Not so Easy

Japan, 1969, at the height of the student riots. An adult quizzes a student who has left Tokyo and is working as a handyman in a remote mountain inn:

Aren’t you interested in what’s going on now in Tokyo? Midorikawa asked. It’s quite a spectacle. One uproar after another, every day. Like the whole world’s turned upside down. Don’t you feel bad that you’re missing out?

The world isn’t that easily turned upside down, Haida replied. It’s people who are turned upside down. I don’t feel bad about missing that.

Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.