■

　8 – My second day in Paris

  In reality, I’ve already started my second day, and the latter half of it as I wrote about my visit to the church, which was paid in the afternoon. I spent the early part of the second day just like this man playing music, sitting on a bench as shown below. He is an accordionist as you see, but I played the shakuhachi, the bamboo flute.
  Before  heading for the church, I walked about to find the right métro station, `Blanche` on the line no. 2, only to find myself standing in front of a different station, Abbesses. I was at a loss awhile, but had a second thought – I can practice a bit here before going to the church. Around Abbesses station, they have an open space, where people in groups of 3, 4 or a dozen or so were talking to each other or listening to a guide like person, Abbesses as I later came to know it being the entrance to `Basilique du Sacré Cœur` at the very top of `Butte de Montmartre` (Montmartre Hill).
  I sat on a bench facing the open space. On the other side of the bench were 3 young guys studying their guidebook or some map obviously consulting with each other about places they were planning on visiting. I heard them speak in Korean. One thing I notice, incidentally, during my days in Paris, was rather many Korean people, male or female, who ventured into Paris, a city having recently been attacked by terrorists multiple times, and it was no wonder I was mistaken for senior one of them. In other words, it was so rare to see my fellow Japanese. So far as I can recall now, well, once in a métro train, I saw a middle aged motherly woman with probably her young daughter in her late teens or early twenties. Also while trudging uphill through Montmartre little streets, I think I heard briefly a couple in their middle life who went past me mumbling some words in our tongue. I wondered if the reason I saw far more Korean people was because they were more courageous than we Japanese, who were worried and afraid of terrorists infested Paris at this time and shied away from coming to this lovely city in their otherwise usual and ubiquitous tourist groups. Are Koreans brave and Japanese timid? I don’t know. For one thing, I guess, Japanese people may tend to be on the cautious side. “Discretion is the better part of valour”. I seem to hear some intellectual Japanese say so. I’m no intellectual person at all, that’s why I’m here in Paris.
  Sitting on the bench, I started playing on my bamboo flute. The young Koreans didn’t seem to be interested except that one of them noticed and shot me a cursory glance. I asked him in Korean if they had come from Seoul. But here I made a mistake between ‘come’ and ‘go’ in Korean, namely, ‘oda’ and ‘kada’. Where I should’ve said “Have you come from Seoul?” I erred and asked, “Have you gone from Seoul?” This doesn’t make sense, of course, but the young guy was a nice man and immediately understood my mistake and nodded in the affirmative. He was a good man and looked at me a lonely old man akin to him if not a kinsman in a bit worried manner and said “take care” looking back at me when he departed together with his friends. This kinship feeling he left me with gave me a big encouragement and I started back again on my flute.