Travel
Jeremy Ingalls and Wondal Yang, Korean poet
and translator; Korea, 1957
Jeremy Ingalls often traveled alone to attend conferences, present papers, and do public readings from her published work, as well as to conduct research and work with translators. But she and Mary Dearing Lewis also enjoyed the adventure of discovering new lands as traveling companions. In June 1956, the two friends embarked upon a three month tour "around the world" together, which gave them opportunities to visit Rockford College alumni (Mary Dearing Lewis, in addition to teaching English, was the Foreign Student Advisor; Ingalls was the Asian Studies Director) and to forge many new scholarly international friendships. The two of them also collected artifacts and souvenirs, and, from the enriching vistas and cultural sights, sounds, fragrances and flavors of the many lands they visited, they gathered images that later found their way into their correspondence and poetry.
Detail from a calligraphy poem/souvenir of Japan.
(more photos to come)
Their world tour in 1956 began by ship. They left the United States from New York harbor on June 15th, and docked in Yokohama, Japan on July 1st. They traveled by car through Japan, then flew to Hong Kong and explored some of the provinces in China before continuing on to Thailand, Cambodia, and then to India, for the celebration of the 2,500 anniversary year of Buddha's enlightenment. From Delhi they traveled to Pakistan, Baghdad, Sumeria, and Babylonia. They stopped also in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho and the Dead Sea in Jordan, before journeying to Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and finally Spain. From Madrid they flew back to the United States in September, just in time to begin teaching their classes for the fall semester.