I came to Serbia on 7/22/20 because it had no Covid-related entry requirements. Along with Mexico, Maldives, North Macedonia, Albania, Turkey and Tanzania, it didn’t even require a negative Covid test, though there was some confusion about this at Seoul’s Airport, so that I had to sign a waiver.
Because of suddenly changing rules, or rules not quite understood by different parties along the way, not to mention abruptly canceled flights, traveling during Covid is very stressful. After Covid “vaccines” were introduced, generally in mid 2021, many countries would require a proof of “vaccination” from visitors, which led to fake documents being used. I have a friend who has entered half a dozen countries this way. Again, bad laws create criminals, and everyone is guilty under a totalitarian system.
Pre-Covid, one would book a flight and room early to get the best prices, but my ticket to Belgrade was only purchased a week beforehand. Europe, here I come, but maybe not. Probably not.
It was with great relief, then, to be strapped to a seat awaiting my departure, but my ultimate happiness, of course, was to clear immigration and customs in Belgrade, so that I could see, on a gunmetal wall, “WELCOME TO SEBIA!” above reproduced portraits by three unfamiliar painters, Jovanovic, Jaksic and Ivanovic. At that point, I didn’t care if they were the most horrific photos from a Marina Abramovic performance. You know, the one where guests mimicked cannibalism.
I was out, and in! I’d been let in! From then on, I’d be securely in, to pace myself, wiggle about, slyly slither or jump up and down as I pleased! Well, until my visa ran out, that is, but I was unequivocally, unimpeachably in! Thank you, Mother Serbia!
Before Serbia, I had visited nearly 20 European countries, including ex Communist ones, so I was well familiar with all the ugly concrete housing blocks and hideous concrete monuments from those Socialist decades. I had also mourned all the magnificent buildings that predated Communism, now seriously decayed, though some had been restored. They represent culture and heritage deliberately wrecked by Jewish thinking.
In Asia, too, I had seen evidences of this process. In Vietnam, much has been destroyed to eradicate the past. It’s a key feature of Jewish thinking, but only as applied to goyische culture, naturally. To make room for progress, churches and temples must be desecrated, if not pulverized. Visiting Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, a stupendous Chinese clan house in Penang, Malaysia, I was told by its chief custodian that mainland scholars would come to study its art and architecture, for many of its sublime features could no longer be found in China itself.
As another violent divorce from all that you’ve known, the Great Reset is just the latest manifestation of wrathful Jewish thinking disguised as benevolent solidarity, with benefits for all. Again, society is divided between the correctly obedient and everybody else, with the latter branded an enemy, to be ruthlessly punished.
Coming from garishly cheerful South Korea, the gray concrete of Belgrade, as seen from inside my taxi, was a bit depressing, I must admit. Within days, though, I’d discover there was plenty of beauty left, and much culture, besides, in this legendary city at the confluence of the Danube and Sava. A short walk from my room, there was a park with statues of Pushkin and the great philologist Vuk Karadzic. Also nearby was the most magnificent cemetery I have ever seen, with hundreds of unique graves beautifully designed, many with elegant sculptures. Considered as a neighborhood, it’s Belgrade’s most significant architecturally. Serbian dead live in style.
A perusal of bookstore windows showed serious books, though, of course, also garbage, such as Michelle Obama’s Moja Priča [My Story]. How many brainstorming sessions did it take before the publisher decided on this winner? Like everywhere else, American poison, propaganda or bullshit seeped into brains. Serbs were also reading Henry Kissinger’s Diplomatija. Since Bill Clinton had bombed Belgrade, massacring kids even, his My Life wasn’t for sale, nor was Hillary’s It Takes A Village. Astounded, I noticed children’s editions of Goethe, Faulkner, Bulgakov, Camus, Woolf, Saroyan and Dahl!
More banally, I reached a minor heaven at Burrito Madre, where I could stuff myself with a designer baby for just $6. Just mentioning it now evokes tremendous anguish. On the same block, there’s a mural of Orwell, with “FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY DO NOT WANT TO HEAR” in Serbian. Across the street was the 112-year-old Hotel Moskova, where Nobel laureate Ivo Andric had had his own table. At Burrito Madre, I tended to sit near the trash can, with devoted pigeons at my feet, to catch any stray bits of lettuce, cheese, beans or beef.
Two weeks before my arrival, there were anti lockdown riots in Belgrade, the first of their kind in the world, so the government had to back off. During my two-month stay in Serbia, then, life was pretty much normal, with all restaurants, cafes and shops open, just like in South Korea. Venturing from Belgrade, I visited Zemun, Subotica, Novi Sad, Novi Pazar, Nis and Pozarevac. Maskless, like nearly everyone else, I sat on packed buses.
What triggered the riots was the obvious hypocrisy of the government, for it had allowed large crowds to stage election campaigns, just like in the US, Covid magically disappeared during the media-stoked, often violent Black Lives Matter protests that spread to dozens of cities over a month. As a state weapon, Covid diktats can be withdrawn or deployed at will.
Returning to Europe, I didn’t think I would stay nine months, with a three-month detour to the Middle East, then on to Africa. Though Covid has stopped most people from traveling, it has forced me to drift nonstop, but then my name in English, with its order reversed, sounds like adrift in Vietnamese, lênh đênh.
In 2017, I met a young poet in Toluca, Mexico. Wearing a houndstooth fedora, 23-year-old Oscar Cortes declared, with a winsome innocence, that he could die for poetry, and a perfect life for him would be to move from place to place constantly. Oscar had yet to leave Mexico.
Stuck in Philadelphia, I would sometimes dream of flying over a map that was partially imaginary. Instead of seeing my journey from inside a plane, I would observe it from a much higher, Godlike perspective. Along with this satisfaction of finally going somewhere, there was always an anxiety that it was only a dream.
In Belgrade, I had forgotten about chasing Corona-chan. It wasn’t yet time for her to mount me. Quite discretely, however, Corona-chan was (golden) showering me with plenty of love by allowing me to live up to my unfortunate name.
[to be continued, of course and unfortunately]
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