国境の南、太陽の西

I spent half of my day haunting the melancholy novel of Murakami, about the midlife crisis of Hajime. At 37, he had everything in his life, and wanted for almost nothing. Yet he always felt that something was lacking, till he met his love from the childhood, the void was filled, he decided to leave his family & career behind. However, there are certain things that we can't undo, it'll lead to another dead end. There is only moving forward...

South of the Border... As a kid who listened to this record, he wondered what is was that lay south of the border... As a grown up, he was dissapointed that it was just a song about Mexico.

West of the Sun... A land where the Siberian farmers who suffered from hysteria siberiana headed to, they walked for days and nights and eventually died... Somewhat more elusive, but he had conquer the urge and stay in place.

"Pretend you're happy when you're blue
It isn't very hard to do"
When he was 12-year-old, didn't understand any of the English lyrics, he listened to the song so many times that he could imitate the consolation lines.



It wasn't easy to pretend...