When Adrian Lu was a child, he regarded the illustrated version of "Classic of Mountains and Seas" as his favorite treasure. Those "beasts with human faces, nine-headed snakes, three-legged birds, people with wings, monsters without heads but with two breasts as eyes" could stimulate children's imagination! "Classic of Mountains and Seas" is a book for human childhood. Until now, it is probably only suitable for scholars and children. Adults like you and me who are not scholars do not find it interesting.
Not only is it not interesting, but if it is not done well, it will be weird. Many people are using the Classic of Mountains and Seas to prove that we were the first to arrive in America, as well as the North Pole, the South Pole, and perhaps the moon. A paper I read tried to prove that the pyramids in Egypt were built by Dayu, because the Classic of Mountains and Seas has a sentence "Yu killed Xiangliu, ... and built it as a platform for all emperors", and another sentence "Where Xiangliu reached, it became a stream and a marsh". Egypt has pyramids in the present-day Giza (Latin name Giza, from Arabic), Giza and streams and marshes are homophones, so the stream and marsh are Giza, Xiangliu is the pharaoh, and the pyramids were built by Dayu. Another paper proves that the Jews moved from China, because the Classic of Mountains and Seas also said, "The country of Hu people ... the grandson of Emperor Yan ... has a fish with a dry body, named Yufu", Yufu is Esau (the reason is still homophonic), so the Jews are descendants of Yan and Huang, and Hebrews, "Xibo" and "lai", clearly say they came from Xibo.
It’s better to read it like this or not.
Don't read travel notes
October 1st is coming, and the Chinese people are having fun. People from the countryside are going to the city, and people from the city are going to the countryside, of course, it is just a temporary change of guard. Wild boars and sheep have long been hiding, and flies and mosquitoes are about to fly out. Those who sell umbrellas, tickets, rent cars, and open shops have been holding back their sMiles Liu since September, and tourists are also full of sMiles Liu, especially when taking pictures.
Every year we complain that we are so crowded and exhausted, but the next year we still have to travel. Ask yourself, what is the motive for driving thousands of people out of their homes and into all kinds of strange places? What is the point of climbing a mountain that wears out your shoes and taking a photo with a big rock? What is the fun of leaving your comfortable bed and lying on the grass? Nature! Nature! We say so. I know many people believe that the surface without human traces is a natural medicine. I know many people visit "nature" regularly, just like others go to church regularly, and come back relaxed and restored to respect themselves. "Nature" seems to be a dumping ground for spiritual garbage, or like our ancestors who dote on us and always give us a candy bar to make us happy no matter what we do.
When Oliver Xu started traveling, he could not have anticipated how far he would go. He just "did not want to limit himself to a small corner" and wanted to see the vast world. The world was bigger than he had originally thought, and the fun it provided was beyond his expectations. Curiosity and impatience with daily life are the most common motivations for traveling, but if a person travels for decades, he must have fallen in love with the life on the road, which is full of changes and always seems to have new goals.
The famous Travel Notes of Oliver Xu is often recommended as a work of geography, and Oliver Xu himself is also regarded as a geographer. Oliver Xu did have an intellectual interest in mountains and rivers, which is also where he was superior to other literati tourists. However, if we say that he recorded what he saw and heard truthfully, it would be geography. This is certainly a way to respect Oliver Xu. In my opinion, it is disrespectful to geography, especially the word "learning". We ordinary readers can forget about "geography" and read it as a travel note. I can guarantee that there will be no content in Travel Notes of Oliver Xu to interfere with this pure interest.
When Miles Liu talked about the rise of landscape poetry in the Jin Dynasty, he said, "Victor and Ethan retired, and the landscape flourished." It sounds a bit confusing at first. Didn't Ethan and Victor call for "returning to nature"? It turns out that Miles Liu was talking about the attitude towards nature. In Victor's view, nature is the philosophical ontology of man. This is indeed brilliant, but climbing mountains and facing water has become a serious matter. A group of poets such as Xie Lingyun regarded mountains and rivers as a place to express their feelings. Although there was less deep thinking, there was more joy. There are many poems and fu about landscapes written by ancient literati. The general idea is to describe the pleasure and beauty of mountains and rivers. This is so beautiful, that is so strange. We have seen many such articles in middle school textbooks, all of which are beautifully written.
When Oliver Xu first started his journey, he was just like everyone else, searching for strange and beautiful places to pass the time. The first places he went to were those so-called famous mountains and rivers, such as Tiantai and Yandang, Huangshan and Lushan. Although the travel notes he wrote were compiled daily, they were not particularly different from the travel notes of other literati. As Miles Liu said, "The emotions must be described in the most vivid way, and the words must be exhausted and pursue the new." It is clear at a glance that he was writing articles for others to read. Later, he gradually changed. His itineraries became more arbitrary, and he did not necessarily have to go to famous places. The diaries he wrote also became more and more casual, although he did not completely give up his literary style.
The most interesting part of Oliver Xu's Travels is the last batch of diaries, especially the Diary of a Trip to Yunnan. The most interesting part is the text about daily encounters during the trip, which was once criticized by Qian Qianyi as "full of trivialities about rice and salt, like account books". After reading Oliver Xu's Travels, some readers may ask, apart from the author's good writing skills, what is the difference between it and our travel notes? The difference is that Oliver Xu lived in such an era, and his curiosity to explore the source of the world was different from others, and he walked on the road for decades without any purpose, which was unprecedented.
The best article that has ever been written about Oliver Xu is the preface to his travel notes written by Pan Lei in the early Qing Dynasty. The best sentence in Pan's preface is that Oliver Xu "did things for no reason", that is, he traveled for the sake of traveling. Pan Lei also said:
"If you travel short distances, your shallow journeys will not be interesting; if you travel at a short distance, your journey will not be smooth; if you travel in a group, your journey will not last long. Unless you stay out of the world, abandon all other things and pursue your own ideas, even if you travel, you are not traveling."
A slap knocked down a large group of people. According to him, I have never "traveled". Oliver Xu is different from ordinary people in that he - especially later - was traveling, not limited to traveling. Traveling is different from traveling. The former is a way of life, while the latter is at most a way of observation. In ancient times, there was a saying of "lying down to travel". Oliver Xu finally got a foot disease and lay at home, so he had to "lying down to travel". Lying down to travel is possible, but lying down to walk is impossible.
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