Magic bean

Looking back at the early days of the Siberiana Books project, there is one interesting story that happened around the year 2007. At that time, I was only a student of cultural history and a big fan of literature, but I had nothing to do with bookbindery or book conservation yet.

For a few weeks in August of that year, we were staying in Brussels. One day, we decided to have lunch at a Chinese restaurant that was part of a kind of Proustian memories of my companion, who had lived in this city for a couple of months before.

After lunch at the restaurant entrance, I saw a small, colorful object on the pavement. When I looked at it more closely, I realized it was a bean with an inscription in Chinese characters.

Probably, I thought, one of those Chinese magic messages that they put in some of their dishes. Anyway, I took it with me, although I was unable to understand a word, not even a strange picture on the other side of the bean.

The next day at the hostel, I saw some guests who seemed to have come from Asia. When I showed them the bean, asking if, by chance, they could explain to me what it means, they told me that they are Korean, but said that, in loose translation, this Chinese inscription means: “you’ll become a good person, if you devote yourself to the books”. Then, suddenly, I realized that the image on the other side of the bean was showing an open book.

Firstly, I interpreted this message as a simple confirmation of my interest in academic life and general reading. But after a few years, when I discovered book conservation and bookbinding, I remembered this prophetic bean and realized that perhaps the message should be understood differently.

I still keep it in a small jar. As my colleague suggested, if it is still plantable, I should try planting it and grow a strange book-bean tree.