By Hyon O'Brien
I had the opportunity to visit parts of the former Yugoslavia recently with a U.S. tour group. We spent two nights on the island of Korcula in Croatia. One of the highlights of our visit was roaming around the island to enjoy the many offerings of that quaint place in the Adriatic Sea.
One small alley led me to a part of a house where local legend has it that Marco Polo (1254-1324) was born many centuries ago. Upon his return to the Venetian Republic, Marco Polo was caught up in a war between Venice and Genoa and was imprisoned. He shared his stories of adventures from travelling in Asia for 24 years from 1271-1295 with his cellmate. His tales were recorded by his delighted listener in an embellished manner and were published to the world as The Travels of Marco Polo, a revelation to Europe of the mysterious world of the East, and a great influence on European mapmakers and ultimately Columbus and other explorers.
As I looked at the routes mapped out on a chart in the small museum in Korcula. I was very much impressed by this 13th century explorer's great courage. I have been to parts of the Silk Road, which Marco Polo used for his journey to China. Even these days it is a pretty rugged and tough terrain. Without the benefit of trains, planes and modern conveniences, Marco Polo ventured with his father and uncle all the way to the court of Kublai Khan, trekking some 15,000 miles (24,000 km) through a dangerous and (to them) unknown part of the world.
Think about the risks involved in this daring act! What were the gains from this adventure? Marco Polo's account presented the cultures of Central Asia and China to Europeans, becoming an important introduction of the world outside of Europe and paving the way for the arrival of thousands of Westerners in the centuries to come. During the Renaissance it was almost the sole Western source of information on the East.
During the same trip, I came upon traces of Ernest Hemingway in western Slovenia. We spent a night in a small village called Kobarid in the upper Soca valley where we toured a World War I museum.
During that war, this area, known as the Isonzo Front, was the most fiercely fought battleground between Italy and Austria-Hungary. The fighting continued for 29 months with casualties numbering over 500,000 people. Young Hemingway was an ambulance driver for the Italian army. His experience in the last of the battles, known as the Battle of Caporetto, and the time he spent after he was wounded as a patient, finally falling in love with his caretaker, gave birth to his book A Farewell to Arms.
Getting a world-famous book out of one venture? Not bad, even if he was wounded in the process.
A few days later in Pula, on the southern tip of the Istria Peninsula of Croatia, I was intrigued to spot a life-size bronze statue of James Joyce sitting at a café table in the shadow of the ancient Roman coliseum. I was amazed to learn that he spent six months in that town in 1904 serving as an English teacher in a Berlitz language school. He didn't take to the town so without the distraction of the place luring him out, he spent those months writing his book, Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories. His short venture in Pula made him an author of many fascinating stories of ordinary Dublin people. Quite a gain I would say.
Closer to home: the other day I spent a day in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, visiting an art gallery, a carpenter's workshop and a small cluster of houses. These were designed and built by the collaboration of two creative people. The amazing part was to hear that architect Kim Min-sik, seeking a traditional Korean house builder discovered a talented carpenter, Lee Cheong-sup in Hongcheon a few years back and has become the patron of the young carpenter Lee.
It seemed that Mr. Kim appeared in Mr. Lee's life at a vital time. We feasted our eyes on beautiful but simple wooden furniture made of red oak, cedar and walnut. In the spacious exhibition rooms it was elegant, modern, inviting, warm and peaceful; all the good qualities of furniture one can live with, day in day out. Mr. Kim has risked much in backing Mr. Lee but he ventured anyway. Mr. Kim seems quite satisfied with his course of action.
In life it is often much easier to be cautious and not daring. However, by not venturing out, we will never obtain the gains of our risks. So let's follow our heart and be adventuresome from time to time.
Hyon O'Brien, a former reference librarian in the United States, has returned to Korea after 32 years of living abroad. She can be reached at hyonobrien@gmail.com.
