Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China by Cong Ellen Zhang (review)

Transformative Journeys represents a fine addition to the growing number of English-language studies on Song literati life and culture. As the author readily acknowledges, there is no dearth of extant materials on Song elite travel, given the exponential increase in the number of men preparing for the civil examinations or taking up official positions, both of which, as this book persuasively shows, entailed an extraordinary number of journeys. These primary sources range from major collections of government statutes and documents to various types of writing by Song literati, including poems, essays, travel diaries, and miscellaneous writings. One of the Zhang's most remarkable achievements is her careful and judicious use of materials drawn from this daunting array of sources to vividly reconstruct both the logistical, economic, and institutional details of travel as well as its equally important social and cultural dimensions.

Zhang organizes her book very systematically, with relatively short chapters into which she packs a wealth of detail without, miraculously, compromising their overall engaging readability. She begins with a discussion of the "transient life" of the average Song scholar-official. This life often began in childhood, since many boys would accompany their fathers or other senior males traveling to take up official positions. Study and education also required substantial travel, especially since many students had the option of attending schools located outside of their hometown. Zhang notes that at any one time there could have been tens of thousands of young men travelling between hometown and schools—a phenomenon that, incidentally, explains the great popularity of travel tales in Song literature. If and when these students successfully passed their exams and were appointed to office, they would then embark on a lifetime of frequent travel, most of it not of their own choosing. In fact, due to state regulations such as the so-called Three-Year Tenure and the Principle of Avoidance, many officials only occasionally actually served even three full years before being transferred (or sometimes, demoted) to other positions. In other words, much of their time was spent either preparing to go or preparing to leave office—with all of the bureaucratic and social protocol each of these required.

The thick description provided by Zhang is both fascinating and illuminating, and brings to life the real difficulties of, for example, traveling with family members (one cannot help but think of the unspoken other half: wives and mothers who sometimes went along and other times remained in their native places to take care of in-laws and family property.) And there were also unexpected crises such as personal illness, the death of a parent, or in a time ridden by political factionalism, a sudden change of regime that could turn an official posting into an order of exile. Here, and throughout the book, Zhang nicely juxtaposes facts and figures with specific examples of well-known Song dynasty figures such as Ouyang Xiu (1007-1072) and Fan Chengda (1126-1193), which she uses to illustrate the great extent and range of their travels, the often very brief length of their individual official postings (between one or two years), and the fact that many were demoted and sent into exile at least once in the course of their official career.

Once a Song elite male became an official, his travel was directly determined and controlled by the state, which also paid for his expenses. In Chapters 2 through 4, Zhang provides a detailed description of the physical logistics of travel for which the government was largely responsible: roads, rivers and waterways, boats and barges, horses, donkeys, and sedan chairs, not to mention lodging and places to eat. Zhang also describes the immense amount of paperwork created by a central imperial state determined to micromanage its civil servants. The time and expense involved in acquiring proper travel documents, not to mention writing memorials of gratitude to the emperor and other high...