What do you think?
Rate this book
Korean Travel Literature
Traveling means leaving more often than returning. A traveler is someone who has left his own place. Therefore, a traveler is a stranger. A traveler has not only left behind his family, house, or work. He has left behind all daily routines occurring around him. Between his familiar daily routines and unfamiliar world, a traveler turns into a marginal man seeking the path to self-discovery to rebuild himself.
The numerous mountain temples and waterside pavilions scattered around the country contained evidence of travelers who dropped in to rest their tired legs or clear their minds by forgetting their pains and sorrows. The travelers befriended nature, learned from nature, and sang in praise of nature. They also had academic debates and organized poetry circles. Traveling, therefore, was not only for play but for literary and artistic activities.
The numerous mountain temples and waterside pavilions scattered around the country contained evidence of travelers who dropped in to rest their tired legs or clear their minds by forgetting their pains and sorrows. The travelers befriended nature, learned from nature, and sang in praise of nature. They also had academic debates and organized poetry circles. Traveling, therefore, was not only for play but for literary and artistic activities.
160 pages, Hardcover
Published August 22, 2006
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 23, 2020
I confess I found this book useful mostly as a list of other books I'd like to find and read. It discusses Korean authors who have had something to do with travel over the centuries and dynasties. So, people who were exiled, who got lost abroad, who went on pilgrimages, who traveled within Korea and who were captured. It doesn't really go enough into detail for any of them to really get a sense of what they said or what they wrote about. So basically I am using it as a reference for finding whatever books I can in translation, at least until my Korean gets good enough to read them in Korean (or Chinese characters, as the case may be).
These authors/works have now been added to my wishlist:
Hye Cho's "memoir of a pilgrimage",
The women traveler/writers: Kim Geum-won and Lady Nam,
Yu Kil-chun,
Kim chun tae,
jeong yak yong and jeon yak-jeon (two exiled brothers),
Choe ik-hyeon,
Kim Ryeo,
Choe Bu's "Record of Drifting across the sea",
Kang Hang's "Memorials of a loyal subject" (experiences of a captive in Japan during the Hideyoshi invasion),
Shenyang Reports,
Nogajae's journal,
Damheon's Yanjing memoir,
Jehol diary (already on my list),
Shin Yu-han's "Journal of travel to Japan",
You Hong-june's "My exploration of cultural heritage"
These authors/works have now been added to my wishlist:
Hye Cho's "memoir of a pilgrimage",
The women traveler/writers: Kim Geum-won and Lady Nam,
Yu Kil-chun,
Kim chun tae,
jeong yak yong and jeon yak-jeon (two exiled brothers),
Choe ik-hyeon,
Kim Ryeo,
Choe Bu's "Record of Drifting across the sea",
Kang Hang's "Memorials of a loyal subject" (experiences of a captive in Japan during the Hideyoshi invasion),
Shenyang Reports,
Nogajae's journal,
Damheon's Yanjing memoir,
Jehol diary (already on my list),
Shin Yu-han's "Journal of travel to Japan",
You Hong-june's "My exploration of cultural heritage"
Displaying 1 of 1 review