A post on what I have in common with the writer Ha Jin

An interview with Ha Jin in today’s NYT Magazine ends with this exchange:

Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A: I often tell my wife and son that the best life for me would be to get up in the morning and go to a café and have coffee and meet friends and read the newspaper. [He then goes on to say: But you can’t do it every day, because if you did, your life would be effortless. And an effortless life is a meaningless life.]

For me as well! That, or to sit back over a café latte and listen to others exchange a quick story or a comment on some event or other.

I am precluded from doing this because no one here pauses in the morning. The café baristas are busy then, but they are for the most part filling endless take-out cups. The few people who pause, do so to read. The American café in the morning is one dull place.

I have said this before – perhaps my very favorite part of a vacation on the other side of the ocean is the fifteen morning minutes spent over a coffee and roll at a café, especially on a weekday. No kidding. Watching people come in, banter for a few minutes, then move on with a handshake or a kiss and a swipe at the last crumb of croissant or other carb-loaded piece of bread is bliss. It adds spring to my step for the rest of the day.