Of Travel

As we know, travel is one part of people’s life, and sometimes it is a necessary condition to fulfill some tasks, and can also help us to expand horizons in life experience, local customs, etc, and finally it can also extend our life’s intension and enable it to have more dimensions, to sum up, travel has a somewhat wide connotation. Here, we prepare to make some simple analyses about travel’s contents, characteristics, meaning and etc.

(I) the Types and Aims of Travel

Broadly speaking, travel can probably be divided into business trip and hanging out these two different types. Firstly, when we have some specific job tasks, our travel process will perhaps be somewhat nervous and rushed, and because we have some specific goals in mind, we often keep thinking about many things about the task in the whole process of travel, and thus, at this time, will have a certain degree of intellectual and psychological pressure, which makes us unable to calmly enjoy many things along the journey, and certainly, in this process, we will also observe and think about many phenomena on the way, like the restaurants’ features at different places, some cities’ traffic condition, the economic condition of certain areas, etc, and these observations, analyses and thinking will naturally expand our daily experience in many aspects like traffic, food, regional economy and life habit. Certainly, travels with specific aims are not always job-task types, and sometimes what we have are some positive and pleasant aims, and the typical example is the return to home for individuals working and living outside over a long time, at this moment, when sitting in the running train, car, or plane, we often have a mixed feeling with both nervous and expectation, and due to the long-term separation, we are already not familiar with the work, life and health conditions of family members, and thus, it will let us think, and meanwhile, the family reunion is coming, which will bring us great warm in emotions, in a word, the reunion with family and friends for individuals living and working outside will often bring people a lot of rational thinking and complex emotional feelings.

While we aim at hanging out, what we have will be quite different mood and intellectual condition, at this time, our mentality will be somewhat relaxed and our mind is also somewhat peaceful, and at this moment, we can leisurely observe various things along the way, like beautiful scenery, historical monument, local customs and etc, and obviously, this kind of travel is the major travel type. When we take a vacation during a somewhat long holiday, we often go to places like mountain area, lake district, tropical beach and historical spot, and these will free us from the nervous and exhausted daily life, and further relax our mind and body, and also will give us many-sided physical pleasure. In the course of hanging out, we indeed can partially get rid of the busy work and life temporarily, and at this moment we perhaps will think about some issues we hardly think of in the busy real life, and one reason is that the surrounding environment we are in is no longer modern city with tall buildings, but beautiful natural scenic spot or quaint cultural landscape, and thus, these tranquil and distant external environment will stimulate us to get some ideas we are unlikely to have in offices or urban blocks, while these ideas which are seemingly irrelevant to real work and life are actually also parts of life.

About the aims of travel, they probably can be divided into  appreciating natural and humanity landscape and extending life experience these two different but interrelated basic types. For appreciating natural and humanity landscape, which is certainly the natural condition and main contents of travel, but it is noteworthy that there probably exists some difference between natural landscape and human scenery: when appreciating natural landscape, we will appreciate lush and green trees, winding mountain, bright and clean river and many other beautiful natural scenery, but while visiting historical sites, like the Great Wall and ancient Greek city, we are more likely to feel many social elements like these places’ historical meaning and people’s past activities. In terms of the natural scenes along the way, whether it’s in spring or autumn, the ever-changing and colorful nature will show us many beautiful and gorgeous sights, and gives us much visual and psychological enjoyment. While when we visit historical sites, it is easy to understand that if we want to have somewhat deep and broad feelings, we need to have certain historical knowledge and life experience, for instance, when visiting London or Rome, we need to have certain historical knowledge, or else what we have will just be some cursory superficial feeling, since some sculpture in Rome and many buildings in London all have a somewhat deep historical background, and thus, one people with good historical knowledge will naturally have a deeper feeling about many tourist spots. We should note that, due to the vigorous development of tourism, almost all the scenic spots have been systematically constructed by the local government now, thus, most of these natural and humanity landscapes already have very rich contents, and have many sites, thus, when visiting these famous places, we will often feel full and enjoyable, and feel that in the whole course of visit we see and think of many things.

In terms of extending life experience, the course of travel will also greatly benefit us. In the long and vigorous journey, we will meet many different individuals, and meanwhile, the hotel we live in, the restaurant we eat, the travel agency organizing the travel, and the political, economic, and social conditions of visited places also contain much information, which undoubtedly can extend our life experience in many ways. Meanwhile, in China, we have the statement “reading thousands of books and walking thousands of miles” since early (see The Gist of Painting by Qichang Dong), while this truth is naturally also quite true, and the reason for this is probably: travelling thousands of miles means that people need to go to many different places, not just one or two places, and only in this way can people form a comprehensive and deep understanding towards our society, not just some unilateral and narrow understanding, and in the process of “travelling thousands of miles”, people can get in touch with all sorts of practical experience, and these practical experience all has direct authenticity, which also all have wide-ranging benefits for our real work and life. Obviously, for these two aims of leisure and extending life experience about travel discussed above, they are naturally interwoven, and one of them is non-utility, beyond reality side, and the other is real experience side, and these two sides are interwoven and have different meanings, and also enrich and deepen the overall connotation of travel.

To sum up, travel can expand the connotation of our life in many ways, and in it, we can go to more places, know more people and things, and appreciate many natural scenery and historical sites, and these all broaden our life’s connotation and enable it to have some more perspectives and larger dimensions.

(II) Travel Written by Several Writers

As a basic thing in individual life, travel commonly exists in every country, and thus, it is not surprising that it has attracted many artists’ attention. Below, we want to discuss travel written by several writers, and we can see that, these writers’ description perspectives about travel are different from one another, but also have some similarities.

Lin Yutang once described a cloud changing scene he saw in the twilight sky, and he writes: “The best ‘spectacle’ I ever saw took place one evening on the Indian Ocean. It was truly immense. The stage was a hundred miles wide and three miles high, and on it nature enacted a drama lasting half an hour, and now with giant dragons, dinosaurs and lions moving across the sky —how the lions’ heads swelled and their manes spread and how the dragons’ backs bent and wriggled and curled—now showing armies of white-clad and gray-uniformed armies and officers with golden epaulets, marching and counter-marching and united in combat and retreating again. As the battle and chase were going on, the stage-lights changed, and the soldiers in white uniform burst out in orange and the soldiers in gray uniforms seemed to don purple, while the backdrop was a flaming iridescent gold. Then as Nature’s stage technicians gradually dimmed the lights, the purple overcame and swallowed up the orange, and changed into deeper and deeper mauve and gray, presenting for the last five minutes a spectacle of unspeakable tragedy and black disaster before the lights went out. And I did not pay a single cent to watch the grandest show of my life.”[1] This depiction of cloud change by Lin is naturally very vivid, and the analogical things he selects are also quite apt, and through this description we can also realize one basic fact, namely, the external scenery we see in the trip is one aspect, but our own internal feeling is also very important, and moreover, if one people have certain art accomplishment, then he definitely can feel the internal beauty of many things in life.

The great artist Goethe once travelled in Switzerland and wrote a travelogue, and about the beautiful scenery of one valley, he lively depicts: “The Birse River, a mild river, finds a passage for itself since ancient when going through the ridge of a high, wide and continuous mountain. Later on, this need perhaps shyly goes up with its gorge. The Ancient Romans had already widened the road, and now, it’s very convenient to cross it. Across one rock after another, the flowing river goes ahead beside the road, and they make up the whole width of the mountain pass in most places, and both the pass’ two flanks are embraced by cliffs, looking afar at ease, while the whole pass is in full view. Looking backward, the hills smoothly raise their back, and we can see the peak, but covered by fog.

Sometimes we can see some connected rock faces rise straight up, and sometimes we can see some huge strata stretch sideways towards the river and road, and thus some flat rocks overlap together, while the perilous rocks just sit still beside them, and the huge cracks split upward, and smooth rocks on the wall have broken away from other rocks. Individual rocks collapse downward, but other rocks still hang over it, and it is really worrying to see their condition, because some day, they will probably drop, too.

The ridge of rocks is round, is sharp, is covered with plants, and is bare, and higher above it there is often a separate —bare, finely chiselled —top, and look over here, weathered cracks are deeply embedded into the walls and rocks.”[2]

Goethe’s depiction here is undoubtedly very vivid, detailed and concrete, and he depicts the river, hill shape, rocks, the valley’s concrete construction and etc, which are all lifelike and outline every aspect of the valley, and after we finish reading this passage, a clear, complete and marvelous picture will come into our mind as if we had personally been to that valley. Through this description we can also feel that, artists’ feelings of the natural scenery along the trip is very lively and concrete, and meanwhile, they can also turn these beautiful and complex visual pictures into wonderful language, and the reason why artists can do this is quite simple, because they indeed get enormous aesthetic satisfaction along the journey, and meanwhile, they also have deep artistic accomplishment, and thus, they can turn these internal aesthetic feelings into mature, meticulous art works.

Another artist De Botton makes the following discussion about the real appreciation issue in travel, and he writes: “Though we usually assume that seeing an object requires us to have visual contact with it, and that seeing a mountain involves visiting the Alps and opening our eyes, this may only be the first, and in a sense the inferior part of seeing, for appreciating an object properly may also require us to recreate it in our mind’s eye.

After looking at a mountain, if we shut our lids and dwell on the scene internally we are led to seize on its important details, the mass of visual information is interpreted and the mountain’s salient features identified: its granite peaks, its glacial indentations, the mist hovering above the tree line; details which we would previously have seen but not for that matter noticed.”[3]

Namely, De Botton thinks that only by really appreciating some things with beauty can we say that we have a real travel, while if we have been to some places but not felt many aesthetic elements, we cannot say that we have taken a real travel, and to really appreciate, we not only need to directly see something, but also need to feel the wonder of many views, and to a certain degree, this idea naturally also has partial rationality. But we need to add that, for individuals living in the busy real life, they perhaps do not need too much aesthetic experience, and moreover, if travel is just aiming at aesthetic feeling, and without considering basic issues like real experience and historical background, which is also obviously inappropriate, namely, it is also bad to overly emphasize the aesthetic issues in travel.

Through the above several writers’ depictions about travel, I think we can to some degree extend our understanding of travel.

(III) Living at Home and Travelling Outside

As is well known, living at home and going out are two basic conditions of our life, and thus, it is of some practical meaning to discuss about the internal relationship between them. Firstly, for going out and making a living, as most people’s life experience, a young man/woman in his/her twenties and thirties often needs to leave home and go elsewhere to study, work and live, and this practice is naturally reasonable, because young people all need to go out for a career, see the world, and search for good, suitable job opportunities, and in many cases, the job types available locally are somewhat limited, and thus, we must go to other places and take many activities to find satisfactory jobs. Meanwhile, one aim of going out is to find a good job, and the second aim is also to extend our life experience and broaden our intellectual vision, and only by going to some more places and comparing many places’ different social and economic conditions can one person have a wide and mature life perspective. In summary, for every young people, the moment he leaves home to venture for a career will leave a deep, strong impression on his mind, which often means that he has entered a new life stage and steps on his independent life path, and what he faces is also a whole new unknown world, and such a significant moment often has a deep symbolic meaning for individual life.

On the other hand, different from young people, a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties does not need to go around for venturing too much, and at this time, he needs to settle down at one place, because he has passed the age of venturing outside, and middle-aged people over 50 often need a stable work and life condition, and at the same time, he also already has rich life experience, and going outings no longer gives him somewhat strong excitement like his young time, because his thoughts, emotions, work skills, living experience are all somewhat mature and stable, and he is also very familiar with many things in life. In a word, living at home and going out make up two interrelated basic themes of every adult’s life.

For one person who lives at a certain place for a long time, going out for travel often brings him somewhat strong novelty, namely, when we are in other places, we will feel that the surrounding people, social atmosphere, buildings and eating places are all very fresh, which will bring us sense of freshness in mental and psychological perception, namely, travelling outside often can bring us many-sided fresh feeling and enables us to look at our own work and life and social condition from some new perspectives, and will also let us produce some good ideas in work and life, in brief, in many occasions, travelling outside will give us positive and beneficial impact. But, if we change our living places too frequently, then it perhaps will bring many negative effects, and at this time, we indeed get a great deal of freshness, but are desperately short of sense of stability produced by living at one place for a long time, and this condition is also often bad for our work and life, and generally speaking, if one people changes his living place (or type of job) too frequently, then his work and life also cannot go on smoothly, and the reason is that too much sense of freshness will prevent one person from continuously accumulating and deepening many-sided rich experience in his particular work and life, and will make his work and life experience somewhat superficial and fragile, and thus, it is difficult for him to get stable and mature job skills and life experience, in summary, in many cases, too much freshness is also bad (as we know, individuals changing his work and living places too frequently can hardly succeed in career, but, on the other hand, the saying “moving tree will be dead, moving people will be alive” is also reasonable, because change can give people new opportunities, but too much change is likely to be backfiring). Therefore, we can do the following conclusion: living at home is certainly the main condition of our life, but travelling outside is an appropriate and necessary supplement, namely, our life needs both sense of stability and freshness, and needs to keep a proper balance between them.

Meanwhile, one important purpose of travelling outside is naturally to relax and adjust our mind and body, and since our real work and life are both very busy, and there are many big or small issues in them, people will feel tired and overworked, and thus, we need some ways to mediate and release many pressures, and in them, travel is a good choice. As we all know, in certain somewhat long holidays, many people will choose to take vacation at some famous places (as is well-known, during holidays, our famous resorts are often crowded), and one important reason is naturally that travel can temporarily free people from many troubles in real work and life, and can help us to release some psychological and mental pressure. In the relaxed and pleasant journey, the charming and graceful natural scenery will let us wander in the beautiful and fresh nature, while the old and solemn historical sites will bring us into broad and distant historical scenes, which will all give us many kinds of pleasure in rationality and sensibility. For the long and difficult life, if we just have hard working, without some leisurely ways to suitably adjust ourselves like travel, food, watching movies, and playing poker, then our life will be somewhat too hard. In the meantime, in most of our time, if we just have considerations about serious things like work, then our life will be somewhat too monotonous and tedious, and about it, Russell once said: “The source of happiness is diversity”, and in a certain sense, it is some recreations like travel, barbecue and fishing that enrich our everyday life and also bring us much enjoyment and pleasure in life.

Another point we should note is, obviously, it is not only by travelling outside can we get some aesthetic enjoyment, and even if we live at home, we can also get some artistic experience. No doubt, when we travel in some famous places, we can naturally feel much marvelous aesthetic experience, for example, we can see much green and fresh vegetation, colorful flowers, old and quaint cultural relics, etc, and feel the fresh and gentle air and tranquil environment, and all of these artistic experience are refreshing. But, even we live at home, we can actually also have much artistic feeling, like in the sunny day, the beautiful sunlight will shine into the living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, and they roughly outline the overall contour of family housing, and in terms of living room, the sofa, television, floor and flowerpots in them make up a coordinated and tidy picture, and through these things we seem to be able to see the figures of many people living in them, and we can give another example, though our home environment is roughly unchanged, it still can give us some sense of change and freshness every day, for instance, even the ordinary sink can also bring us different feelings each day, to sum up, even we live at home, we can actually also get some artistic-level feelings. In brief, travel indeed can bring us many marvelous feelings, but living at home can also bring us much artistic experience, and only by combining both of them together can we form reasonable and broad understandings of these issues.

(IV) The Differences of Attitudes about Travel between Young People and Adults

After the analyses from several perspectives above, finally, it is somewhat appropriate for us to discuss about the holistic mentalities towards travel of people in different ages, and in them, a somewhat obvious fact is that, there are somewhat large differences of understandings about travel between young people in their twenties or thirties and adults in their forties or fifties. When we are young, our understanding about life is still somewhat narrow and superficial, and at this time, our views about various aspects of life are all somewhat immature, and we are also not completely involved in the tide of life, and thus, at this time, when we travel, what we have are often carefree overall mentality, with light-hearted attitude. As a natural consequence, at this time, we are often somewhat imaginative in the trip and mostly care about the aesthetic level along the way, namely, the travel of young people is often vibrant and colorful, still not impacted by the somewhat heavy real life (for instance, some young people in their twenties will go to some places at home and abroad for travelling, and at this time, they often have some youthful feelings, like feelings about art, society, history, science and technology, and local customs, etc, but their perceptual and rational experience now is often somewhat superficial, lacking in mature real life experience).

But, when we are in forties and fifties and completely mature, namely, in the middle age stage, our attitudes about travel will fairly change, because, at this time, our understandings of many aspects like work, life experience, society, life, family and history are all somewhat rich and mature, and we are also in the continuously advancing process of complex work and life, and also with some work and life responsibilities, and thus, at this time, when we travel, we will more prefer to practical things, and will care more about the life experience side in the trip, and correspondingly, at this moment, our mentality is unlikely to be careless, but will be more mature and serious. In general, from about 25, with the end of learning period, most people will step from school into the society, and after this, with the continuous accumulation and deepening of many basic aspects like hands-on ability, human interaction, daily household, job skills, social experience and family responsibility (this is probably a half-conscious process interlaced with conscious and unconscious conditions), our adult sense will also gradually grow, and at about 35, we will roughly become a completely mature individual, and at this moment, we will change from standing outside the real life into the adult stage when we are completely integrated in life. Generally, we can probably think that, since 30, young people’s overall attitude towards travel will gradually change from idealism tendency into the complex considerations of real life, namely, the transition of our overall attitude towards travel is directly and strongly related with our life and practical experience.