Seattle Times Debuts Weekly Travel Essay

Each Sunday the Times will feature a 700-word essay, written by readers, focusing on “a travel perception or adventure.” If Hubert Smith’s first

installment is any indication of what’s to come, the column should be a weekly stop. Smith tells of three months he spent in Korea. His hosts were wonderfully generous and helpful, but they interfered with his every attempt to preserve private time and private space.

“They wanted me to bathe with them,” he writes. “They wanted to hold my hand or take my arm when walking together. I wanted to keep the door to my apartment open so that I might catch an occasional life-saving breeze while reading an American novel undisturbed. Strangers used the opportunity to step into my home and examine my rooms.”

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