Impressions of Taiwan

Taiwan,travel,Asia,culture,long distance relation,food

Where do I start after this overwhelming and impressive short journey. I am actually pretty speechless. The moment I stepped out of the airport after a warm embrace and kiss with Kate, the adventure started. New sounds, scents, views and feelings started to trigger my senses and attracted me deeper into her world. I am amazed, flabbergasted, impressed, confused and happy. I want to write many things about this experience and I think it's pretty useless to do that in one article, so I will make an effort to publish my adventures in different articles, and also I would like to focus on different topics that came to my knowledge and really made me think about some cultural interesting differences. Things we could learn from, things that are worth thinking about, things that also triggers the critic in me and that I want to share. But above all, my adventures with Kate, and the growing love between us. The bridge we are building hence, the differences in age, culture and language. 

Because there is pretty much material I will publish it all on a new blog, and Kate will be my co-writer. We are still thinking of the name, but once it's ready I will put the link right here. So keep checking and within a few days you can join us in the ride.

With kind regards Pieter.

The Inner Circle

There are always hidden worlds amongst ours, that are for a few obvious to attend for others never to be discovered. Some of these worlds have a long mystical background and are centuries old. Filled with rituals and secret initations. Others consist of fullfilling ones desires and fantasies, but to much of a taboo to be showed in the open. I like sometimes to wander around in these twilight zones of mankind. To observe, to experience to meet interesting people to add to my collections of extraordinairy experiences. A few weeks ago was one of those nights. Thru a friend I was invited to attend a party in Bruxelles. The party was arranged by a circle op people that have a greater interest in SM with a special interest in bondage. Though I am not interested to be a subject to it, I am more interested in the visual aspect of it. For me bondage is an Art and feast for the eyes instead of something I would like to experience physically. My attraction to SM is not so physical either, it's more or less the fascination for the game of power then a game of pain. I see it more as an interesting psychilogical experience of trust and power. I always wonder who is really in control, the dominating one or the submissive one? Anyway, we took off to Bruxelles that is a small hour of driving, and we found ourselves back in a small street in the heart of this european capital. The address that was given to us looked rather abandoned, in the street was no living soul and nothing pointed out that there would be a gathering or party of some kind. The building was caught in between some other buildings that at daytime were probably shops. The address itself looked like a travel agency, but one that used to have it's glory days some decades ago. It showed a window with pictures of the caribean, a surf board, fish nets and some other tropical objects decorating the space behind the glass. The pictures were yellowed by the sunlight, the objects looked dusty. My first thought was that this travel agency went out of business some time ago. Next to the window was a glass door with two people at the end of a rich decorated hallway. Somehow the hallway didn't fit to the facade of the building. Therefore it looked like secret passage to another dimension. The decorations in the wall were marble pieces mostly found in old french style fireplaces. They were put in the wall like parts of a jigsaw puzzle. We stepped in and the people gave us a warm welcome. They checked the guestlist and then let us through into a "vestiaire". We put down our coats and then went on. The next door let us into a small room with a bar. The passages between the main hallway and the bar were all a bit tiny, therefore making the feeling stronger of something secret, a hidden world. The host made us feel welcome and we payed our contribution of 40 euro's. It included the whole evening of food, entertainment and drinks. We moved on to the other room and for a moment I was startled. It's hard to describe how it looked. It was rather overwhelming. The main area was like 3 stories high, and I could look all the way up. The whole place was richly decorated, and gave a feeling of a boudoir. But a closer look revealed all kinds of crazy objects. The main color was of the room was red it was filled with objects like old telephones, scarfs, glass beats, curly iron frames, french lillys, flowers, old electrical switch boards, industrial objects, mirrors, chains, antiques, objects of Art Deco and Art Noveau, chairs, tables, pillows, sofa's, a bar, signs. I mean I can't still find words to describe the atmosphere, but I have to say it was breathtaking. Maybe you could say it was a collection of junk, but still it was put with so much fantasy and creativity that you never had a dull moment just looking around. The room was filled with the invited guests, and everybody had his own style of clothes. There were people dressed in black, some more fetish style, with leather, lack or latex. Everybody had his or her style, and there was a highly erotic atmosphere. In some smaller area next to the main area was a cloaking room with small closets to put away our bags. When I made a tour thru this place I saw many objects to fullfill different acts for bondage, SM but also for plain sexual games. I found some stairs up to the stories that were visible from the main room, and every floor had it's own destinct atmosphere. A Jacuzzi was found, many rooms with cozy corners with pillows and matrasses. One room contained even a motorcycle with sidecar and a Deux Chevaux, something to fullfill the most outrageous fantasy? As the night went on many interesting acts were done, and some very interesting bondage acts were shown to the audience. The food and drinks were terrific. I met some very interesting people and I had a good time trying to make conversation in French without even speaking one word of it. The level of the people was from a very different kind then I normally meet on the more ordinairy fetish events and parties. Therefore admittance to this inner circle is strictly on invitation only. This is the safeguard to prevent the event from sliding down into something common and maybe dirty. I was delighted to be part of this special ocassion and I am looking forward for the next one to come.

Irina Ionesco

It was 1974, I was about 11 years old. As a boy I always liked to stumble around at the addic of my grandparents. My grandfather was receiving every month a magazine called "Stern". It was a german monthly magazine that was filled with stories about politics, scandals, documentaries, movies, music and now and then also some nudity. As 11 years old boy I was just discovering the secrets of sexuality, the things that parents didn't talk about. The more things were covered up the more I was curious. One day I sneaked up the addic and I found one of the editions of "Stern". On the front page was a picture of a girl, she was rather young but the way she was photographed was highly erotic, at the same time the picture radiated something magical. It turned out that the pictures were made by Irini Ionesco, and the girl in the pictures was her very own daughter Eva.

Irina Ionesco (born on September 3, 1935) is a French photographer born in Paris, France. She was the daughter of Romanian immigrants. She spent her childhood years in Constanţa, Romania before she moved to Paris. She traveled and painted for several years before discovering photography. Her work is described as erotic.In 1974 she exhibited some of her work at the Nikon Gallery in Paris and attracted lots of attention. She was soon published in numerous magazines, books, and featured at galleries across the globe.

I remember the article, because I watched german television I could read german easily. The article mentioned that she was received quite controversial because she was picturing her own daughter in erotic and nude settings. The first pictures she made Eva was just 5. She had her studio just at home in her small appartment. The windows were covered with shutters to keep the light out and the walls and ceiling were painted black. The interior looked like a boudoir and all the accessories gave a magical feeling of a fairytale world. The funny thing about this is that she used really cheap and old fabrics, lace and objects. Nothing of what she used had any value. But it was the magic she made with her lens, and the way how she used the objects and fabrics. What she was doing with old fabrics she was also applying to the models. She like to have an ugly model and then create the magic and turn the model into a mysterious representation of beauty. The way she worked she taught completely herself, her gear consisted of a simple SLR camera with a 50 mm lens. She was actually a painter who by coincedence discovered photography.

Some people were condemning her method regarding the nude pictures of her daughter, others were seeing her as a genius. Nevertheless, I never felt that this was something bad, there was a certain beauty and mystical feeling radiating from her pictures and even now I can remember the strange feelings they stirred up in me. It was not somekind of sexual feeling, it was something deep, untouchable. A longing to melt into the odd scene, this hidden world, this boudoir like atmosphere. I think that these pictures left a mark in my mind that would stay forever. I never saw such beauty in a pictures again, and I can still feel lost looking at them. It took many years that Irina would be acknowledged as an important photographer that had a larger influence. Strange enough she became very liked in Japan, and over the years she traveled many times to Japan and had quite a few expositions in Japan. There are even some limited books published in Japan that cost around $900. Though her role is important for photography she is not known by many people. I think she is one of the rare photographers that knew how to expose the beauty of women in a way that still makes me speechless. I can only stare and wonder. It creates a longing to something unknown, something lost. It's hidden beauty, mysterious, mystical, there is space for guessing and exploring. Especially in these days where nudity and porn are found everywhere her pictures even have more value. My biggest wish is to find one day a copy of one of her books.

Old times

When I did my duty I went to the airforce and was later stationed in a secret cave in the south of Holland. It was called the Joint Operations Center and it was a HQ of Nato. I was working as a telex operator. Telex is nowadays a fossile of communication. I remember the times around x-mas and new year when the connected stations were sending messages with drawings that were completely build up from characters. Later on the net when there were no pictures, only text, people were using the same technique, nowadays knows as ASCII drawings. Looking around on YouTube I found one drawing as a sort of comment, that I found rather funny. So I thought to post it here.

................... .... ... /´ /)
.................... ..,../¯ ..//
.................... ..../... ./ /
.................... ..,/¯ ..//
.................... ./... ./ /
............./´¯/' ...'/´¯`•¸
........../'/.../... ./... ..../¨¯\
........('(...´(... ....... ,~/'...')
.........\.......... ..... ..\/..../
..........''...\.... ..... . _.•´
............\....... ..... ..(
..............\..... ..... ...\

"Erotikon"

Last monday was the official Kick-off of the project "Erotikon" I mentioned before. This was done at the 5th anniversay of the Colorbar in Antwerpen. The first part of the evening would be one for VIP and press the second part would be for the audience. To elaborate what this is all about; I take part in the project as a performer of one dance. See my former weblog entry.

We startd last monday at 1.00 pm with a general rehearsal. Putting the last details in place. For me it was the first time I had to rehearse with the tailormade outfit for this show. And of course some problems came up. The outfit was made so that my fellow dancers could stript me down. Because the show has an erotic background with fetishism angles the outfit was made from leather. But it turned soon out that while dancing I could loose my trousers. That was not completely the plan. So we made some small adjumstments on the spot. The funny thing was that the club where this kick-off took place has a stage but that it's not really meant for theatrical productions. So there would be some practical problems in how we approach the stage etc. But for the rest everything was fine, just being creative and solution driven makes things work. The team of people were amazing. First of all there is Marc Bogaerts he is the choreograph and he worked, to name a few, with the Royal Ballet of Flanders and Cirque du Soleil. He did a good job to teach people with no dancing experience at all in a few weeks with just a couple of rehearsals to perform a complete dance. We are still amateurs but for the untrained audience it looked perfect. Totally I performed 2 times that night. The biggest challenge was to hide my private parts. Because the at of the dance I am symbolicly "freed" of my malehood. And that will be revealed at the end so I had to hide my "pride" ;-) very well. I consulted a transvestite and it turned out that a lot of color skin tape is needed amongst some other rahter painfull tricks. So now I am anxious for the big show on 11 and 12 may. And I hope to find soon some pictures and eventual video's to add on this weblog about Erotikon.

Loveletters from Taiwan

Finally, they came. Kate her mail from Taiwan. Not just some ordinairy email, but real old fashioned physical evidence of the existence of a real person. How strange that I even call email ordinairy, but actually that's what it is these days. I found the note on the floor of my hallway and I rushed to the postoffice. Strange enough she made 2 attempts before, the first letter never arrived and the second one was sent back because I missed the note of arrival between the pile of paper spam I get on a daily bases. When I drove back on my bicycle, my heart started to beat in an crazed frequency. I realized that this was the first time I was holding something in my hands that she created. The very first physical touch of something that made 10.000 km of travel and what she had in her hands untill the moment came to push it thru the opening of a mailbox. The package contained many things, it made me feel I am for a moment part of her world. A ticket of some gig, a sticker, a cd with her professional photo's (for my project to build her a website), 2 letters, an index that showed the content of the package written in colorfull lines, her old plectrum, her phonebill (only one page out of 10) covered with my phonenumber (she named it the proof of our growing love), a birthday card, a sticker of old Paris and a brochure from some Donut chain. Ow how much I love being this silly over her package. It's a fact one day back in history I refused to grow up and I can feel very silly about these tokens and little stuff she sends me. I keep it under my pillow and sometimes before sleeping I read the letters again. I am greedy for her handwriting, I am greedy with the idea how her beautiful hands touched the paper with care and passion. Now it's my turn to send something back. I have to admit I prosponed it, but I also had some practical reasons for that. But I came up with the idea not send a letter but a small notebook. I started writing one night in the garden, a bottle of wine next to me, a candle for light. The idea to use a book is that it will travel back and forth between us. Thus adding words to each others writings. Next to words anything can be glued or taped inside this book. One day we will hold this book in our hands, and smile and see how our love evolved. The idea of creating something physical rather then something digital is wonderful old fashioned but somehow so much more value. Really Kate, I love us being silly!