Small happiness
What is your small but authentic luxury or happiness? Do you like to spend your time in your own sanctuary? Or do you go on domestic or overseas trips? In modern society, people like to spend money on small but authentic happiness.
Many people get tired of work and their busy lives. The busier and more complicated life is, the more people like to spend time and money on their own happiness or comfort at the weekends. Even though it is small and inexpensive, that kind of activity can be of great comfort to people who are regularly busy and exhausted.
Famous Japanese writer Murakami Haruki created the concept of “small but authentic” happiness. According to Murakami, he felt happy just tasting freshly baked bread with coffee.
One of the wonderful things about living in Seoul is that the city makes it possible to enjoy different activities, such as going to the movies, enjoying theater performances and visiting different places. There are various choices even in terms of different movie theaters. These days multiplex theaters provide various opportunities for customers to enjoy high quality performances.
Since last year, I began to appreciate classical music performances or operas screened in the top-quality theaters. I can enjoy all the performers’ facial expressions vividly. Since I have little knowledge about opera, it is difficult to understand this form of classical music. The first opera I watched in a movie theater was Verdi’s “Tosca.” During this, I was able to enjoy famous arias which I used to listen to when I was a high school student.
All my memories came back to me when the star performed one of the most famous arias in the world. Tosca was performed at the Metropolitan Theater in New York, but we were able to enjoy the opera in Seoul. That was amazing! It was created for the theater; but for people who cannot afford to go to the theater, they screened it at a cinema. I think this is a great idea because opera newcomers like me need some explanation about the performance. I like to see some performances on the big screen. Enjoying them in movie theaters means that I can see all the singers’ facial expressions unlike in a live theater performance. Tosca, La Boheme, and La Traviata are famous operas that I enjoyed watching in a movie theater.
I really enjoyed the Russian opera “Anna Karenina,” which was shown at the Mega-box in COEX. Even though I could not understand Russian, the excellent subtitles made it possible for me to more deeply understand the great Russian work. It is a little bit more expensive compared to feature films, but it is worthwhile to enjoy quality performances in comfortable boutique movie theaters.
That is my small and authentic luxury these days. I will continue to pursue my small but authentic luxury from now on. The author (emseo@howon.ac.kr) is a professor of English who is Dean of the Library at Howon University in Gunsan.