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This is simply delightful. I'm so happy to be able to read about people going of on little adventures like this even though the results would be, expectedly, li

This is simply delightful. I'm so happy to be able to read about people going of on little adventures like this even though the results would be, expectedly, limited.

contingencies 9y ago
Limited in the UK, perhaps, but there are plenty of places without such limitations where written texts stretch back millennia. I have seen many things unnoticed by others but recorded in 1000 year old travelogues here in China.
- slaskow 9y ago
  What are some examples of those things??
  - contingencies 9y ago
    Well, I was once hired to follow the Tang Dynasty travelogue of a buddhist monk who visited China from Japan in search of scriptures, and recorded his travels in a colloquial period Chinese diary. You can read about him[0] and the journey.[1] Some things that come to mind are temples still standing in the same area with the same name (though no doubt rebuilt), people still raising ducks on the same river bend mentioned 1000 years ago, and the same cities and towns with the same water features, mountains, and weather and the same seasons, surrounded by fields of the same crops (eg. mulberries for silkworms). Entirely separately I have been translating another Tang Dynasty historical text[2] on Wikisource[3] and have visited and seen many of the mentioned places and cultural features: geography, people playing music on leaves or flutes, certain kinds of attire, flora and fauna, surviving remnants of period built and cultural environment such as Sanskrit carved stelae, recovered tomb ware, endemic foods and festivals, caves, neolithic paintings, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennin [1] http://pratyeka.org/ennin/ http://pratyeka.org/ennin/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manshu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manshu [3] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu

This is simply delightful. I'm so happy to be able to read about people going of on little adventures like this even though the results would be, expectedly, limited.

contingencies 9y ago

Limited in the UK, perhaps, but there are plenty of places without such limitations where written texts stretch back millennia. I have seen many things unnoticed by others but recorded in 1000 year old travelogues here in China.

slaskow 9y ago
What are some examples of those things??
- contingencies 9y ago
  Well, I was once hired to follow the Tang Dynasty travelogue of a buddhist monk who visited China from Japan in search of scriptures, and recorded his travels in a colloquial period Chinese diary. You can read about him[0] and the journey.[1] Some things that come to mind are temples still standing in the same area with the same name (though no doubt rebuilt), people still raising ducks on the same river bend mentioned 1000 years ago, and the same cities and towns with the same water features, mountains, and weather and the same seasons, surrounded by fields of the same crops (eg. mulberries for silkworms). Entirely separately I have been translating another Tang Dynasty historical text[2] on Wikisource[3] and have visited and seen many of the mentioned places and cultural features: geography, people playing music on leaves or flutes, certain kinds of attire, flora and fauna, surviving remnants of period built and cultural environment such as Sanskrit carved stelae, recovered tomb ware, endemic foods and festivals, caves, neolithic paintings, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennin [1] http://pratyeka.org/ennin/ http://pratyeka.org/ennin/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manshu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manshu [3] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Manshu