What Need is There to Go Home? Travel as a Leisure Activity in the Travel Records (Youji 游記) of Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101)

Abstract

The underlying premise of this essay is that travel, as a leisure or recreational activity, appears first as a common literary theme during the Song dynasty (960–1279), and that the informal prose ji 記 writings of Su Shi 蘇軾 (or Su Dongpo 蘇東坡; 1037–1101) are representative of this new trend. While some post-Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) personalities, such as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (Zhulin qixian 竹林七賢), and a few Tang litterateurs, most notably Li Bai 李白 (701–762) and Bai Juyi 白居易 (772–846), achieved notoriety for their pursuit of leisure and/or enjoyment of travel, not until the Song period was sightseeing and some other forms of excursion undertaken for pleasure by significant numbers of writers. Su Shi was one of the first Song authors to produce, in a sustained manner, written records of trips taken during times of leisure. The texts he wrote describing these journeys have influenced countless numbers of writer-travelers in China ever since.