ABSTRACT
Xu Xiake (1587-1641) was probably still in his teens when he decided to dedicate his life to travel. Having failed to pass the initial district examinations at Jiangyin in 1601, he convinced his father that he was not going to waste his whole life in vain attempts to pursue the career of a degree-holding official. While he could not avoid the standard training in “eight-legged examination essays” (baguwen), Xu from then on was also permitted to read his own choice of books on history, literature, and travel. The future Hanlin member and later Donglin martyr Miao Changqi (1562-1626),2 a neighboring acquaintance of his father’s, was chosen to be his new teacher in 1602. Accompanied by Miao’s own sons, Xubo and Chunbo, Xu continued to study the canon of Chinese classical education, while at the same time being allowed to pursue his one and only literary ambition, cosmography.3 Miao is even said to have shared his student’s taste for geographical gazetteers, travel essays ( youji ), and early medieval imaginary cosmographies, written in the form of anomaly accounts.4
