself that you can have the experience more objectively with less complication. I trust myself and I simply ask myself, ‘So what?’, like Pink’s song! Thanks to the recent good weather, there are more options to choose such as outdoor activities, once a day with social distancing in the UK. Of course, I obey the social distancing rules – but you can still take lots of opportunities within the restrictions and in safety – yes, I’m a glass-half-full person! I think that it’s even luxurious to be able to be exercise outdoors especially when the weather is beautiful like now. It’s a great time to go for a walk in the countryside! Strangely, I haven’t discovered many walking paths around my town since I moved here 5 years ago. Is it perhaps because of frequencies of my work and holiday trips or because I felt more comfortable with walking on my regular routes? Probably both! So, one of experiments I did the other day was to walk in the opposite direction from the way I usually take – to the end of the long residential street down my house – which I have never taken before, just to see what is out there in my neighbourhood. Surprisingly, I could see that there is an extended walking path literally at the end of the tunnel – which doesn’t show on the map at all – after about 15-minute walk following a seemingly dead-end street. It was just amazing to realise that I could find such a place off the beaten track on my doorstep. Every step I took in the little woods was slower than usual and careful, actually rather mindful. It was like I didn’t want to miss anything from this ‘first’ experience. There are many different types of birds chirping in the tree tunnel and I’m wondering where they all are, perhaps are they camouflaged with leaves or branches of trees? Oh, did I just hear the sound of a peacock now? His name is Kevin and all neighbours know him. You may find him sunbathing on roof tops on a sunny day. I feel quiet and still surrounded by the various sounds whilst walking through this path. The ground I am walking on is dry and hard because of a lack of rain recently. I suddenly feel tree roots under my feet and step back to see if they are really tree roots or not. They must have been walked over so many times and for such a long period of time, so they can be mistaken with stones. I am again astonished by the old trees which are holding themselves on to the ground to stand still – literally ‘grounded’ – I’m praying to myself that I hope that I am grounded like these trees whenever the weather changes or even through storms. My walking meditation led to a wide-open and green field with narrow river streams where horses, cows or bulls, sheep, geese and ducks live and birds of prey such as kites or hawks hover in the sky. I felt like I just opened a treasure box when I looked at the scene. Now, I know that there are hidden public footpaths here and there in the British countryside. According to Bill Bryson, he says in his book ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’ that England and Wales have 130,000 miles of public footpaths, about 2.2 miles of path for every square mile of area. How extraordinary is it? I just feel gratitude and love to live so close to wild nature. Taking a new route sometimes gives you a pleasant surprise like this – though it’s not easy to overcome your fear of the unknown or uncertain – but, don’t forget that you can choose whether to live in cruelty or in creativity. It’s up to you!

Do you remember the first time you cooked in your life? I think I was about 21 years old. Although I had left my parents’ house for university when I just turned 18, I lived with a roommate in a homestay for the first couple of years, so I didn’t need to learn to cook until I lived by myself. Actually, who would be interested in cooking first thing when you finally get a place for yourself and when you think you started owning your life for the first time? I was so young back then and felt liberated to be myself somehow as well as I had so much new stuff to learn during that period – it was a time when people started using internet at home and university (in 1996), and I even took a class of learning how to use a web browser and how to send an email – so cooking wasn’t my priority. From what I can remember, my first ‘cooking’ experience was that I made a Korean noodle dish called Japchae when I was in my final year of university – I don’t remember why I chose this dish in particular as I know now that it isn’t the easiest one at all for a beginner cook. It’s a traditional dish that your mum cooks for you on your birthday or you eat on a special event – but I think that as a host I must have wanted to impress or please my friends who came over to study together in my place. Plus, eating together is the most important part of ‘studying’ together in my culture. I can’t recall exactly how I made this dish, but it turned out okay somehow after a couple of hours of hard work. We enjoyed the food and most of all we enjoyed each other’s company. We were only young and hungry students, but happy ones! I started enjoying cooking only when I came to the UK 12 years ago and it became a place where I can call home now. I don’t know if people tend to cook more at home on a daily basis in their 30’s than in their 20’s, or if it depends on your culture. I have to say that in my 20’s when I was in South Korea, I used to eat out a lot with friends or colleagues, and when I didn’t, I got food delivered to the house, which was so convenient and still cheap though the delivery food price has gone up way more now. Can you imagine that there’s nothing you cannot get it delivered to your place? Anything and anytime! Last year when I visited Seoul, my brother asked me what I wanted to have for dinner at home. So, I asked him back what’s available and what’s there on the menu. I realised that I could have almost any dish from any restaurant by clicking a couple of buttons on my smart phone without going out or without calling any numbers. How easy and spoiling! The delivery business must be still booming in lockdown due to the coronavirus. In my 30’s, my experience with cooking is involved with a lifestyle in the UK. It’s much more expensive when you eat out here, so you can't afford to do it on a daily basis – e.g. people tend to eat at home before going out for a few drinks, so probably having a ready meal would be easy most times instead of cooking. I think I started cooking daily because I like having a warm and fresh meal, a Korean dish in particular. Fulfilling your basic needs is crucial to anyone when you live by yourself, especially when you live on your own in another country. Luckily, I could get what I wanted to cook with, but if not, I became more inventive by cooking fusion dishes with whatever given ingredients. It’s like an experiment you can try out, even if it fails, you can do it differently next day until it gets better. I can say that I am quite a decent cook now – I am not saying that dishes I make are special or complicated, I would say that it’s simple but tasty – I enjoy eating in general and enjoy sharing the experience with my loved ones. Simple as that! I also find that cooking is a way of meditating – you get ready to be in your zone and to focus on something, so you can stay calm and present throughout the process – you won’t be able to get the best outcome if you are not mindful enough. Combining project management skills and mindfulness can make you a master chef! With knowing the dish you want to make, you plan and execute, within an agreed timescale and budget. It will help you get the best result with the least effort and time – that’s my theory anyway! To my knowledge, the dish I cooked the other day has never been made before to be honest – I just got an inspiration that there are more and more people who bake at home these days due to Covid-19 – for me, using one of ‘stock-piled’ tin cans, although I had already two SPAM tin cans stored in the larder even before the virus started. I don’t think a lot of Europeans are not familiar with SPAM, but a SPAM dish in South Korea is iconic, especially a spicy stew called ‘Bu-dae-jji-gae’ (translated as ‘Military Stew’) is still served in restaurants. After the Korean war in the 50’s, Koreans used American army rations which sometimes were smuggled off military bases or donated by soldiers. The dish was invented then, but still popular in South Korea. I have to say that actually I was keeping these tin cans for making this stew one day, but it’s not possible to make without Kimchi, which I can’t get hold of at the moment – I know, this is a disaster to a Korean person! Anyhow, I wanted to cook something with SPAM this time – it’s simple and quick but delicious! – I would like to share the recipe with you here in case there are people who want to try something different. By the way, what should I call the dish? Perhaps, would it be fun to call it ‘Spam Fried Rice: the Volcano’? Ingredients: ½ spam tin can, half onion, 3 eggs, a few mushrooms, a few cloves of garlic, a carrot, sliced courgette, 2 spring onions, a bowl of steamed rice, 2 spoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of salt, some olive oil for stir frying Directions: 1. Chop the vegetables into cubes. Lightly whisk 3 eggs and add a pinch of sugar and salt. 2. Heat 1 spoon of olive oil in a large wok over low heat. Pour in the egg mixture and let it sit, without stirring, for 20 seconds. Stir with a wooden spoon gently. 3. Heat another 1 spoon of olive oil in the wok over medium high heat. Add spam and cook, stirring often, until light golden brown, for a few minutes. 4. Stir fry onions, adding a pinch of salt and sugar and a spoon of soy sauce until it becomes golden-brown. 5. Stir fry the other vegetables all together, adding a pinch of salt and a spoon of soy sauce. 6. Heat the bowl of steamed rice and serve immediately, decorated with the cooked vegs and eggs, drizzled with sliced raw spring onions and some Mayonnaise on top. If you want to feel the volcano effect, use ketchup instead of mayonnaise! ☺︎