Ugly realities that spoil idyllic scenes

Beside this magician is another older man, a mobile locksmith, and next to him a seamstress with a sewing machine of the kind that one would admire in an European museum.

For a brief moment I pause and watch the bustle of the artisans on the roadside. I feel deep satisfaction and joy for what they are doing and happiness for being allowed to use their services. At the same time I ask myself what will happen when that generation is no more. I put the question to some Chinese; they all shake their heads. No one will replace them. In the future, broken products will simply be replaced by new ones. Sad. That's how quickly a happy mood can swing; so close are the two opposite feelings.

On the same evening we swim in the cool river. The idyll is so profound that it can be entered in the Guinness World Records. The cicadas are chirping and the distant waterfall is roaring. Otherwise it's quiet - 360 degrees around us are mountains, rice paddies, bamboo groves, water buffalos, ducks and birds. Can one really be as happy as I am right now? I let my body drift in the river. Deeply satisfied.

Then the scene changes. A peasant woman comes to the shore. She carries a metal barrel on her back, connected to a long spray pipe. A hand pump is attached to the side of the container. I remember such things from my childhood. My father used to spray the bushes in our garden with it.

In a basket the woman carries four bottles and two bags. Each of them has a skull picture. Poison. Chemicals. Fertilizers. She opens them carelessly - she is most likely not aware of the danger, as she doesn't even flinch when some of the toxic liquid runs over the back of her hand - empties them into the barrel and throws the packaging into the stream. Just like that. Without the understanding that these things do not dissolve in thin air or disintegrate in water. Then she fills her backpack to the rim with water, closes the lid and begins to spray her rice paddies with the stinking, corrosive juice.

And how do we feel about this? Although I almost daily collect rubbish around the village (and I am often ridiculed for it) - as an idealist and optimist, I still believe, that setting a good example can bear fruit in time - it will not solve the problem of environmental pollution over night. I could cry. The happiness is still there, but immersed in the depth of my soul.

Happiness and sadness go hand in hand. Too bad that happiness cannot last. But good to know that sadness will also be replaced by joy and that the sun always rises again, even when the darkness is almost unbearable.