w-preface

Preface

Moon, as an essayist living in Korea, wrote an e-book in English and had it published in USA , the title of which was 'Flamenco Journey,' for a purpose: to earn money to win his  three grand children's favor by buy presents for them. He knew well that one of them,    a preschool boy living in LA, wanted to have a toy helicopter, and the other two children living in Seoul grew old enough to realize how powerful the money in the pocket was.    

To his disappointment, there were few readers who bought it. Recently he wrote the      manuscript of another book in English titled "Wanderlust" and had it published, this time, as a paper book, hoping that some day Jaden, his grandson born in LA to be an American citizen would read it'.

The author wishes to go again to Seattle, Portland, Granada, and Siberia, It was Seattle  that for the first time he had a chance to check in a hostel,  much cheaper than expected, and full of young spirit. When it comes to Seattle, to him it was the city of 'Sleepless in  Seattle', an American romantic comedy-drama film which stars Tom Hanks and            Meg Ryan. Since his first experience of the hostel stay during his travel to USA,             he could try to get into practice his plans of traveling far to any alien city                     where there were hostels.

Earlier he did not dare to make an attempt to travel abroad, mainly due to his vague       fear of the expensive hotel stay. However, his knowledge of hostel let him in his late       fifties come out to journey, without timidity to alien countries where he had wished         to wander as a backpack traveler. He loved Portland, as in the city he had his first          encounter with gypsy flamenco, an unknown music to him. Generally the word of           flamenco conjures a heady image of swirling skirts of dark women, guitar players making unimaginable runs on the strings; perhaps a cantaor(flamenco man singer) dressed in      black shouting a strange song with no melody. Yet it was said that this is the latest, and most showy, of flamenco's lives, the roots of which are lost in antiquity. The flamenco      which he met first by chance in this city was of a vocal gypsy performer singing with a   guitar accompanied. The singer's unique voice color, thick and harsh, reminded him of     Pansory, a Korean traditional song. Furthermore he journeyed even to Andalusia where    flamenco was said to have its origin, solely prompted solely by his intellectual curiosity   of it.

Aboard the train running through Siberian prairie, did pop into his head a sentence,      "a running train makes us sad" in a poetic essay titled "Things that make us sad". He      have read it before, wondering what it meant by the words. In his youth of twenties he  had thought," How happy I could be, if I were to have a long journey through Siberia on a train starting from Vladivostok to Europe via Moscow. Then his curiosity of Baikal let    him who didn't have a slightest idea of Russian language, dare to fly alone to Moscow   with a purpose: To go to Baikal in the middle of Siberia.

Anyway his journey eventually resulted in writing "Wandelust". This personal essay of journey has less to do with geography than with anticipation, memory, and imagination. He was rather indifferent to the geographical details. And it is not based on a plot for a academic documentary or a real story, but on his impressions of the landscapes or association of ideas. He was rather indifferent to the places he journeyed to. This is something like   a vision, poetic, not narrative! He would like to think: “traveling makes a life change.      While we are on an exotic place far away from home, we happen to experience a          crucial encounter which makes us have another outlook to see life."