2023.2.11-12 during a trip to Jeju.
Sometimes, when expressing familiar things in print, depending on how one describes them, they become ordinary or become special. Kim Young-ha's writing style makes familiar and obvious things appear unfamiliar. Perhaps because I came to know Kim Young-ha through video, his voice seems to ring in my ears.
It begins from the very first page with his anecdote, and since I started reading with no information at all about the book, I couldn't put it down, wondering, what is this—is it a novel? an essay? It is very absorbing.
It is a book I came to read while waiting for the children at a kids' café, and it was so enjoyable that I read it briskly. Based on the author's experience, it attempts to see travel as something unfamiliar. So novels dealing with deep-rooted family conflicts unfailingly develop their stories against the backdrop of the house they have long lived in.
In a hotel, memory is persistently erased. Not only the memories of the previous guest, but even the traces of life I left the day before are erased or slightly changed. The more burdensome and troublesome daily affairs are, the greater the satisfaction a travel-destination hotel gives. At least for that moment, I seem to be very far away from those problems, and it feels as if they cannot have any effect on me at all. The more demanding the problems that life imposes, the more I longed for travel. That must have been a hope for a reset.
One of the reasons I really like travel is that I can escape from regret about the past and anxiety about the future—these two dark shadows that threaten our present. While traveling, we find ourselves in a kind of crisis situation. In an unfamiliar place, among people we hardly know, we must secure food and a place to sleep and ensure safety. Only the present comes to matter and have meaning.
As the Stoic philosophers said again and again, when we reduce worry about the future and regret about the past and concentrate on the present, a person approaches a state of unwavering tranquility. Travel keeps us in the present alone and frees us from the worries, regrets, and lingering attachments of daily life.
His thoughts about travel also made me reconsider the perspective from which I view travel. A book worth reading at least once. Especially a good book to read while traveling.
4.5/5