Travels and Revelations

23 Essays by Zhang Chengzhi

Diana Yue

• Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9789888900596
• Subtopic: Asian Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Travels and Revelations: 23 Essays by Zhang Chengzhi is about cultures which the author knows intimately. With sophisticated sensibility, he describes the tangible cultures of Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang in recent decades – the landscapes and cityscapes, the roads and waterways, the rural and urban dwellings, the working and living habits, and the outstanding symbols and totems. Like a traveller pausing before stunning scenery – the Mongolian grasslands, the yellow-earth plateaus, the Yellow River's mighty gorges – he reflects on the intangible cultures that have made the Han, the Hui, the Mongolian and the Uyghur peoples who they are, and contemplates on their language usages, socio-political dilemmas, philosophical traditions, beliefs and biases and their religious aspirations. These essays show how deeply Zhang Chengzhi understands modern China's painful evolution through war and revolution and how deeply he is attached to his Hui–Muslim roots. They also show his broad knowledge of cultures transmitted across Eurasia, manifested in the muqam, the flamenco, and the Madâyah. Above all, by addressing the issue about Japan and by denouncing unrighteous hegemonism and voicing sympathy for the weak and oppressed in occupied Palestine, they reflect his intellectual integrity which Chinese readers highly value.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Synposis
• Author Biography
• Endorsement
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. My Eeji of Twenty-Eight Years
• 2. A Page Turned Over
• 3. The Grass’s Cycle
• 4. Musings on Shata
• 5. The Veil
• 6. The Enchantment of Yarkend
• 7. Like Fish Exploring the Alleys
• 8. Xinjiang, My Heart’s New Domain
• 9. Impressions of Northern Women
• 10. Fish in the Sea of Drought
• 11. A Posthumous Collaboration
• 12. Edgar Snow’s Yuwang Pu
• 13. A Talk to an Audience in Hezhou
• 14. The Firecrackers of Ultimate Bliss
• 15. What I Saw at the Mill
• 16. Clean Spirit
• 17. The Ink Is Ready but I Panic For Words
• 18. Rip Up Your Heart and Sing
• 19. Behold the Mighty Lion
• 20. Crossing the Dead Sea
• 21. The Stone Speaks
• 22. A Message for Japan
• 23. Point the Scalpel at Ourselves