Which dynasty did the ancients love to travel "punch in"?

Open social media, all kinds of travel posts come to me, or text, or photos, or videos. In recording travel experiences, perhaps ancient and modern times are interlinked, as evidenced by countless ancient travel notes. So, how did the ancients record their travels? Besides depicting the scenery, how do they express their feelings and opinions?

In the book "Yushan Danchi: China Traditional Tourism Literature", James M. Hargert, a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the State University of New York at Albany, combed the history of China's ancient travel notes, and at the same time interpreted the changes of China's ancient literati's travel life and view of nature behind the travel notes for readers.

People in the Ming Dynasty liked to travel.

Yuhua Mountain is located in Tongchuan County, Shaanxi Province, about 250 kilometers away from xi. It was named after a Summer Palace built here during the reign of Emperor Taizong.

65 1 year, became a Buddhist temple. From 659 to 664, it was the base of Xuanzang's translation project. In the Northern Song Dynasty in the 1 1 century, the buildings and cultural relics here began to attract tourists.

Sharla Cheung, an official of the Northern Song Dynasty, was one of the first tourists to arrive here. 1066 Summer, Zhang Min came here with his two brothers and four friends. That day's sightseeing trip was written by him in "Fish in Huashan".

At the beginning of "The Story of Fishing in Huashan Mountain", Sharla Cheung described the ruins of the Tang Palace here, introduced the detailed itinerary of a group of people, recorded the fact that everyone had to leave early because of something, and expounded his feelings about the scene before him. Although the tour time is shortened, Sharla Cheung concluded at the end of the article that it is a great event for everyone to get together for hiking.

Sharla Cheung's name is unknown, and this Travel Notes of Yuhua Mountain does not often appear in all kinds of travel notes, but this travel note has aroused He Zhan's interest.

In his view, this travel book is not only a masterpiece of travel literature in the Northern Song Dynasty, but also shows that the new development direction of travel books at that time was in 10 and1/century. Most travel books celebrate those social trips, especially those with family and friends. But in the Tang Dynasty, this kind of sightseeing activity rarely appeared in prose creation.

In the book "Yushan Danchi", He Zhan analyzed this kind of leisure activity and the reasons for the large number of travel works written from it. In the Song Dynasty, the number of officials increased greatly, and most of them worked all over the country. They rotate every three years and take up their posts in new places.

Accompanied by family and friends, these literati will visit places of interest near their places of employment. This made sightseeing and travel writing an important part of literati culture at that time.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the main body of travel was officials. The real tourism industry developed in the late Ming Dynasty. At that time, the expanding commodity economy stimulated the improvement of land and waterway transportation systems, and the mobility of all social strata was greater than ever before. Accordingly, the tourism industry in China is booming, as are the entertainment and sightseeing industries.

163 1 Zhang Dai, a historian and travel writer in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, observed that eight or nine thousand tourists flocked to Mount Tai in one day, and the number could reach as many as twenty thousand in spring.

He also saw that local officials would levy a mountain tax of one yuan and two cents on tourists, so that the local government could make a profit of two or three thousand taels of silver a year. At that time, there were several big hotels in the town near Mount Tai, each with more than 20 kitchens and hundreds of service staff. Correspondingly, the travel literature of Ming Dynasty also entered a recognized golden age.

"Yushan Danchi" liberates travel notes from the simple narrative of literary history and puts them into specific historical situations. Feng Naixi, the translator of the book and a postdoctoral fellow at Tsinghua University Institute of Humanities, told China Science News that behind the development of travel notes, there are social mobility, class changes, business development and so on, which bear a historical evolution.

Peach Blossom Garden, Yueyang Tower and Zuiweng Pavilion are not travel notes.

He Zhan, the author of this book, specializes in classical prose, travel notes, geographical history and cultural history of China in Song Dynasty. He wrote in the preface of the Chinese version of "Yushan Danchi" that he was very interested in geography when he was in primary school, and especially liked to learn the history and sources of ancient place names in the United States and China.

When he was an undergraduate and a graduate student, he found himself interested in China ancient literature, especially the prose of the Song Dynasty. Once in class, his teacher Luo, a professor at Indiana University, told him that there is an ancient style in China called Travel Notes, which can combine literature with geography. He Zhan began to pay attention to and study travel notes until today.

Most of his published works are also related to China's ancient travel literature.

Feng Naixi read He Zhan's works very early. As an important American scholar on China literature, He Zhan's Su Shi and Fan Chengda Studies is an important research material for Dr. Feng Naixi.

20 18 Feng Naixi studied the travel and writings of Beijing literati in the late Ming Dynasty at the University of Chicago. Once, in order to invite He Zhan to be a discussant at an academic conference, Feng Naixi sent an email to He Zhan, introducing his research.

It was at this academic conference that He Zhan gave Feng Naixi an English version of "Yushan Danchi", which was just published at that time, and encouraged Feng Naixi to continue to study travel literature in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

This is the first monograph written in English or other European languages on China's traditional tourism literature. Later, Feng Naixi translated the book into Chinese and published it. I hope the Chinese version of this book can help China scholars and readers understand how foreign scholars study the history of ancient travel literature in China. He Zhan wrote in the preface of the Chinese version.

From the perspective of literature major, Feng Naixi thinks that there are two new perspectives in the book "Yushan Danchi" that deserve attention. First of all, He Zhan gave a new definition to the genre of travel notes. He believes that travel notes must be based on the author's real travel experience.

This definition is different from the study of travel literature that China scholars used to be more accustomed to. We often incorporate works such as fugue and fairy wandering into travel literature, such as Peach Blossom Garden. But under his classification, these works are obviously not travel notes, but more of a fictional literature.

He Zhan also mentioned in the book that Fan Zhongyan's "The Story of Yueyang Tower" and Ouyang Xiu's "The Story of Drunk Pavilion" are almost included in every travel book, but in his view, these two articles cannot be counted as travel notes, because there is no sightseeing in "The Story of Yueyang Tower", and Fan Zhongyan himself has never been to Yueyang Tower in Hunan; Apart from the only sentence in Zuiwengting Ji, "Walking six or seven miles in the mountains", there is no other description about the details of this trip.

This definition excludes many works of travel genre, and also includes many works that were not considered as travel notes before.

For example, the narrative of the envoys in the Southern Song Dynasty in Jin Dynasty contains social details, urban conditions and people's living conditions observed along the way. He Zhan thinks they are a special kind of travel notes. In Feng Naixi's view, He Zhan emphasizes that only the external environment of real experience will have the strongest influence on the individual mind. His definition makes us pay attention to these works from a new angle.

Feng Naixi believes that the second new perspective embodied in this book is to inspire us to reflect on the concepts of genre, genre, style and so on. Previous studies have always thought that travel notes must be some kind of notes, but in fact, reading ancient books will reveal that the prose category of notes does not strictly correspond to travel and travel notes. The study of the book "Yushan Danchi" tells us that the genre of travel notes is very extensive, including not only notes, but also letters and prefaces. As long as it is about travel experience, it can be travel notes. This opens our minds.

Ancient people's tourism life and the change of nature view

The time span involved in the book Yushan Danchi lasted from the Six Dynasties to the end of the Ming Dynasty. In He Zhan's view, China's travel literature originated in the Six Dynasties, developed in the Tang Dynasty, matured in the Song Dynasty, and then went through the transformation and innovation in the middle school of Jin, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and entered the golden age at the end of Ming Dynasty.

In this historical development background, we can also see the evolution of ancient China's view of tourism and nature behind the travel notes.

During the Six Dynasties, travel writers showed more worship of the magnificent scenery of nature or fear of the hardships of the journey. For example, Li Daoyuan's Notes on Water Classics praised the magnificence of the Three Gorges in many places, while Fa Xian's Notes on Buddhism talked about the hardships of the journey. In these articles, people's status is relatively low, while mountains and rivers are like gods, and their status is higher. Slowly, after the Tang Dynasty, travelers began to try to understand the scenery they experienced and asked why.

Feng Naixi explained that, for example, Su Shi's writing of "The Story of Shi Zhongshan" was driven by problems. Why is there such a loud sound of running water in that place? Why is this place named Stone Bell? He is going to explore and discover. When Xu Xiake arrived in the Ming Dynasty, he wanted to find out what was going on in the cave. This is a rational process. In this process, we see that man and nature are gradually equal.

At the same time, emotionally, people have gradually moved from the worship and awe of nature to an aesthetic. People still worship nature, but their love for nature is based on understanding, closeness and appreciation. Zhang Dai in the Ming Dynasty, I not only appreciated it, but also made use of my scenery. Zhang Dai's "Looking at the Lake Pavilion Snow" finally talks about his infatuation in swimming in the lake in the snowstorm, and his travel notes have also changed from how people appreciate nature to the display of personality. This change is very interesting. Feng Naixi said.

Today, let's read the ancient travel notes again. What's the significance to real life? He Zhan wrote at the end of the book "Yushan Danchi": China's travel literature can serve two very different purposes: to provide descriptive narration for fugue travelers who are unable or unwilling to travel; Inspire those who can leave home, rather than imagine what things should look like, it is better to see what they look like.