Today, I met a most interesting man, a wandering writer by the name Hideo Asano, at Hans outside the National Library. He travels from country to country in search of inspiration for writing, much like wandering ronin, though he would probably wince at the comparison. He appeared out of nowhere, and touched our lives for a second, before the Chow and I had to take our leaves to attend to our schedules, and then he was gone. Though this small moment made me think and think a lot I have.

Asano, like I mentioned earlier, appeared out of nowhere and suddenly inquired about the book I was thumbing through for literary evidence, was written by Dickens. This promptly ended our tuition and we began to discuss the loss of the classics upon the people of today. Asano talked about how the publishers of today only print what the masses want, which is entertainment, which is rubbish, whereas books, the classics, they were food for the mind, classics such as shakespeare, nietzsche, tolsky and chekov. Authors with which many young in this country have never even heard of before, much less read.

From discussing literature, we went on to discuss the machinations of people in certain societies, the loss of the individual mind, citing countries like Japan and the US as examples. The isolation of the Japanese due to the systems and the language barrier and so on have lead to the loss of individuality in Japan, where everyone follows the mainstream. Asano was very against the mainstream. He believes in writing for himself and not for others, for writing in and of itself and not for money. It is only later when I googled him that I found out how much he holds true to his believes, he wanders from country to country, sleeping in airports, eating simply, writing. How many of us are to scared to put what we truely believe in, into practice.

We talked more upon the isolation of the thinking mind in Singapore and attainment of true freedom. He is very much like my grandfather, holding onto absolutes, yet still hold very simple and poignant truths in them. His simplicity really struck me, here is a thinking mind, a complex individual with opinions and philosophy, who enjoys time to think and ponder life, much like myself. Yet he is able to hold on to simplicity, something that i can only dream of. In a way, so much like Fr. Keane.

I wish i could write more, but i seem to have trouble expressing myself properly tonight. If you are so blessed to meet this man, I do hope you entertain him, for you might be the one who comes out better for it.

Check him out at www.hideoasano.com