4th rv a traveler's memoirs- sea fever

      A traveler's memoirs

              Sea Fever

                        1.

 When he was well over 50, Moon, whose job was to write art reviews, 

was forced to be out of job. Only a small number of readers were satisfied

with what he wrote and fewer magazines and newspapers wanted him

to write for them. He was discouraged when most artists complained

that his writings came to be off the point and rambling.

One day when he met a painter friend, he said in this regard to him

like this:

“ I cannot do the work any more. I must be not equal to it.

What is worse, I feel afraid to write about painters.”

Adding to it, he revealed his mind by telling about a kind of sea fever

which, he was sure, was suffering from like this:

“ Now it seems that my mind is like a bird flying toward the sea.

A sea living inside of me prevents me from taking root

into the soil of the real life. As you know, In old days when I,

as a little boy, used to live by the seashore. the sea and a dog 

were my closest friend. At that time the boy awoke in the morning

to see and hear the two and not a day did pass without playing

with the two. One day  when I, as a middle school pupil,

I came home after school, to find the two leave away.

Then strangely enough  I, as an adult in the 50s, feel

the sea ebbing and tiding somewhere not far from me

and whispering to come to meet itself.

It is impossible for me to resist,

I cannot help it. I really wish to breathe in the sea smell.

Nobody can understand what I am now.”

Then he took a bus bound for Tongyung near the South Sea,

a city and harbor, about an hour away by bus from where he lived.

He reached the harbor and walked  alongside the quay,

imagining that the little sea which had left him In his adolescence

might stay for a temporary stay  in the middle of the sea,

wider and deeper,  near the harbor. He stood for a while by the quay, 

just looking toward the sea and all of a sudden was allured

by the sea smell, familiar to his nose, to get on aboard a liner

bound for islands. So, he made a visit a few islands, one after another.

??????Next to the South Sea, he went eastward to the seaside.

And after that , in succession, to the west side. Probably there must be

in his mind a hopeless yearning for the little sea lost 

while the bus which he got aboard was running along the three sea sides

of the Korean Peninsular.
 
At the right moment when he faced with the South Sea at the top of the YokJi,

the first Island he arrived at, the sea suddenly reminded him of  a tenor

Favarotti's voice of song, The light on the water surface was so dazzlingly bright

that he could see nothing, feeling dizzy. For a moment, in spite of himself 

he almost collapsed on the earth, closing his eyes. It might be caused

by both sun beams reflected on the surface of the sea, and the deep cliff

under his foot. After a while,  he could see afar the horizontal line between

the sea and the sky, with the ears given toward the sound of waves

breaking on the rock down the sheer cliff. How enormous was the roar

of the sound of the waves rising from down! He stood still,

looking at the other black-colored islands like half-circled roofs of cottages.

He saw the East Sea afar,with his eyes half-closed, in a bus running
along the seaside.The sea with the wild waves running past by him was
the color itself, in cobalt blue.The bus running by the seaside with the rhythmic
movement and sound of the engine gave him a sleepy rest. In the rocking bus 
what his eyes were heading for was not the sea in the present, but the seashore
in the past. The factual place he was passing by was meaningless to him
intoxicated by the sea in cobalt blue. For example, what was caught up
with in his half-closed eyes was not the seashore where he was, but a  pier
of Mukho harbor, which he was to reach in a few hours .

And while he stayed by Manripo, a well known beach of the West Sea,
he met the sea twice in a day, once in the middle of the sea at the low tide,
and the other time by the seashore at full tide. At the first sight of the void sea,
which showed up before him at the moment he took a corner of the winding
alley to the seaside, he let out a sigh of surprise .The emptiness of the sea
,with the end line of ebb tide flickering seen from afar, reminded him
of the little sea in his mind.

In his boyhood the house his family lived was adjacent to the seaside of an
inland sea which they called 'the little sea'. At that time every morning
the little sea awoke the boy. He used to get up listening to the sounds
of the little sea and step down to the front yard  to see the sea
right ahead. The stone wall at the end of the front yard kept the house 
where his parents and sisters and a dog named Badug lived with him,
from overflown by the sea water. Everyday he saw it ebbing and flowing.

The boy went to bed in Summer nights, hearing the sound of ripples
of the little sea and in Winter at dawn, gave his ears, with his eyes half closed
still in bed, to hear flocks of wild ducks flapping their wings. In Spring,
at high tide, he looked down, lowering his head over the rock wall, 
to silvery fish playing in flocks beneath the water surface and in Fall,
wet and windy afternoons,  he could smelled, through the open windows,
of seaweeds in the sea at ebbing. He usually went out, with Badug leading him,
to a playground in the middle of the village to meet boys in his age at play there. 
The playground was where at the harvest season the villagers used to thresh
grains and stack hay. And also at Lunar New Year or Full Moon Harvest Day
they flocked to enjoy Yut game, one of the traditional games ,

drinking and dancing.There was another playground to attract him and his dog.

The playground was a part of the seaside bank about 30 yards away
from his house and the place was haunted by a peddler hauling a handcart ,
with Yeot sticks to sell on it. When he appeared making a familiar sounds
of scissoring to the boys, most of them ran to somewhere and soon returned 
to his cart, with pieces of copper wire, old books or empty bottles grasped
in their hands to exchange with Yeot sticks .Every boys in the village liked
the peddler. Believe or not, the boy at the time had a dream:
to be a free tramp like him someday. 

The boy often slipped out of his house in the evening to go to a hut 
without the knowledge of his mother. In the hut lives a man, half blind and
unmarried, named Myunggu in his thirties. The hut is a hideout
where in the evening several youths of good-for-nothing got together
for playing 'flower cards', a Korean traditional card game. The man always
was delighted to see the boy, who never came without something to please him,
say, pieces of cigarettes or couples of red-ripe persimmon put in the pockets,
The boy easily got tempted by the hut owner telling old tales to him.
'Alibaba and 40 thieves' he loved was heard at first in the hut. 
one of his favorite among the many tales the uncle told him was
a ghastly story about a school boy. who stole out of the school dormitory
every dead night around 1 o'clock to the cemetery located at the back hill
of his school and turned back unobserved ,after a while to his bed,
with blood stains on his mouth.

Every day the little sea approached the rock wall at the end of the yard 
of the house to meet the boy. Sometimes In the late morning ,
sunny and warm, the little sea looked like Badug's sleepy face and
another time at the tide of ebbing, it reminded the boy of seagulls 
whirling around above over his head. 
The little sea never stayed still at one place. It waited for the boy
to return home from school or the playground ,moving in waves
against the upper part of the stone wall .Sometimes the boy got up
at dawn to find it playing with wild ducks diving up and down
afar at the edge of the mud flat of it at low water tide.
Now and then it seemed to sleep quietly under the rock wall, and
listening to the sound of the breeze blowing on the forest of reeds
along the left seaside it abruptly awakes to run farther and farther 
form the boy.

One day in the little sea at high tide appeared a whale, called Mulchi
by the villagers, The sea was delighted at the very rare visitor,
which appeared after a long  absence. Then this time the appearance
of the exotic whale turned out to be not a usual thing to the little sea,
as its appearance provided a momentum for the little sea for the first time
to have a strong curiosity beyond the horizon out of the narrow inland sea.
The boy has never seen  Mulchis before .However, he know  that
 the giant whales making a rare visit to the little sea are  on friendly terms
with human beings, in particular, boys in his years,

The little sea used to think it natural  to lead its living within the boundary
of the inland sea, repeating  its routine tide of ebb and flow .
Then Mulchi's unexpected appearance caused him to realize
that there could be other seas beyond the horizon, wider and deeper than itself.
Usually the little sea, free and amiable, the boy imagined, 
liked to make friends with humans and dogs. Then unexpectedly it once 
turned mad and brutal at the time of Saraho typhoon ,hitting the house heavily destructed and Badug lost in the sea.
Since then, the little sea came to undergo a delicate change.
In a way his little sea, at tide of ebbing, gazed beyond the horizon
to the remote open sea. However, the boy seemed to be unware that

the little sea would risk making a long journey far to the open sea 

where the exotic whale was sure to come from. 

The older the boy got, the farther the little sea went out. Actually it 
stepped back further and further from him before he noticed it.
one day, at the time of ebb ,the little sea gave its ears 

to the sound of the wind coming from outside and

gazed at the exit of the water way on the right side,

Then the boy was unaware of it.

After that, he flied overseas to Europe to reach Montmartre, Paris,
in particular. While he was making a round trip, he said, to the seashore
of the Korean Peninsular, from the south through the east till the west,
He cherished in his mind the little sea he used to live by in his boyhood.
In a meaning, It was the inland sea in his mind that enticed him to make
a round trip to the seashore.

On the other hand,
in case of his first overseas travel to Paris,
it was a word of 'Bohemians',the meaning of which he was getting  
interested in that enticed him. His concern about the word grew bigger
and bigger after he read the passage 'below':
"Bohemians and the Gypsies, in the most prevalent perceptions of both,
shared some characteristics. Both groups are known for their vagabond
lifestyle, for their merry poverty, for their disregard of money for the pursuit
of music, color, and relationships. They are groups that have different
priorities than the dominant cultures of their societies..."
In this regard  he surprisingly began to regard himself as a bohemia,
asking to himself:Then what is different between me and them?
They have different priorities than the dominant cultures of their societies,
and ignore money for the pursuit of music and color?
So do I. As you know, I hate to have a job and long for the artistic life.
Most of all, I am  a good-for nothing to my family.
Then what is different them and me?
And he often criticized himself,thinking that he is not a true Bohemian,
but a pretended Bohemian who has a steady income but chooses
to live in Bohemia for the fun of it. In short, the two factors enticed him
to go traveling, for one time seawards, and another time overseas."