We arrive in Sitges in the late afternoon. On our first walk it is 10pm already. Everywhere in the citycentre and on the seafront it is crowded with people in all cafés, bars and restaurants. The seafront is well illuminated. The church, a landmark of the city of Sitges, is shining in its nightly illumination and dominates the scenery.

The next day is a day for faineance, we stay on the balcony of the hotel to read, write and listen to some music. Besides I can test my new minicamera, enjoy the sun and the fresh breeze from the sea, and grant my eyes the beautiful outlook. On a journey to the sea we often go for a walk in the evening, when the beach is nearly empty. Afterwards we go to bed, but the nightlife of Sitges is just about to begin.

After breakfast of the following day we come back to our room and notice the heavy sea. It is very windy today, furthermore the air is steamy and unclear. This is not the weather for an excursion. But it doesn't take long, in spite of the wind the heaven clears off and we decide to go for a trip to Barcelona.

We walk for a while in a slow pace. Suddenly a lightbeam comes from the sky, it is so bright that I have to cover my eyes with my hands and the camera nearly dropped to the ground . . . . . . . . . . An angel appears with a dove and proclaims "Peace". That all happened in just some seconds, I wasn't able to react.

The angel leaves his presence in the form of a statue and a voice in my memory: "Peace" . . . . . . . Since I can understand the world I hear more about war than peace. During Vietnamwar my three brothers and me were drawn into the army of South Vietnam, fighting alongside the USA against the communist Vietnam. We survived the war, but my younger brother lost a leg. Nevertheless, as if the war was not cruel enough, not only people in China, in other Asian countries of the Pacific region, South-East Asia and the Indonesian archipelago, but also the Jews in Europe were exterminated en masse by the Japanese or the allied Hitler's Germany. The extermination was masterfully, carefully, perfectly and systematically planned. It was the well-known "Holocaust" and the "Asian Holocaust".

When the japanese army arrived in China, they first selectively sought for babies and children and killed them. Masses of defenseless civilians and captured soldiers were arbitrarily shot or buried alive. In many villages the people were rounded up, when the japanese army came in. Under supervision holes where dug, then the men were buried alive up to their neck and had to die slowly and harrowingly. Before the men died they had to watch, how japanese soldiers raped their wives and daughters. Older women were killed instantly. Even more cruel and inhuman the japanese cut into the heads skin of the still living chinese people and pulled the skin off. In many villages the woman were raped and afterwards a sharpened bamboo bar was stick into their abdomen and they died from that with agony. The japanese soldiers were amused about that, wrote the word "whore" onto the bodies and even filmed that. Everything what happened in China was not only filmed by western, but also proudly by japanese journalists.

There were few older women, who pretended to be dead and with their last breath managed to alarm the people from the neighbouring village. This is how the inhabitants of a provincial town on the southern coast of China were warned. My mother lived there when she was a child. The inhabitants organized the escape and the fishermen quickest possible took all children of the village onto their boats. Of course there were only two grownups on each boat, to allow to carry as much children as possible. This is how my mother escaped the japanese massacre as a child and later she landed in the french colony of Vietnam. My father was a child at that time too and also managed to escape from his hometown by boat. The people who were left behind were abandonded to their fate.

To this day, the Japanese government refuses to apologise to the victims of the cruel crimes against humanity. There is no compensation at all. On the other hand, the Japanese have constantly complained that they were victims of the war caused by the US atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Applying the Japanese logic to Europe, this would mean that during the Second World War, it was not the Jews who were victims of Hitler's genocide, but Hitler's Germany, which was bombed out of existence!!!!!! I believe that as long as there are humans, there will be war and cruel things happen! Even the good ones have to be vigilant on the battleground and protect and defend against the evil . . . . . . . . Peace! Peace! Peace!

Back to the present, to the globalized world, to the humans so called civilized, democrats, citizens, and, and, and anyway the gap between the rich and the poor widens more and more. You think that war is far away, but in reality it is very close. On the one hand by modern media you are bothered with war nearly every day.

We visited Barcelona several times on our last journeys. Today we stay in Barcelona only up to the early afternoon. On this journey the focus is on the city festival "Festa Major".

- in the year 2015 - Chau Tran (Qing Lian)

(See also Documentation/2001/Journey/Spain)