Travels and Revelations: 23 Essays by Zhang Chengzhi is about cultures which the author knows intimately. With sophisticated sensibility, he describes the tangible cultures of Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang in recent decades – the landscapes and cityscapes, the roads and waterways, the rural and urban dwellings, the working and living habits, and the outstanding symbols and totems. Like a traveller pausing before stunning scenery – the Mongolian grasslands, the yellow-earth plateaus, the Yellow River’s mighty gorges – he reflects on the intangible cultures that have made the Han, the Hui, the Mongolian and the Uyghur peoples who they are, and contemplates on their language usages, socio-political dilemmas, philosophical traditions, beliefs and biases and their religious aspirations. These essays show how deeply Zhang Chengzhi understands modern China’s painful evolution through war and revolution and how deeply he is attached to his Hui–Muslim roots. They also show his broad knowledge of cultures transmitted across Eurasia, manifested in the muqam, the flamenco, and the Madâyah. Above all, by addressing the issue about Japan and by denouncing unrighteous hegemonism and voicing sympathy for the weak and oppressed in occupied Palestine, they reflect his intellectual integrity which Chinese readers highly value.
