I first became interested in China as an art history major at Mount Holyoke College. I also first heard of the Road to Shu at this time as we studied the painting "Emperor Ming Huang's Journey to Shu." I was particularly intrigued by the plank road skirting the sheer mountain peaks in the background (photo lower right), although I was convinced that the artist had taken a few liberties in perching it so precariously on the side of a cliff. After receiving my B.A. in Art History, I took graduate courses at the East-West Center and the University of Chicago, switching from art to language and literature as my main academic focus. During this period I also became interested in China as depicted in the accounts of 19th century travelers, and on my third trip to China in 1999, discouraged by the unattractive modern buildings that had intrusively penetrated the most accessible sites, I decided to see how much of old China was actually still around off the beaten track. So I retraced the route of an Englishman who had traveled through northeastern Yunnan in 1910 along a route quite far away from any current tourist destinations. I had originally just planned on taking local buses to visit each of the towns he passed through; but when I reached his third stopover, upon making inquiries, I learned from my landlord that there was no bus to the next town. I would have to return to the town I had just left and proceed from there. Not wanting to deviate from the original route, I decided to walk, and my landlord sent along a local boy so I wouldn't get lost. We walked about two hours along a dirt road and then there suddenly appeared before us out of nowhere a single line of flagstones winding its way through the terraced fields ahead. I realized, with amazement, that I had stumbled upon a fragment of an old imperial road. I soon discovered that walking its well-worn flags was much more fun than hiking on a dirt trail. I liked the fact that I was literally walking in the footsteps of all the 19th century travelers and, indeed, all the Chinese travelers that had traveled it for 2,000 years. The fact that the road was neglected and forgotten on a far-away hillside amist winter wheat fields made it even more appealing. By the time the short stretch of flagstone came to an end about an hour later, I was totally hooked. I spent the winters of the next three years tracking down the road which turned out to be the Southwestern Silk Road, and my next book in the series will cover hiking this road. I then turned my attention to the Road to Shu, which after several unsuccessful attempts, I finally located with the aid of a 1915 guidebook. I had been walking along a highway for over two hours, honked at by every passing vehicle, and beginning to worry that the entire road had been paved over. Finally, the local lady I had hired as a guide turned off onto a dirt road and ahead of me in the distance I could see the beautiful cypress-shaded flagstone steps heading up the hillside which are on the front cover of my book. This first stretch lived up to its promise and a week of beautiful hikes followed. But even more memorable for me was the opportunity shortly afterwards to walk on a reconstructed plank road just north of Guangyuan which had been recreated by inserting new wood into the ancient plank holes in the cliff. This road turned out to be an almost exact replica of the plank road in the painting I had first seen in college of "Emperor Ming Huang's Journey to Shu," and I was thrilled to discover my first impression had been wrong. The artist may have taken a few liberties with the fanciful mountain peaks, but the precarious placement of the plank road on the side of the cliff was no exaggeration. (Author's photo by Jane Emerson)
