Imagining Guilin : literary representation, cultural perception, and political mapping in Fan Chengda’s travel writings / E Li 鄂丽

Monumenta Serica, Volume 74, Issue 1 (2026), Pages: 43-69

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Taylor & Francis

Abstract:

This article examines the twelfth-century Southern Song Chinese official and writer Fan Chengda’s travel diary, treatises, and poems on Guilin, a southern locale traditionally associated with exotic imagination and frontier concerns. It argues that the incongruity in the images of Guilin displayed in these works derives not only from generic differences and other related writing conventions, but also from Fan’s mixed feelings towards Guilin and his appointment there. In addition, the incongruity reveals that Guilin still appeared as an “Other” to people of the Southern Song in areas farther north or outside of the region. This deep-seated perception of the region does not accord with the state’s efforts to consolidate the political and cultural systems of China in the border regions.