Scattered All Over the Earth

by Yōko Tawada

Denmark is definitely the world’s easiest country to live in, probably because we’re not fussy about what we eat. You always find the Mafia and corrupt politicians in countries full of gourmets obsessed with food. We should admit that the reason we have clean politics and safe streets is that we don’t care about taste or stuff like that

Since coming to Europe, though, I’ve noticed that drawing isn’t an everyday thing here the way writing is. People seem to think that paintbrushes are for a genius like Munch — ordinary people are embarrassed to even touch one. As they see no connection between art and skill, they think that no matter how good a person is at drawing, she shouldn’t do it unless she feels destined to be an artist.

without strong legs, you can’t even make friends in this country.

I’m sure that sometime in the future, when fish are extinct, people will rely on chefs to extract fish traces, distant memories of fish from plants that grow in the sea. That is my project: I call it “Dashi Research.”

he was definitely using words as a kind of shovel, to dig himself out of a hole.