Multispaciality and Discourses on Space and Place

March 4, 2008

Foreign Cultures 81

Time (and Space?)

• political time: the linear time imposed by superior polities: reign periods, in transitional periods may be multiple

• --historical time: something we create retrospectively to define events of significance

• --cultural­­and­religious­time: festival cycles, animal series

• --heaven-and-earth time: lunar and solar periods

G. William Skinner’s “macroregions” of late imperial China

The “Tribute of Yu”

• From the Book of Documents

• The earliest geographic text

• Two conceptions of space– The Five Dependencies (wu fu)– The Nine Regions (jiu zhou)

Capital 京

Liang-zhe/Jiang-zhe/Zhe-jiang Province 道 / 路 / 省

Wu zhou, Jinhua fu (1368)Jinhua shi (today)

Lanxi, (Tangxi), Jinhua, Yiwu, Pujiang, Dongyang, (Pan’an),

Wuyi, Yongkang

e.g. Xiaoshun 孝順 in Jinhua

Prefecture 州 / 府(commandery 郡 , municipality 市 )

County 縣 (subrefecture, district)

Township/Town 鄉 / 鎮

Jinhua Prefecture

Lanxi County (1510 Local Gazetteer)

Universal Geography of the Great Peace (Taiping) Reign Period (977-84) by Yue Shi (930-1007)

• Lanxi­County Northwest 55 li, originally 24 cantons. Originally territory in Jinhua. In the 8th month of the 5th year of the “All Persevere” (Xianheng) reign period (674) the western frontier of Jinhua was divided to create Lanxi County. The Record of Dongyang states that at the foot of Longqiu Mountain is Orchid Stream (Lanxi), it takes its name from this.

• Lanyin (North Orchid) Mountain is 5 li west of the county. Another name for it is Heng (Transverse) Mountain. It runs to the Jie’er (Cut in Two) River.

• Fengzi (Wind) Mountain is 60 li west of the county. Here are the ruins of Ge Hong’s (283-343) alchemical furnace

• Jiufeng (Nine Peaks) Mountain is 60 li south of the county. At its base is the study of a vice director of the secretariat in Tang, Xu Anzhen.

The Emergence of Local History

• Cultural geographies

• Local anthologies of biographies and literary selections

• Local gazetteers (difang zhi)– 1154 first prefectural gazetteer