This is a post of two halves. The first half is a bit moany, so feel free to skip. The second half is about making the best of a bad job.

On Saturday, I wrote about the closing in of our operating circumferences. On Monday they closed in a bit more.

That was the day a two-week Conditional Movement Control Order was implemented, in an attempt to halt the rising number of covid cases.  So we now can't move in or out of the Kuching district. (And forget about hiring a car to go and have a picnic on the beach, because all tourism activity is proscribed.) Business hours are now strictly between 6 am and 10 pm, and we don't have to worry any more about the unwillingness of guards to unlock the swimming pool, because all pools are now officially closed.

No problem with any of that. Something had to be done, and this is appropriate.

The big change is the public attitude to masks. Anyone who reads PT will know that we're dutiful mask-wearers. If we are in indoor public places, or in outdoor places with limited space and/or lots of people, we're masked up pretty much ahead of anyone else.

But walking on pavements where there's not another soul around? (Remember I noted a while ago how unusual our walking habits are. As soon as we're out of the shopping streets, we're on our own...)

Surely there's absolutely no point in wearing a mask in those circumstances. There's just nobody nearby to infect.

But, on Monday, two people told us we should now be wearing masks in just that scenario. Not nastily. They were just trying to be helpful.

I don't actually know if they're right or not. The rules about masks talk about "public places". They don't really specify what that means. On that same Monday we'd also been walking by the river. As per usual, most people weren't wearing masks, because they were "exercising". We'd also come across unmasked joggers in the vicinity of Jubilee Park. No-one was admonishing any of them.

So it seems we now have this stupid situation where we need a mask while we're on our way to the river or the park (during which time we meet pretty much no-one), but not while we're actually walking by the river or in the park (where there are lots of people).

It makes no sense, except to favour people with cars who drive (maskless) to the place where they (masklessly) exercise.

Still, it's hard to ignore. Maybe these helpful advisers are right, and it's only a matter of time before the unmasked exercising masses get fined. Maybe they're wrong, and just confused -- but it's not a good look to be the white people who ignore local counsel, especially as we're not exactly inconspicuous...

Anyway, what's the upshot of all this? Well for the last two days, we've gone back into home-quarantine mode, and spent our time inside. Maybe we'll go out tomorrow. But believe me, being masked for the entirety of a two-hour walk, even in the early morning, is absolutely no joy in this climate.

Despite being imprisoned, I've enjoyed the last couple of days. Having seen that our new entertainment portal was offering Burning, a 2018 Korean movie that drew lots of critical acclaim, I decided we'd have a bit of a Korean splurge.

Not a shadow journey. Just a quick excursion. It has been good. It has lifted my spirits.




First I rounded up some Korean dance songs to add a bit of variety to our exercise routines (we do four a day when we don't walk).

There are plenty of sites offering helpful suggestions.

Trouble is, whereas I found myself very easily able to enjoy K-drama, K-pop doesn't sit with me quite so readily. There's WAY too much rap involved for my taste...

Still, I really appreciate the athleticism and aesthetics of the music videos, and I did collect 10 songs that are very suitable for our purposes (even though Nigel's still a bit sniffy about them).




There happened to be a story yesterday in my inbox about the revived popularity of "trot". This type of music, which emerged in the early 1900s when the Korean peninsula was still under the rule of the Japanese, "blends traditional Korean music with elements of the Japanese and Western popular songs of the era".

You can listen to some examples and get the flavour of the phenomenon here. (And would you believe one of the songs mentioned is the Korean version of "A million scarlet roses", which we came across in Georgia last year? Small world. Truly.)

We ordered a food delivery from The Kimbap on Jalan Song. Not, unfortunately, kimbap (Korea's answer to sushi), on account of our carb restrictions. But lots of other delicious things that stretched over dinner yesterday and lunch today:



And then there was the movie... It's enigmatic, that's for sure. Maybe a little too much so.

This review puts it very nicely: "The three main characters circle warily, looking at each other with desire, mistrust, need, never certain of the accuracy of their perceptions... There's a serious and alarming sense of danger, only you can't really point to its source. The whole of 'Burning' feels like this."

It's not that I want everything to be cut and dried in a story. That's not how life is. Not knowing is the primary characteristic of the human being, it seems to me (animals don't know either, but they don't know that they don't know, so they don't have this permanent ache of ignorance).

But too many unanswered questions in a created work make you feel slightly cheated. That's TOO much like real life.

Still, it gave us plenty to talk about over the beef bulgogi at lunchtime today.

To be honest, creating a rich world inside is more enjoyable at the moment than trying to inhabit the half-world outside, where there seem to be constraints on all pleasures.

That can't be good long-term, though. Let's hope the CMCO just lasts two weeks...