The Flower in the Empty House Was Alive, Not Dead.

📖 Berlin Diary by Choi Minsuk

There’s a book that makes me burst out laughing every time I read it. Choi Minsuk’s is my definite laughter trigger. Even as I write this sentence, the corners of my mouth twitch. I thought it would be nice to know Choi Minsuk personally, but then I remembered a few times I met authors I admired and was slightly disappointed, so I carefully put that thought away again. I want to protect Choi Minsuk, at least. Just as people have habits, when reading books, you can find habits in each author’s writing style. Choi Minsuk clearly has an affection for the word “줄곧” (julgott - constantly/always/throughout). Thanks to that, while reading this book, I constantly thought about this word and its meaning. In Berlin, he was constantly alive. Amidst ordinary or astonishing events, he constantly maintained a cynical sense of humor and lived distinctly. I constantly speculate that the feelings he never wrote in his diary until the very end were perhaps the dawning realizations of gratitude and love, quietly blossoming amidst the mundane.

For life’s laments, contextless laughter and tears are indeed instantly effective. is a book I want to pull out and read whenever life feels boring. Even if life seems hopeless, like tap water flowing instantly down the drain, I will simply live on, armed with humor, like a flower that hasn’t died in an empty house.

📝 Thoughts and Sentences I Liked

pg.56

Excessive contemplation prevents one from keeping up with the pace of daily life, but that doesn’t mean this diary is evidence of deep contemplation. Let me reiterate, I’ve decided to keep the results of my deep contemplation private, solely for personal satisfaction.

pg.104

I’m just writing this out of relief that I safely got home.*

Today is the second day of the academy starting.

I had dinner with Italian, French, and Spanish friends. Everyone was unemployed.

They were all young, and all poor.

I bought the second and third rounds, and since the subway stopped, I took a taxi home.

The taxi fare was more than the cost of going from Seoul to Suwon, but I made friends.

Everyone liked me.

Tonight everyone liked me

That’s all.

*Embarrassing, but this text is the original entry from that day’s diary. To vividly convey the atmosphere of the time, I did not correct any typos.

**

I was drunk.

That,s all. i am happy today.

I am an Asian international pushover.

I don’t know how much I spent.

Tomorrow, the balance in my wallet will tell me the price of my spending and fun, but I don’t care.

I made a friend.

Many were made.

Even the taxi driver liked me.

He said he’d never seen a foreigner ask to drive from the city center to the Autobahn before.

It was the twenty-somethingth day.

**

pg.123

I wonder what the hairstyle of the philharmonic member cut by my hairdresser looks like. If there’s a sad melody among the sounds the philharmonic creates that tugs at the heartstrings, could it be a tune reflecting his state of mind? I wonder if he, like me, wanders these lonely, answerless streets of Berlin, having become a single mushroom. If I had my way, I’d search all the philharmonic performance videos on YouTube to check his hairstyle, but all my internet data vanished last Monday.

**

pg.162

However, since coming here, writing as I please, haphazardly, wildly, as it comes, so-so, back and forth, like “jo-sam-mo-sa” (changing one’s mind constantly) and “jo-byeon-seok-gae” (fickle), it has transformed into something like walking, eating, or sleeping for me – something that must be done daily for life to be possible. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

**

However, living as one pleases is a good thing. To say such a thing after only writing a diary for a month is truly a trivial act, but since I’ve always been this kind of person, one could say that writing a diary is like drawing a map of where your heart is going.

pg.181

I’m writing this alone in a research building where all the lights are off except for my room, listening to Toy’s new album.

People miss their hometowns not only because there are people they connect with and food their bodies crave, but also because music in their native language overflows everywhere. Since coming to Berlin, I’ve constantly been listening to music. I listen to music before bed, and I listen to music when I open my eyes. In my room in West Berlin, Park Jiyoon, Jo Kyuchan, Lee Juck, Kim Dongryul, and Kim Kwangseok have visited with their voices, filling the void of human presence.

pg.184

This morning, I slipped and fell in the shower, hitting my head on the floor. Fortunately, there’s no abnormality in my brain function. The car accident I had about two months ago was quite serious, but even then, there was nothing wrong with my head. I briefly considered pretending to have amnesia like a drama protagonist and starting a new life, but before I could even decide, I made the mistake of confessing to acquaintances that I fully remembered my identity.

**

pg.325

Since forgiving the female railway employee, my mind has been constantly at peace.

Nietzsche was right when he said, “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

Perhaps the German Nietzsche experienced severe unfriendliness in a dining car. To maintain his dignity as a scholar, he couldn’t complain anywhere and probably agonized for days before coming up with this saying.

**

Only I will fully understand the wronged feelings of the deceased Nietzsche.

**

It’s a cliché, but forgiveness always benefits the forgiver, as it frees oneself from that thought. The German Nietzsche probably only managed to forget after coming up with that famous quote, thinking, ‘Ah, well, at least I got a cool saying out of it.’

**

Only I, who forgot only after pathetically writing it in my diary, will ‘hundert Prozent (one hundred percent)’ understand Nietzsche’s feelings.

pg.373

Of course, considering the intense Mediterranean sun (promotes skin aging) or the gloomy Nordic weather (leads to heavy drinking), the high price of water (skin becomes desert-like), and the situation where you can’t even go to the bathroom freely (I’ve seen many guys hold their urine when they really need to go, just to save 1 euro. Prostate inflammation and cystitis are concerns), it’s an environment where even a teenager can quickly become middle-aged if they let their guard down for just a few years.

pg.440

Something must have completely blocked Danilo’s nostrils while he was sound asleep, as he’s suddenly sleeping with his mouth open, as if dead. For the peace of the train car, even if he actually passed away, I won’t be checking for a while. Instead, the baby saw my handwriting in the diary, which resembled Gothic script, and started crying even louder. Indeed, life in Europe is like two sides of a coin.

pg.479

Professor M, Gyeongbo, and Mr. Jang, my peer, were waiting for me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any male Asian members in the philharmonic. It’s not that I’m disappointed there were no men, but rather that there was no one of the same gender as me who felt the tragedy of being a human mushroom. However, one female member, having become a mushroom, played as if nothing was wrong, focusing solely on the sound, as if to say, ‘Isn’t this just how life is?’ Her bangs were comical, but neither she, nor the conductor, nor the audience, nor anyone else, performed, conducted, or watched, faithfully to their roles, as if ‘it was natural, or rather, as if it were nothing at all.’

**

Sitting in the very front row, I saw something others didn’t. Many of the countless strands of the violin bow held by the male musician directly in front of me had broken off. It wasn’t even the end of the performance; he was playing passionately in the first movement when half of his bow snapped. But he played the violin with the remaining half of the bow with the same passion, just as the Asian member didn’t care about her bangs.

**

While watching that performance, I had many thoughts. I decided not to write down those feelings. Those feelings scratched at me deeply for having ignored the value of the same daily routines that had been repeated countless times throughout my life. I didn’t tell anyone, but I cried a lot inside.

**

As I write this at 04:10 on January 12th, in a darkened airplane cabin, I cried a lot physically too. I don’t think I’ll ever forget Berlin.

**

I started doing push-ups again this morning, and for the first time since the car accident, I did forty.

**

I had been traveling for two weeks, but the flower in the empty house was alive, not dead.

**

There’s still a lot left to write.

**

I don’t want to say goodbye.