Literary Criticism | Xu Zhaoshou's Journey to the West: Narration of the West in the Inheritance of Civilization

Author: Nie Zhangjun, Postdoctoral Fellow, College of Liberal Arts, Beijing Normal University (aged 29)

When countries and civilizations are strong, they often attach importance to telling about frontiers, such as Han and Tang. The strength of the motherland and the vastness of the frontier gave literati writers a broader writing perspective and a strange imagination. In turn, the literary majestic frontier will attract more people to visit the great rivers and mountains of the motherland. Then how to tell the border has become an extremely important question. Professor Xu Zhaoshou's new work "Journey to the West" is a cultural essay about western China, in which the thinking and answer is how to re-tell the west from the cultural level in today's era of rapid development, and how to sort out the relationship between the western story and the Chinese story.

Wasteland, Westbound, Pegasus, Kunlun

Li Zehou used four key words in "The Sound of The Tang Dynasty" to explain that dazzling era: Biansai, Jiangshan, Youth, and Li Bai. We can also find four words in Xu Zhaoshou's Journey to the West to explain his west: wasteland, westbound, Tianma, and Kunlun.

Chinese impression of the West has always been associated with literature. Speaking of the west, we will first think of the wilderness and barbarism of "the desert is lonely and straight, the long river is full of sunset", "Why should the Qiang flute complain about the willows, the spring breeze does not pass the Jade Gate Pass", and at the same time, we will also think of the open-mindedness and poetry of "borrowing where the plum blossoms fall, the wind blows all night and fills the mountains", "grape wine luminous cup, want to drink pipa immediately urge". I think this is also the unique and complex imagination of the Chinese people for the west. Desolation and romance, these two diametrically opposed faces go hand in hand, and realism and romanticism coexist here.

"I understood one thing, since I was eighteen, I have been looking for two images: one is a hero and the other is a Pegasus." In the section "In Search of pegasus", the author writes. Pegasus, i.e. sweat and blood BMW. In the past, Emperor Wu of Han received the news from Zhang Qian that Dawan had produced good horses and had the name of Tianma, so he sent envoys with 200,000 taels of gold and traveled a long way to the kingdom of Dawan to seek sweat and blood horses. Who expected that king Dawan rejected the Great Han, killed the people of the mission, and robbed the gold and silver treasures. Emperor Wu of Han was furious when he learned of this, so he had the story of launching tens of thousands of troops for the sweat and blood horses. Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty searched for Tianma in order to expand the territory, conquer the Western Regions, and open up the connection between China and the Western Regions and even the whole world. In the era that followed, Tianma gradually became an imagination, representing China's strong will and aesthetics, and representing China's free and unrestrained posture of opening up to the outside world.

Looking for the wasteland, looking for Kunlun, looking for Tianma, looking for the Buddha's Path, the whole "Westbound Enlightenment" is always looking, or "Westbound" and "Enlightened" are themselves a kind of search. The wasteland is the inquiry of the relationship between man and nature, Kunlun is the exploration of the origin of Chinese culture, Tianma is the romantic imagination spanning thousands of years, and the Buddhist Tao is the spiritual sustenance in the noise of sentient beings. The process of enlightenment is a difficult quest, but as long as you see the sincerity of nature and look back, it is the Spirit Mountain.

Recreate a collective memory of the West

The author mentions a joke in the "Self-Introduction" that we Westerners ride camels and horses to work or school every day, sing and dance all day long, and light candles for a romantic candlelit dinner in the evening. Although it is a joke, it also represents to some extent a certain stereotype of our west. How to retellew the west from the perspective of the west has become an urgent problem to be solved. It is the responsibility and mission of contemporary literature to let more people understand the real West today. Xu Zhaoshou's "Journey to the West" is an attempt to observe China and the world with the west as the center, reconstructing a discourse path that explains the west. Standing in the west to see China, standing in China to see the world.

How to properly tell the story of the west and China, its Chinese self-confidence is a must. Here, the author mentions the great Silk Road, writing: "The Silk Road is not only a key for China to reopen the world, but also a way to solve the many problems in China today." Of course, we can also re-observe the world from the ancient Silk Road. So the Silk Roads can be a worldview, it can be a methodology. "Here in Xu Zhaoshou, the Silk Road is not only a way to communicate the civilizations of the East and the West, but also an open and confident posture.

Zhang Qian of the Western Han Dynasty opened the way to the Western Regions, the famous Silk Road, a feat that Sima Qian called "hollowing out the Western Regions". The so-called "chiseling" means opening and opening up. The Silk Road, which arose in the Han Dynasty, strengthened communication between civilizations, promoted integration, and brought prosperity to the countries along the way. Xu Zhaoshou's "Journey to the West" is another kind of "chiseling", where the relationship between the center and the periphery of the past is broken, and it attempts to recreate a collective memory of the west in the context of civilization inheritance.

About the west, but also about China

There is a main line in "Journey to the West": starting from the origin of Chinese civilization, combing the impression of the west in the inheritance of civilization. From the residence of the Queen Mother of the West, the peak of the original heart of Chinese civilization, the Kunlun Mountain, the land of vitality, to the pegasus and wolves galloping on the grasslands and deserts; from the communication of the Silk Road and the northern attack on the Xiongnu during the Han Wudi period, to the youth and vigor of the Biansai poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. The author consciously incorporates geographical consciousness into his literary creation, which also creates a unique way of perceiving the times and depicting the world in "Journey to the West". This also allows readers to deeply feel the history and culture of the west and the incense of civilization that has always existed.

The incense of Chinese civilization is endless, and the Chinese context is also endless. Today, when we mention the west, it should not still be only the story of the wolf Juxu, or the "Liangzhou Words" and other side poems. The literature of the West has constructed the West of Literature, and it is the writers who write about the West who have extradited our vision and soul to the place where desolation and wilderness, poetry and romance coexist. In this sense, the book "Journey to the West" is about the west, and it is about China; it is about tradition and the future; it is the story of the west, it is the story of culture, and it is also the story of China. Finally, to borrow a sentence from the book as an ending —

"Now, let us light the fragrance of China's ancient culture in our hearts."

Source: China Youth Daily client