Otherworldly Travels

Mediating between the normal and the strange, zhiguai stories are always understood as ways of border crossing, utopian imaginary, and self-expression of the literati. Yet one question is seldom asked: how does the imaginary evolve, particularly when the “strange” narratives became conventional and predictable in modern times? Scrutinizing a recurring trope of “otherworldly travels,” I argue that late Qing zhiguai turns the fantastic journeys into a secular dimension, featuring international journeys, realistic concerns, and new technologies. The utopian travels thus are infused with realistic concerns and real foreign places when the world has been brought to China. In the era of lithography, the desire for approachability becomes a newfangled visual experience that needs to be engaged and (dis)enchanted. The plotted fictionality of zhiguai, moreover, became a writing formula to cope with the speeding publication. I treat the modern experiences -- ocean liner, chemistry, photography -- as the “substance” of the fantasy, examining how they inscribe and exceed the predecessors as in material history. With a focus on fiction by Wang Tao 王韜 (1828-1897) and Zou Tao 鄒弢 (1850-1931), this paper aims to explore how late Qing writing imagines the utopia in the face of maritime discovery and mechanical reproduction, instead of what has been represented or done.