Xu Xiake | |
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 Portrait of Xu Xiake | |
| Born | Xu Hongzu 5 January 1587 |
| Died | 8 March 1641 (aged 54) |
| Occupation(s) | Explorer,geographer,travel writer |
| Xu Xiake | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese | 徐霞客 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Xu Xiake (Chinese:徐霞客;pinyin:Xú Xiákè;Wade–Giles:Hsü Hsia-k'o, January 5, 1587 – March 8, 1641), bornXu Hongzu (徐弘祖),courtesy nameZhenzhi (振之), was a Chinese explorer,geographer, andtravel writer of theMing dynasty, known best for his famous geographical treatise, and noted for his bravery and humility. He traveled throughout China for more than 30 years, documenting his travels extensively. The records of his travels were compiled posthumously inThe Travel Diaries of Xu Xiake, and his work translated by Ding Wenjiang.[1] Xu's writing falls under the old Chinese literary category of 'travel record literature' ('youji wenxue'“遊記文學”), which usednarrative andprose styles of writing to portray one's travel experiences.[2]
ThePeople's Liberation Army Navy barracks shipXu Xiake was named after him.
With ancestors fromJiangxi province, Xu Xiake was born in what is todayJiangyin (inJiangsu province) as Xu Hongzu (宏祖), as the second son of Xu Yu'an (徐豫庵, 1545–1594) and Wang Ruren (王孺人, 1545–1625). It was often said his mother encouraged him to travel and this shaped Xu's predilections. His sobriquet is Zhenzhi (振之).Xiake was an alternatesobriquet (別號) given to him by his friendChen Jiru (陳繼儒, 1558–1639) and it means "one who is in the sunset clouds". His other friend,Huang Daozhou (黃道周, 1585–1646), also gave Xu an alternate sobriquet:Xiayi (霞逸), meaning "untrammelled in the sunset clouds."
On his journeys throughout China, he travelled with a servant called Gu Xing (顧行). He faced many hardships along the way, as he was often dependent on the patronage of local scholars who would help him after he had been robbed of all his belongings.[1] Local Buddhist abbots of the various places he visited often would pay him money as well, for the small service of recording the history of their local monastery.[1] From the snowy passes ofSichuan, to the subtropical jungles ofGuangxi andYunnan, to the mountains ofTibet, Xu Xiake wrote of all his experiences and provided enormous amounts of written detail from his observations.
The written work of Xu Xiake's travel records and diaries contained some 404,000Chinese characters, an enormous work for a single author of his time.[3] Xu traveled throughout the provinces of Ming China, often on foot, to write his enormous geographical andtopographical treatise, documenting various details of his travels, such as the locations of small gorges, ormineral beds such asmicaschists.[4] Xu's work was quite systematic, providing accurate details of measurement, and his work, later translated into modern Chinese byDing Wenjiang, reads more like the accounts of a 20th-century field surveyor than an early 17th-century scholar.[4] InGuizhou, he made the discovery of the true source of theWest River. He also discovered theMekong andSalween rivers were, in fact, separate drainages with completely separate watersheds.[4] Xu made the important realization that theJinsha river network – and not theMin orYalong – formed the true headwaters of theYangtze River, correcting a mistake in Chinese geography as old as the "Tribute of Yu" compiled byConfucius in theClassic of History.[4]
