A simpler life

Victor is visiting from Spain. Ostensibly we are working on a paper, but in practice he is explaining datalog to me. We go to lunch and he spots an old man in the yard grubbing through the weeds. "What's that guy looking for?" he asks.

"Probably his keys." I reply, smartly.

"I've seen a lot of older people in the bushes, picking weeds or something." he explains, clearly unimpressed with my joke.

"Ah. There are a lot of plants, mostly bitter, that the old people like to eat." I answer.

"Herbal medicines?"

"Sure. The bitterer it is, the better it is for you."

Victor likes that. He likes bitter leafy greens. We go have Jjim-tak.

We notice over the next couple of days that the old man is always in the yard, seemingly camping there under an umbrella.

"He sure likes those bitter plants." Victor comments a couple of days later.

"I think maybe he is living there." I offer.

"Nice life." says Victor, dreamily. He seems quite enamoured of Korea.

"Nice?"

"No rent, no responsiblities, no rain, and all the bitter weeds you can eat!"

"No rain?" I ask. "It rains a fair bit later in the summer."

"Yeah, but he's got that nice umbrella."

And when I think about it. It is a pretty good setup. That umbrella maybe won't keep the mosquitoes away, but it'll keep off the rain, and I bet it casts some pretty good shade.