From an old city by the sea #2
Studies in minor details: An exercise in watching people and noticing how this city—until recently a poster child for overtourism—is changing as it settles into summer.
The Croats are still experimenting with their identity in the same sort of way that people try out new hats. They are not yet certain they have found one with which they can feel comfortable. More than most peoples, they have assumed identities only to complain, sometimes with justification, that they are not suitable. In their time, they have been junior partners in Hungary, a dominion of the Habsburgs, played second fiddle to the Serbs in royal Yugoslavia, and then been one of the six theoretically equal republics in Communist Yugoslavia. Each arrangement has been angrily discarded.
A small but strategically positioned country on the crossroads of Europe, their lands have always been the object of predatory interest on the part of stronger neighbours. Divided and passed from one power to another, Croats weathered all these changes by adapting. A pragmatic survival instinct has served them well. But it has not come without cost. Too often, the Croats have settled for the role of passive onlookers in their own historical pageant, waiting for others to give directions.
—Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A History from the Middle Ages to the Present Day
It hasn’t escaped me that I failed to follow through on my promise to deliver weekly dispatches from Dubrovnik last month, in an effort to observe my surroundings more closely to root myself in place.
In part, it was because I had my busiest work month this year. But also, it didn’t feel like the right time to dispatch what I had already drafted up; in this pandemic, it often has not felt like the right time. But I’ll read about how Malaysia’s vulnerable communities are being pummelled by the sheer governmental incompetence that has exacerbated the worst effects of the pandemic, and hear from friends whose lives are so circumscribed they can’t even go outside and whose businesses and livelihoods are on tenterhooks—and feel incapable of hitting send. This isn’t the first time it has happened. I took a long while to dispatch my first letter from Dubrovnik too. (As I’ve told you, Croatia is one of the few countries where W.C. and I, of different nationalities, can both enter and stay together during this pandemic.) In the end, I did simply because putting whatever I’ve already written out there helps me move on mentally to other writing. And I can’t overstate how much that gives me the little bit of peace of mind I need, even if momentary, to move forward with my day.
Things are really bad at home, and it has culminated in multiple reports of suicides. From all this a movement has emerged from social media, asking Malaysians who need help to fly a white flag over their homes, and for other Malaysians to respond to their call. It was reportedly started by a group of young people who lost a friend under severe financial stress to suicide, and it began simply as an idea without any plan for centralized logistics. But it has since caught on, and activists on the ground as well as members of the public have been crowdsourcing resources and found a way to deliver them to those in need. If you’re looking to help, you can make a contribution to The Lost Food Project, follow Refuge for the Refugees (founded by Heidy Quah, a young activist with a truly infectious passion) for announcements of donation drives, or check out other organizations here. Some people have also put together a map and an app, called Sambal SOS, to help people locate food banks around the country.
So, after some hemming and hawing, here’s another letter from Dubrovnik I started writing a week ago about, well, people watching and charting the changes in the ebb and flow of daily life as more people come through its old town—set against its very recent past as an overtouristed Disneyland.
In the meantime, continue to stay safe, everyone. And I’m hoping that all of you have nothing worse than cabin fever to contend with 🩵
Watching and noticing, everything
It’s about half-past six in the evening and we’re sitting in a cafe overlooking the main square of Dubrovnik’s old town. Located at the east end of Stradun, the broad promenade that runs through the town from Pile Gate, it emerges from a baroque-period building and is one of our favorite spots for its elevated terrace. From here, we have a great vantage point to watch the growing parade of people.
It’s a relief, too, to be sitting in the shadow of the church opposite, named after the city’s patron saint, Blaise, whose statue appears everywhere here. Especially considering it’s about thirty-four degrees Celsius today—quite a jump from when I last wrote you all from here, when the temperature hovered at about twenty-five.
We’ve come here often enough to have enjoyed a free round on the house, which I guess makes us regulars. It’s something W.C. relishes, and something I’m learning to embrace in his company. On my own, I would feel self-conscious about having my whereabouts be so noticeable and accounted for—and not because I get up to anything particularly risqué! I think I’ve said it before, but it just feels more liberating when people can look upon you with absolutely zero expectations, so you can start off on a new footing every time—maybe you were too shy before, not talkative enough? Well, now you can be different—which is why I generally prefer the anonymity of a big city. And this is not a big city.
As jazz music wafts over from inside the cafe, I see a few people setting up large clusters of spotlights and a sound system on a scaffolded platform that has been temporarily erected alongside the church. A makeshift stage and rows of bleachers have also been installed to look out over a cluster of music stands and wooden chairs at the base of the church’s steps. Tonight, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra will take its place here to rehearse for the opening ceremony of the annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival.