Transcendent Moment: Insadong Street Singer

Street Singer

Sun-Ae and I joined my friend Seung-Tae and his wife Saturday evening in Insadong for dinner in a colonial-era building that houses a restaurant. After a wonderful meal with fine conversation, we strolled through Insadong's streets, somewhat aimlessly, taking in whatever we encountered of the commonplace and letting it pass through, when we suddenly heard the strains of a most famous Edith Piaf chanson:

Non je ne regrette rien . . .

A moment of transcendence as the four of us stopped simultaneously, amidst others stopping all around, each listener caught up by the street singer's lovely rendition, and I recalled the musings of Holly Sykes on transcendence:

"What if . . . what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? . . . . Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or . . . upstairs windows when you're lost . . ."

That's from David Mitchell's novel Bone Clocks. Anyway, for those of you too young to know of Edith Piaf, go here and listen.