Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China Review

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Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China ReviewThis excellent book covers every imaginable aspect of travel in Song China (960-1279). Its only problem is the inevitable one that we have little evidence other than the records of highly literate officials. Few others were writing back then. The book therefore covers, especially, poetry and officialdom. To make up for it, Song writers were often compulsive beyond belief. One of the lead characters in this book, Lu You, boasted of having written more than eleven thousand poems. (He kept count.) Many of them concern travel. Therefore, many poems appear in this book, and they are usually beautiful and very ably translated. An interesting point is that most of the star characters here were leading moral philosophers as well as poets, and their views transformed a good deal of Chinese culture; it is therefore of some special interest to see what they made of endless travel to various new or different official posts--or to exile, since their outspoken and high-minded views were not popular with certain emperors.
Otherwise, the book covers everything you might want to know about Song travel. Means of travel included boats, sedan chairs, foot, horses, donkeys--the donkey being a symbol of humility. Inns could be private or public, luxurious or filthy and lice-infested. Safety could be compromised by bandits, storms, and wild beasts--one scholar awoke to find a tiger prowling around the flimsy hut he was inhabiting. (I know how it feels. I've had hippos and hyenas right outside the tent in Africa.) Compensations included rounds of parties for every leavetaking and returning--those Chinese poets drank a lot. There is surely exaggeration going on, but having been to countless Chinese parties, I can testify that they are not necessarily the height of sobriety. I wonder how the officials ever got any work done.
This is a wonderful book that throws a great deal of light on a previously understudied part of Chinese history. It is light on high theory, but all the better for that. It reflects life, and also the values of the scholars in question.Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China Overview

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