ItalianoGACKT Official blog update. Translation below:
In these few days,
I walked around a few different places in Ukraine but
I was most bothered by 【people】 who stay here, more so than the buildings, or the scenery.
Anyway,
everyone is so expressionless and cold that it’s pretty scary.
Honestly,
each of the countries that I visited this time have their own unique characteristics but
for this country anyway, it’s the people who are a strong characteristic.
Indeed, compared to the rest of the world, the women I pass by in this city, on average, are mostly beauties.
I wonder if it’s because they’re also eating,
but in any case, they’re slender and tall, and there are exceptionally few who are fat.
Furthermore, they have pretty nice facial features,
it feels like I’m looking at models from all kinds of shops.
I thought that this was amazing.
When I look at the people who were working in the city in the day,
until now, I’ve never really thought that they’re this beautiful but
it was to the extent that I unintentionally murmured
『How beautiful…』.
Just that, what I could really confirm for myself this time
was that, it’s not a beautiful face that I like,
but it’s beautiful expressions that I like.
This time, I clearly understood that I simply love wonderful 【smiles】,
and that I have no interest if someone is simply beautiful.
In terms of beauty, there are different types included but
among all animals, humans are the only ones who were given the talent of 【bringing smiles to someone】.
Other animals can express anger and sadness too,
but only a rare, and extremely small number of animals are capable of 【smiling】.
You can even say that 【bringing smiles to someone】 is an act that is the only gift given to humans.
This time, in visiting this country, I came to fully understand that
taking 【smiles】 away from us humans makes us feel this cold.
Anyway, it’s really cold.
The women who are working still throw smiles to customers and such.
Of course, the number of such people is quite small.
With regards to the men, I pretty much never see that at all.
There are rather few men who are working that will have their smiles naturally float up.
I asked my local friend.
『Why is it that the men don’t reply with smiles? Do they have something against laughing?』
The answer to that is exceptionally interesting.
『Of course, if there’s something funny, they’ll laugh.
But that’s 【laughing】 so it’s different from a 【smile】.
There’s a clear reason for laughing but
there are many men who make fun and call people who smile 【Retarded】』
I was shocked at this.
【Retarded】 is
a slightly old way of calling someone with delayed development or slow in thinking but,
it’s scary that there is the interpretation that smiling＝【Retarded】.
It’s horrible that the people who live here would think like that because of their years of education and environment here.
When I smile while walking through in a city,
it’s a fact that I feel a complete denial of the smile.
Naturally, the smile will disappear from myself too.
I noticed that about myself.
The environment is horrible.
Of course,
it’s not that they don’t make jokes at all.
When I’m moving around the city in a taxi, I met an eccentric driver.
When I opened the window to take photos,
he suddenly got angry and said something.
Of course, there really aren’t any drivers who speak English.
I tried to say a few things in English but couldn’t get through at all.
He had a hard time trying to say what he wanted to say, and pointed at the car’s temperature while saying something.
Ahー, I guess he wants me to close it because otherwise the temperature inside will go up… I thought, so I said
『Because the outside soooo HOT, right?? 』
and
somehow, it seems that he heard a part of my English pronunciation as 【Sahara】,
and repeatedly,
『Yes, yes, Sahara Sahara!!! Dubai, Dubai!!!』
he said.
I suppose that must be because I hit the nail on what he wanted to say.
He kept laughing heartily while saying Sahara Sahara…
Until, I still don’t know what made him crack up but
I was honestly surprised at his bold and loud laughter.
The next day,
I headed to the airport to move from Ukraine to Albania.
Despite that it was 7 in the morning,
I was surprised that the airport was already filled with this many passengers.
No, it’s not that there are tons of passengers,
it’s that the number of staff and the number of passengers who are queuing to get their tickets are completely off balance.
And what shocked me the most was
that the airport staff were all like military personnel, with none of them smiling at all.
And despite that they were airport staff, you could say that almost all of them couldn’t speak English at all.
Because of bad timing, it seems like there were issues with my ticket,
and I had to run around between a few sections.
At each of the locations, even when I asked 【What’s going on?】 in English
no one could give me a decent answer.
They only pointed their finger, and directed me with “Go there!”.
『Are you serious…』
I thought over and over, and I was finally able to get my ticket though
in the time until now, not a single person smiled,
and even when I looked at the other passengers who were queuing around me, everyone was sullen.
『What in the world, just what’s with this place…』
I thought as I got directed to the lane for First and Business class passengers,
and when I went there, there were quite a lot of people who were sitting on the benches and spacing out without doing and work.
This is the first country that has as good as no security check.
When you go through the security gate,
and the beep sounds, normally, you’ll definitely have to empty your pockets,
and redo the security check a few times but or
get your body patted down but
without any intention of doing anything, they just sat on the bench and looked…
I should be applauded for getting here… I thought as I walked to the gate I needed to go to.
After this and that, I boarded the plane without any issues,
and headed to Vienna for transit.
When I arrived in Vienna, all the staff in the shops welcomed me with smiles,
as if what happened earlier was just a dream.
I like smiles after all…
This is yet another experience.
Even if it was just to know what I like again,
it was a good thing that I went to Ukraine.
Even so.
When I asked the hotel’s staff
about what the current situation was for the war between Russia and Ukraine,
『It’s too far away so I’m not sure』
they answered, as if it was someone else’s problem, and that left a severe impression on me.
『Is it like that??? Isn’t this about your own country?』
I asked, but instead they said
『But something that’s happening 600km away from us has nothing to do with us,
and I’ve no interest in an area that easily takes 8 hours to get to by train』
When I head that, I was honestly in shock.
I was shocked at how such people, who think like that just because the culture or country is different, can be born.
I suppose it’s definitely because there are many people who are unable to think of such things as applicable to themselves,
that such conflicts can’t really end.
It’s all a bad example.
This too, will be another experience that I’ll never forget.
Alright then,
off to Albania.
Source: GACKT Blog
Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team
Translation © GACKT ITALIA