The power of places: a northern Sung literatus tours the southern suburbs of Ch'ang-an.

• Author: Rudolph, Deborah

The eleventh-century Yu ch'eng-nan chi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (A Record of Travel South of the City Walls) belongs to a subclass of travel literature known as fang-ku [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] accounts of "visits to antiquities." This particular account, written in the form of a travel diary, concerns the architectural remains and cultural relics of the T'ang dynasty that were still to be seen in the southern suburbs of Ch'ang-an [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] during the Northern Sung. Recalling his first encounter with Yu ch'eng-nan chi, the author of its postscript, K'ang Ts'en [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] writes:

[It was a manuscript copy] written out by Hsu Shao-hua palace aide to the censor-in-chief. I had a chance to peruse it at the home of my "elder brother" Chang Hua-yuan [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] and liked it so exceedingly that I subsequently made a copy of it for myself. Later, after some research elsewhere, I finally obtained the authors' family names: Ming-wei [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] was surnamed Ch'en [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] and hailed from Western Ch'u [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] Mao-chung [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] was surnamed Chang [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], named Li [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED].", and hailed from Chih-yu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]. They were men of wide learning and a lively interest in things at large.

There are many places in this work that are meticulously written, in terms of both literary skill and scholarly research. Although the Sung dynasty was temporally removed from the late T'ang, much of its scenery, its ponds and pavilions were still extant during the Sung. Now, however, it is impossible to research the names of [T'ang] city wards or wall gates. Alas. The azure sea and the mulberry groves are ever changing;(1) the contours of valleys and hills are seldom constant. Later travelers will derive much from this text.2

The frequent citation of the travelogue in secondary studies of T'ang history and culture attest to K'ang Ts'en's prediction.[3] Students of archaeology and the history of Chinese archaeology have long consulted the travelogue as they would a set of field notes.[4] But if the author of Yu ch'eng-nan chi, Chang Li, had intended his work to serve primarily as a catalogue of ruins and artifacts, transcriptions of inscriptions, and reports on the current condition of the T'ang remains, he certainly would have adopted a format similar to that of Sung Min-ch'iu's [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (1019-79) Ch'ang-an chih [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] with which he was quite familiar, or Hung Kua's [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (1117-84) Li shih [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] or Wu Lai's [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (1301-41) Nan-hai shan-shui jen-wu ku-chi chi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]. He must have had some reason for using the travel diary format, some motive in writing other than collection of data. In this paper I will look closely at the form and content of Chang Li's account to determine what these motives and reasons were.

FORM AND FORMAT

Some of the earliest examples of Chinese literature can be classified as chronicles or travel accounts. Personal accounts of travel in chronicle form, however, do not appear before the T'ang dynasty and do not gain prominence as a genre until the Sung.(5) According to the common-sense definitions proposed in a recent study, works classified as yu-chi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (records of travel) provide first-hand accounts of brief excursions or extended journeys; include factual data concerning the physical environment traveled through; and reveal the author's attitudes or opinions on various topics, thoughts that have been stimulated by sights or experiences encountered along the way. The travel diary differs from the travel essay in two ways. The diary generally is an account of a longer trip, the essay of a day trip. More importantly, the purpose of the diary is to record, primarily, the author's experiences while on the road and, secondarily, his reactions to those experiences; the essay, on the other hand, uses the experiences of travel simply as a setting for, or introduction to, philosophical or moral discourse.(6)

Yu ch'eng-nan chi fulfills all of these criteria for the class of travel diary. It is a personal account: first-person pronouns are not used with great frequency, but they do appear.(7) The text contains extended descriptions of both the natural and the human landscape. And the author's emotional and intellectual reactions to what he sees and experiences are stated in some places, implied in others.

Most travel diaries follow the format set down by Li Ao [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] in his Lai nan lu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]: each entry opens with the day's (or days') date(s) and records particulars of the itinerary in a straightforward, almost formulaic, way. Descriptions or disquisitions may be written in more colorful or more sophisticated language.(8)

In its present form Yu ch'eng-nan chi conforms to and diverges from this norm. The diary includes thirty-three entries covering only one week of travel, so not every entry opens with a date. The entries are terse, barebones accounts of the route followed; occasionally they include a brief note on what the travelers did at that particular stage of their journey; only rarely is there any sort of subjective interjection in these entries. A look at the first six entries for the first day will make this clear:

[1] Prime year of the new reign-era Yuan-yu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] [1086], third month of spring, wu-shen [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] day. We, Ming-wei and Mao-chung, left [the former imperial city] through the southeastern gate of the Capital Area [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]. [2] Passed through the two wards Hsing-tao [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] and Wu-pen [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]. [3) Entered the compound of Holy Countenance Temple [Sheng-jung-yuan [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] by way of the west gate to Wu-pen ward and gazed at the pagoda of Offered Blessings Temple [Chien-fu-ssu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] in the distance. [4] Walked south to Yung-le [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] ward. [5] Heading southeast, we came to Compassion and Mercy Temple [Tz'u-en-ssu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] where we lingered a while to climb the pagoda and read the inscriptions left there by men of the T'ang. [6] Leaning from the pagoda, we looked down on the palace halls of the Serpentine [Ch'u-chiang [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]], [once] the site of revels and feasting, [now] a mass of wild grass. Without realizing it, we gave way to feelings of "lush millet and ripe ears of grain."(9)

Following each of these thirty-three entries are annotations by Chang Li himself (headed Chang chu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], "Chang's note" or "Chang notes"), and following nine of these are additional annotations (headed hsu chu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], "additional note").(10) These additional annotations contain Chin-dynasty reign-names as well as several references to the "move of the year hsin-mao" ([UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]), which the editors of the Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu identify with the Mongols' conquest of Feng-hsiang [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] in 1231 and the subsequent flight of the inhabitants of the former capital district to the area around modern K'ai-feng, Honan.(11) The additional annotations, then (ascribed by the Ssu-k'u editors to an unknown hand), can safely be said to date from sometime not long after 1231.

Chang Li's annotations are expansions or explications of the diary's main entries. They are consequently much longer than the main entries and are written in a more fluid, less formulaic style employing language that is naturally more varied than that of most of the main entries. They follow a natural and logical sequence, reflecting the progress of his travel from the gates of the old imperial city south through the city walls, then southeast, southwest, and so on, as well as the progress of his actions and thoughts en route: looking at a temple leads to recollection of its history and the history of people or events associated with it, and this may lead to critical remarks on pertinent written records. In a given note Chang may describe landscape or terrain that figures in T'ang poetry or historical texts, T'ang inscriptions or stelae, the current condition of a T'ang-dynasty residence, the grave markers of T'ang-dynasty notables. In other words, Chang covers a variety of topics in the notes, but every item he discusses is germane to his study of T'ang history and culture, and every item refers directly to what Chang sees before him at that stage of his journey.

It is understandable that Chang would choose to write these more detailed descriptions and scholarly observations in the form of notes. They would require more time and concentration to write than the main entries, and they would probably require consultation of the documentary sources Chang cites so often. For Chang Li, in fact, the trip itself is a sort of "primary source" for scholarship that, like any other primary source, invites and demands critical recollection and collateral research. The subsequent writing of notes would allow for this; it would also be a way of reexperiencing a journey that, we will see, seems to have meant much to Chang Li.

The added annotations are generally longer than the main entries and shorter than the annotations that precede them, and they most often serve as updates or supplements to material in Chang's entries or notes. They are of a strictly factual nature, and only once contain any element of narrative."(12)

There is another important difference between Chang Li's diary and those of Li Ao, Fan Ch'eng-ta [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], Lu Yu [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], and others characteristic of the genre: a difference in scope. According to Hargett, travel diaries are typically prefaced by a brief statement about why the journey is being undertaken and open with the scheduled day of departure.(13) Because the first few entries are usually concerned with leavetaking and the long farewells that were...