19 Mar 05 A Korean travelogue on India
Over these cucumber slices with the chilli dip, our friend Soo Min was telling us about this book she was reading.
The book is titled “Chi-gu-pyul Yo-hang-sa”. Yo-hang-sa means traveller, but not sure about Chi-gu-pyul, I think it means “distinct”. While I can read Hangul, my vocabulary is very small. Corrections welcome.
The book is written by a famous Korean poet. He likes India a lot it seems. He travelled there and met some gurus and holy men.
Here the author talks about train travel in India. I like the colourful little drawings they have for each chapter.
Suddenly, Soo Min started talking in Hindi. We were wondering where she got the words from. Then she showed us this page where the author is trying to do some last minute shopping before the train leaves. He goes to buy a Frooti from one of vendors on the platform. (Frooti- a popular mango juice sold in a tetra-pack). He can speak some Hindi, Like Korean, Hindi is a phonetic language. The author gives the Hindi phrases.
Mujhe frooti dijiye (please give me a frooti)
The vendor takes his own time searching for the drink. The author, worried that the train may leave asks the vendor to hurry
Jaldi Jaldi dijiye (give it to me quick)
The author manages to get his drink and run to the train.
While there are many western writers who have written about their travel adventures in India, there might be a few Korean, Chinese and Japanese ones too. Would be interesting to translate them and see what they feel about India.
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Interesting. Love those illustrations
“Chi-gu-pyul” means Planet Earth
Thanks K and Dan for the comments and the translation.
Thanks K and Dan for the comments and the translation.
Perhaps one of the oldest “asian” travel writers was Huen Tsang.
Read more about him here…
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/itihas/huen-tsang.htm
Dwai