The Joys Of Flaneurie

This site will follow my meanderings from city to city, coffee shop to coffee shop, metaphysical mumblings to pragmatic possibilities…

I start this blog sitting in a rather crowded Cafe de Coral in the town of Zhangmutou, Guangdong Province in the People’s Republic of China
This particular range of cafes has become a firm favourite of mine during my three month sojourn to the orient. It seems to supply most of the requirements that a nomadic flaneur such as I need of a watering hole; tis warm, comfortable and pleasant with a decent internet connection and staff that happily leave me to my machinations. This particular cafe comes with the added bonus of a smoking ban, a fairly unusual situation for China, which makes the times spent writing, thinking and cogitating here far pleasanter than might otherwise be the case.

Joys of Flaneurie

The notion of the flaneur, the stroller through the urban landscape, the observer, he who takes his time to take the time to observe, to note, to think is profoundly at odds with the modern world and its need for endless busy­ness, endless rushing, endless haste. He acts as a counter-weight, as a challenge and a demonstration that it need not be so.

Like so many of the best things in life, the joys of flaneurie are taken slowly, very slowly in fact. The flaneur takes it slowly as there is no rush. There is no rush because there is no destination. There is no destination because he is already and always exactly where he wants to be.

For the past two hundred or so years the World has been beset with the so-called ‘Protestant work ethic’. This awful mind-set has humanity believing that it is only through work, and hard work at that, that a man may be something in this life. It decries idleness and the taking of excessive time. It decries the leisurely stroll and constantly nags at the conscience of the individual that there are things to be done and they must be done quickly. It was not always so…

The ancient Greeks believed that the main reason for working was to free one’s self from the need to work. There was no particular merit in work for its own sake in this view of the world, it was viewed as merely a necessary evil to be curtailed whence one had achieved a measure of economic independence. The contemplation of life, the arts, the leisures and pleasures of life were all considered to be of greater merit. It was considered desirable, and indeed noble, if one could reach that stage in life where one was freed from excessive drudgery. In the modern World we seem to have forgotten these ideas and instead indulge in drudgery for its own sake, even foolishly attaching some misbegotten notion of virtue in such tawdry occupation.

For centuries the Chinese had a similar notion. Those of intelligence and education often spent their careers in the employ of the government but, upon reaching a certain age, usually around the 40 mark, they would often retire from public life and commence what was known as bia hao. To mark the significance of the change these people would even take on another name. The later stage of their lives would be spent reading, writing, painting, collecting the finer things of life and filling their studies with them, indulging in the Chinese love of fine teas and good conversation.

The role of the flaneur is an important one. It is he/her who holds the mirror up to modern society and show it for the frenetic and desperate chase after meaningless baubles that it has become…and to demonstrate that there is another way.