Michelle Wang, "The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Michelle Wang, "The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China"

Podcast: New Books Network / New Books in East Asian Studies
Host: Sarah Bramau Ramos
Guest: Michelle Wang
Episode Date: October 14, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features an engaging interview with Michelle Wang, author of The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Wang and host Sarah Bramau Ramos discuss the earliest known corpus of Chinese maps found in 4th to 2nd century BCE tombs, exploring their materiality, function, and significance. The conversation thoughtfully unpacks how these objects went beyond mere representation or mapping, shaping worlds for both the living and the dead, and challenges common assumptions about what a "map" is and does.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Michelle Wang’s Path into Early Chinese Art & Archaeology

[02:51–05:15]

• Wang’s interest in art history began in high school; initially focused on Ming-Qing calligraphy.
• A transformative moment came upon discovering a Western Han bronze wine vessel, which spurred her to shift scholarly focus almost two millennia earlier.
• The transition to early China was challenging but supported by mentors and peers; this background informs Wang’s current research approach.

Quote:
“I became so obsessed that I went to my advisor...and I said, if I can move my research back 1800 years so that I could basically learn everything there was to learn about this vessel. And she was very supportive.”
— Michelle Wang [03:36]

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2. Origin and Development of the Book Project

[05:41–09:03]

• Wang’s process began during her faculty tenure, sparked by a calming routine of reading old archaeological reports.
• A particular drawing from the Fangmatan site captivated her, motivating deep inquiry—a familiar pattern in her scholarly journey.
• The realization that not many such maps survived led her to conceive of a focused monograph, grappling with the tension between known textual references to maps and the paucity of extant artifacts.

Quote:
“I thought, there is no way that there are only this many [maps] produced in early China... But why are there so few that have been excavated?”
— Michelle Wang [07:49]

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3. Methodological Approach: The Importance of Materiality

[09:31–12:16]

• Noted the richness of Chinese scholarship on early maps, but observed a lack of focus on their physical creation.
• Firsthand examination at the Gansu Jianbo Museum revealed the expressive brushwork and tactile qualities of these objects, connecting Wang’s interests in calligraphy with the study of maps.

Quote:
“I got to sit there and I saw how every single one of those brushstrokes were painted... It was a really amazing experience.”
— Michelle Wang [10:46]

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4. Challenging Conventional Notions: Maps as Diagrams

[13:22–16:49]

• Core assertion: “maps are diagrams” (地图是图), a statement that, while simple, has profound implications for interpreting early Chinese maps.
• In early China, the terms for “map” and “diagram” (tu) were interchangeable; thus, the distinction drawn in modern scholarship between maps and diagrams doesn’t apply.
• Wang draws inspiration from scholarship emphasizing the diverse forms and functions of diagrams in Chinese technical and visual traditions.

Quote:
“In early China, that distinction between a map and a diagram don’t exist because the terminology is basically the same. They were all called tu, or a diagram.”
— Michelle Wang [15:33]

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5. Rethinking What Makes Something "Art" or "A Map"

[18:52–25:39]

• Discussed the philosophical shift from asking “what is a map?” to “when is an object functioning as a map?”—paralleling Nelson Goodman’s work on art and objects.
• These diagrams functioned not only as maps but also as ritual or status objects and architectural plans, depending on context.
• This fluidity of function resists singular definitions; the same object could create multiple “worlds” for its users.

Quote:
“It’s important...to show that these drawings, I call them drawings, function as maps...but they can also function as different things.”
— Michelle Wang [22:09]

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6. Representation, Accuracy, and Process-Oriented Cartography

[25:39–32:19]

• Wang underscores a methodological shift among historians of cartography away from Eurocentric, accuracy-obsessed models of maps.
• Early Chinese maps may not meet Western criteria for accuracy, but they were not designed with mimesis in mind.
• For example, Ma Wangdui diagrams appear map-like, yet attempts to impose scale or symbolic meanings sometimes obscure their actual use, which could include ritualistic or prognostic functions.

Quote:
“[Cartographic] accuracy was not really what they were after...it also serves this other function as an inauspicious omen, right? And that doesn’t depend on cartographic accuracy at all.”
— Michelle Wang [29:45]

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7. Fresh Interpretations and Material Analysis

[32:19–44:51]

• Rather than imposing new interpretations, Wang sought to synthesize diverse existing scholarship, especially from China and Japan, and refocus attention on the material making of maps—how they were cast in bronze, painted on silk, or inked on boards.
• Example: The regularity of mountain motifs on the Ma Wangdui diagrams suggests processes akin to embroidery or lacquerware, revealing shared visual cultures across media.
• The fact that many maps are drawn on both sides of wooden boards or oriented according to water flow highlights how form, function, and materiality combine in meaning-making.

Quote:
“...when you realize that’s the case, you also realize that there’s a certain efficiency embedded in this process...the water flow also follows the direction of the brush stroke.”
— Michelle Wang [43:13]

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8. Lessons and Implications for Map-Reading—Then and Now

[45:32–48:55]

• Maps are multifunctional, manipulative, and ideological—even in digital form today. Wang points out that modern subway maps, which everyone accepts as “distorted,” offer parallels for historical maps’ relationship with truth and representation.
• Encourages readers to understand ancient maps within their own context and to appreciate their flexibility and multidimensionality.

Quote:
“Maps can do a lot of things and they can appear in all kinds of media...the more we are aware of how maps can do all sorts of things all at once, the more careful we can be in both using them, but also the more interesting they become as objects of study.”
— Michelle Wang [45:34]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A ditu is a tu—which in English would be a terrestrial diagram. As a diagram, it sounds a bit strange...But in early China...the terminology is basically the same.”
  — Michelle Wang [14:39]

• “What Goodman is saying generally is that anything from a vase to a line on the vase can function in all different ways. And depending on how it functions, it becomes something different.”
  — Michelle Wang [21:00]

• “There is something very magical, I think, about being able to see how someone so long ago was able to make something...the people who actually made these objects don’t appear in text, and there’s really no way of knowing anything about them beyond what they make.”
  — Michelle Wang [39:45]

• “I know that there are a lot of people out there who have those interests. But yeah, to see that maybe they’re not so different from these early examples. It’s a thinking exercise, I guess.”
  — Michelle Wang [47:49]

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Important Timestamps

• 03:05 – Wang’s path and shifting periods/mediums.
• 05:41 – Genesis of the book project.
• 09:31 – Challenges in shifting to map studies; material studies approach.
• 13:22 – “Maps are diagrams”—defining terms.
• 20:09 – Adapting Goodman’s framework for art/objects.
• 25:39 – Mapping, representation, and accuracy.
• 32:19 – Bringing together disparate scholarly approaches; embroidery example.
• 39:13 – Brush-and-ink drawings and material encounters at the museum.
• 45:32 – Modern map parallels; subway maps and user expectations.

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Final Thoughts & Future Directions

Michelle Wang reiterates the importance of approaching maps (ancient and modern) as complex, polyvalent objects whose meaning and function depend on context, materiality, and use. She encourages expanding our understanding beyond rigid categories to consider what maps do—ritually, materially, ideologically. In closing, Wang hints at returning to and integrating her longtime interest in Chinese calligraphy, underscoring the continuing thread of material attentiveness in her work.

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For Listeners

This episode provides an illuminating, multidisciplinary view of early Chinese maps, challenging conventional boundaries between art, diagram, and function. Wang’s insights will be valuable not just for historians of China, but for anyone interested in how we visualize, shape, and interpret the worlds—real and imagined—on paper, silk, or screen.

Transcript

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[Marshall Po]

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[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Welcome back to New Books in East Asian Studies, a podcast on the New Books Network. My name is Sarah Bramau Ramos and I am one of the hosts on the channel. And I'm here today with Michelle Wong to talk about her new book, the Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China. And this came out in 2023 with the university of Chicago Press. And this book is about the early history of maps in China and it particularly focuses on maps found in three tombs that date from the 4th to the 2nd century BCE. So this is the earliest known corpus of maps in China. And this book combines methods from the history of cartography, art history, archaeology, material culture, religion, philosophy, and much, much more. To argue that these pictures did not simply represent or diagram the world direct directly around the mapmakers, but that they were designed to make and remake worlds for both the living and the dead. So with that. Welcome to New Books, Michelle, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

[Michelle Wong]

Thanks for having me.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

All right, so, you know, we always start at the beginning with your beginning. So how did you come to work on art and archaeology, and specifically the art and archaeology of early China?

[Michelle Wong]

The art part is quite straightforward. So I became interested in art history in high school, and I majored in it in college, and then I continued with it through graduate school. So that's pretty straightforward. The early China part is not so straightforward. Uh, I didn't enter graduate school to work on early China. Um, I began with an interest in Chinese calligraphy from Mingqing period. So the 17th century, the Europe, specifically the early mid 17th century. Um, and then at the end of my first year, during the seminar break, we. Our seminar room at Berkeley was in the library. And so I was flipping through these journals outside the classroom, and I came across this western Han dynasty misty bronze wine vessel. And it had this very intricate bronze and silver inlay all over it. And when I read that those curlicues on there were actually inscriptions that they were writing, I became very obsessed. And I became so obsessed that I went to my advisor, Pat Berger, at the time, and I said, if I can move my research back 1800 years so that I could basically learn everything there was to learn about this vessel. And she was very supportive. And it was a difficult transition. Not like I knew everything there was to know about the 17th century, but at least I knew a little bit more than early China. But I was taking classes with classmates who really helped me. They supported me and helped me in any way that I needed help. And then there are so many scholars at Berkeley who are still producing amazing work on early China. So I think that helped the transition. And, yeah, that's the art and the early China part.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Lovely. So thinking of things that have kind of helped, sort of following that thread, could you talk a little bit about what the process of writing this book was like? And I mentioned that because you have, in your acknowledgments, kind of a discussion of all the different things that went into the writing of this book. You mentioned a book workshop, you mentioned writing online, those types of things. So could you talk a little bit about the process?

[Michelle Wong]

Yeah, I think so. This book, the research for this book began two years after I began my job at Reed, so I didn't begin the research for it in graduate school. And how I came across the topic was very similar, in retrospect, to how I became interested in early China. And that is, I have this habit of looking through archaeology reports, old ones. It's sort of calming for me in a very. In a strange way. And I came across the drawings that are the subject of chapter two, so the ones excavated from Phang Ma Tan. And I saw one of the drawings and I was really blown away by it. And I can't explain to you why, but I just felt like I needed to know everything about it, the same way I needed to know everything about that Western Han bronze vessel. And that really set me on this path. It started with just wanting to write one article, and then it ballooned into trying to find every single map that I could find. And when I discovered there just weren't that many, I realized, well, if there aren't that many, and I started getting a sense of, you know, what kinds of scholarship were out there. I thought this could probably become a monograph. And that's how it began. Yeah. It started all again from seeing one.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

The connection between the there being few and this could be a book. Is it just that the there being few meant that there was a very clearly well defined kind of corpus there. Like you had this sort of collection of things that could be put in book form.

[Michelle Wong]

I think it was practical like that. But it also brought to mind a lot of questions because I imagined before I really dug into the map literature in my head, I thought, there is no way that there are only this many produced in early time. There's. There's no way. But why are there so few that have been excavated? That. I think that was, you know, at the very beginning, it was like, well, there have. There has to be more. And as an art historian and someone interested in material culture studies, it was, I can go read the text and I can learn everything about them from the texts. But that lingering question of, but where are they? You know, where are the physical objects? That was a question that I also wanted to pursue. And I think that question led me to think that, yeah, you know, is there something about maps in early China, something specific about that context that could help me answer that question? So, yeah, it was both a content driven inquiry, but also a practical one. Right. Like, there are only so many. I can do this.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

As you were talking about your transition from the early wine vessels, and so earlier than that, Ming Chang moving back and now moving to maps, was there anything that made the transition to focusing on maps? Was there anything that helped that transition or made that transition possible? I imagine it involved a lot of going back over a lot of literature that you Might not have read previously, but what did that transition look like?

[Michelle Wong]

Yeah. So in the book, one of the things that I really cared about was I wanted. Because I don't think there is so much wonderful scholarship on these early maps in Chinese. So in terms of a monograph, there hasn't been one in English, even though there have been chapters and really interesting articles written about them. But there have been in Chinese. And when I read through that literature, I realized that there isn't much attention paid to how these things were physically made. And I sound like I'm going off on a tangent, but it's all related. So once I realized that there wasn't so much about how these things were made, that's what really drove me to try to figure out. Yeah. Just how they were made. And where I began were those fama tan maps. And those Fan Ma time maps in chapter two were brushing ink drawings. And when I saw them, and I had this great opportunity to see them at the Gansu Jianbo Museum and the staff there, and they were all so wonderful. And I got to sit there with one of their staff members with the actual maps, and I sat there and I saw how every single one of those brushstrokes were painted. You can see it. And that process of being able to see, where did this person, I mean, how many years ago, at this point? 2, 200. More than 2,200 years ago, put down their brush and then dragged it across the surface? It was really. It was a really amazing experience. And I think my wanting to do that work, tracing every single line really came from the same interest I had in calligraphy. Right. Because the process, the object is different, the objects are different, but my analysis and how I approach them are really quite similar. Yeah. So that's how I see myself being actually quite consistent with my research. Even if the objects seem very different or the time period seems very different.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

No, absolutely. And, I mean, I'm very biased in this respect because I would describe myself as a book historian. So the material form of things and the material object and how things are made and the attentiveness to that, I mean, those are all like catnip for me in terms of, like, these are the things that keep me up at night and make me want to continue doing work. So thank you for kind of indicating that so beautifully because I feel attuned, acutely, all of what you were just describing. I want to bring us a little bit deeper into this book, actually, you know, just a little bit in thinking about maps, and that is to Think through, you know, one of the assertions that you make in this book, which might seem very simple, which is that maps are diagrams. And as, you know, as you say that, it's a seemingly banal assertion, but it's quite important in this context. So could you kind of unpack that a little bit? What does it mean to say that maps are diagrams and why is it important?

[Michelle Wong]

Yeah, I think that line in particular, it came quite late in the writing process because I had gone. I was sticking very closely to the Chinese literature because a lot of. There have been a lot of work done there. And one question. There was a point where I reached this question. What would this book be translated to? Like, in this. Like, what would I say to someone, for example, my dad, what is the main point that I'm trying to make? And it goes something like a ditu is a tu, which in English would be a terrestrial diagram. As a diagram, it sounds a bit strange. And then I decided, well, in English, you know, what's another way of saying that? And it would be that a map is a diagram. And then I said, no, no, no, that's not. That's not what I'm trying to say. And it actually took about a year for me to come around and so many drafts to actually want to put that at the beginning, it was really because I wanted. I was thinking about audience and wanting to orient the book for them. And in scholarship on maps, there has been this interest. In some scholarship on maps, there has been an interest in defining what a map is, and that's sometimes done by comparing it to a diagram. So what is the difference between a map and a diagram? It's also done with paintings. You know, what's the difference between a map and a painting? And a lot of these very important scholarship, there are different ways of marking their differences. And one of them, for example, is on a spectrum. So you have a map on one end and you have a diagram on the other end, and there are all kinds of things that could fit in between. But what I want to say with this book is that in early China, that distinction between a map and a diagram don't exist because the terminology is basically the same. They were all called tool or a diagram. And I think what's very important for me in the introduction is to say that there are all kinds of tool, all kinds of diagrams, and they're all cult, and they look nothing alike. So one of my favorite books and a source of inspiration actually, for my approach is graphics and text and the production of technical Knowledge in China, edited by Francesca Bray, Vera Dorothy Lichtman and Georges Metellier. And each chapter deals with a different kind of tool, but they all look very different. So you can look at, you know, diagrams of cosmology, table, technical illustrations, and of course, diagrams of land and water, which we would then call maps. And so I wanted to sort of set the stage there, right, that maps are just a tool. They're just a diagram and they just look very different, but they are grouped together with a bunch of other diagrams that actually are about very different things.

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[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

So it's less a spectrum and more sort of like a collection or sort of like a piling, like a pile or some, some kind of concept map there.

[Michelle Wong]

Yeah. So you, you have this general category called a tool, a diagram. And then under this general. And. And I have to just be careful. Here it is in the early China context, you know, like, this is really the framework. I'm. This time period in this region, you have this category called two diagrams. And then underneath it, you have all these different kinds of tool diagrams that are diagramming different things. And one of those is land and water.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Thinking about categorizing and trying to get a handle on this concept. We're talking about the introduction where you lay this out, and I'm fascinated to hear that sentence. That Detour tool took so long for you to kind of put in the introduction. While we're talking about this part of the book, I wanted to ask you about the comment that you have at the very end of the introduction, because you end your introduction by citing from the work of Nelson Goodman, the American philosopher. And I'll just. I'll. I'll just quote you quoting him. Part of the trouble lies in asking the wrong question, in failing to recognize that a thing may function as a work of art at some times and not at others. In crucial cases, the real question is not what objects are permanently works of art, but when is an object a work of art. I love that you included that, and I personally love thinking through that. But, you know, thinking about this quote in the context of your book, what is kind of that reframing? Why is that reframing important for you? The changing the question from what to when in the context of maps?

[Michelle Wong]

I think for me, what I take away, and I've tried to understand Goodman for many years, and I can say that I'm starting at a sense of what's happening and I think what's important for me about that line in general. So before we go to maps specifically, and something that I try to get across and you know, I teach Intro to Art History and this is something that I try to explain to students because there are art historians, for example, Carolyn Dean, who have mentioned this as well. We are all accustomed to thinking that an object will function in one way and that that one way defines what an object is. So, for example, we might think of a porcelain vase as an art object, right, that you see at a museum. It's on this pedestal, and we will build an entire world off of the fact that it's an art object. So this involves, for example, people and institutions that will make sure that this vase is an art object. It's shown in a museum, and then it's written about with all the art historical jargon. But you can also imagine that that same vase doesn't appear in the museum and all that, but is actually in your home, right? If it's in your home, it builds out this very different world. It's the same object, but it's going to rolled out a very different kind of world where you start thinking about it as an heirloom, for example. So value really changes. You treat it very differently. The things you will put in there. So it's not empty anymore. You put things in there and you might value the thing you put in there more than the actual vase itself. So I think what Goodman is saying generally is that anything from a vase to a line on the vase can function in all different ways. And depending on how it functions, it becomes something different. So it's never permanently one thing. So in terms of thinking about the book and why it's important, it's important enough for me to put that framework in the intro. I want to show that these drawings, I call them drawings, function as maps. There's. There's no question in my mind at least, that all of these do have a mapping function. And so many scholars have really proven those points. What I want to say is, well, yes, they can function as maps, but they can also function as different things. Right? And depending on what you think their function is, the kind of world they're going to build out is a little different. And so here I'm thinking specifically in my first chapter, I talk about a bronze mausoleum diagram. And the question is always, well, is it actually, Some scholars think it's an architectural plan, and some scholars will say that it's the earliest map because it's from the 4th century. And what I want to say is it's both. But also, if you look at how it's made and how all the inscriptions are designed, it's also just a ritual object that is meant to be looked at. You know, you don't necessarily have to read the measurements. You can just look at it and know that it's important and it's meant to look important.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Important.

[Michelle Wong]

So all of those threes are three functions. Define what this object is. Right. It's never one thing. Does that answer your.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

No, no, no, no. It very much does. And I was just thinking through, you know, the measurements that you get into in that first chapter. You're kind of. You're dealing with measurements that people have tried to pin down and tried to identify. What is this a measurement of? What is this a length of. Because it doesn't quite work, and they can't, you know, the. The. The map itself kind of resists attempts to kind of, you know, square the circle. Like it. It just doesn't quite work. But in sort of taking this slightly different approach and way of viewing it, you kind of free yourself and I guess in some ways free the map of the burden of having. Having to do all of that work and having to be just that one thing, which it never was as nothing. Nothing. As you were just saying, nothing is.

[Michelle Wong]

Yeah, I think that. I'm glad you brought up the measurements because that's something that, for scholars who want to see it as an architectural plan, it does work as an architectural plan. So, you know, my position is not, oh, you know, there's a right or wrong. It's more like, yes, it actually does show you whose burial mound is next to whose burial mound. It does show you where the walls are. It absolutely shows diagrams. That is, once you get to the measurements that are on there and they don't quite work out, it's. I would want to say that it's not a matter of they couldn't get the measurements. It's more like, well, here's an opportunity where they can actually have the same diagram do something else for them. Right. And isn't. Isn't that really interesting that measurements can do multiple things? They aren't just tied to a measure of accuracy. Yeah. So that's sort of what I want to say with that example.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Yeah. As we're talking about measure of accuracy, you're constantly engaging with this idea of accuracy and more specifically with the idea of representation throughout the book. Right. And thinking about, you know, what these maps are, what is it they're reflecting or not, what is it that they're representing or not. And you point out in your book that historians of cartography are broadly, as a field in general, moving away a little bit from representation, or at least from holding really tight to it. Could you talk a little bit about that move as it kind of pertains to maps in early China? What does that move look like, and why is that important?

[Michelle Wong]

So I was trained as an art historian, so the history of cartography, literature, I really. I had to start from scratch. And when I say start from scratch, I mean starting from textbooks and the history of cartography volume and from there, reading footnotes, following footnotes, and working at a glacial pace. There's so much and so such important work that it took a long time and I'm still not. I am not trained as it's. And I can't even say that I've scratched the surface, but maybe as an outsider, I was able to notice a trend, and it's a trend that I was really happy to see and I noticed in art history as well. And that is through time, there's this new interest in broadening beyond the Euro American tradition. So the desire to go beyond a certain kind of map from one geographic region and one time period. And I think that move meant that scholars had to deal with different standards and criteria for examining them. So no longer, you know, Just rooted in Ptolemy and trying to think about Western scientific, mathematical innovation, and then looking at only drawings or maps that look like a 19th century British map or something, people started looking at a wide array of objects. And so I think one of the developments that I started saying that in terms of method is really a process oriented approach. And it was super helpful for me to read this. And I think this approach really wants to understand how space is visualized through material that is constantly being worked and reworked in map making, map using, map sharing and so on, without presupposing that space can only be visualized in one way, that different cultures are going to have different ways of visualizing space using different media. And all of those things are not as stable as we want to think. So you know what that means for representation then is it's not really about mimetic representation. So your map has to look like what the real space out there, the real world looks like, and if it doesn't, that it's inaccurate. Oh dear. And so I think that's something that I really appreciated and I felt like what could really inform my own work. And I think that is one thing that, you know, if I were to give a specific example in chapters 3 and 4, I work with these Ma Wandui terrestrial diagrams, and they date to the mid 2nd century, early 2nd century, and they look a lot like maps that you would expect. But the problem is, once people went in and tried to figure out the scale, it looks like it should have one. You can tell a river from a mountain. So you would think there was a symbolic system at work here, there were symbols at work. It gets a little bit fuzzy. And rather than saying, well, then these are just inaccurate or there's a sliding scale of a scale, I want to say, well, there's a reason why it looks like this and it's because it functioned as something different, right? That is, cartographic accuracy was not really what they were after. It was enough so that again, it certainly maps, you know, which direction to go, for which garrison, you know, how many towns over you have to travel or upstream, you know, all that. But it also serves this other function as an inauspicious omen, right? And that doesn't depend on cartographic accuracy at all.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

I'm just thinking about the combination of that move along with also thinking about just with the vase, the fact that objects can have different uses and different purposes. I imagine combining those two is where you get both interpretive possibilities, but also the ability to then see an object in a much more context. Specific, I suppose, way. Right. Instead of coming at an object with very, very presupposed ideas about what it is going to be and what it has to do. Right.

[Michelle Wong]

Going back to your earlier question, I think about the introduction and the idea. I think I personally, I had a lot of expectations of what a map should be going into this project. And maybe the reason why the FAL ma tan drawing that I saw drew me was because it didn't look like what I expected. You know, it didn't have all the trappings of a map for me. So, you know, a symbol, a legend, it didn't have. It wasn't even clear to me what the projection was or what the scale could be. And I think it's recognizing my own expectations throughout the whole project. And then having myself go back and ask myself, why. Why do I want maps to only work this way? That led me to think, okay, well, what if I tried to go beyond that?

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Thinking of going beyond. You already mentioned this, and we already touched on it a little bit as it pertains to chapter one. But these maps have been studied before or they've been included in different ways. They've been written about in different spaces. So in some cases, when you're looking at these maps, you are proposing kind of a new interpretation or a different interpretation or a different way of looking at it on something that has been discussed and debated at least a little bit. Right. So I guess I'm curious about how you went about that process and kind of with that. Is there a particular example of a map where you personally felt that this kind of needs to be looked at again, looked at in a different way? Maybe put some of the desires for representation aside and look at it anew. Is there a particular example that comes to your mind for that?

[Marshall Po]

Yeah, I.

[Michelle Wong]

This is my first book, and because I. I'm not. I don't think I. So I. I'm not sure if I approached it, if there is a correct way. I don't know if I approached it correctly. But I. I don't think I was trying to do anything new when I started. I think when I started.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

I just.

[Michelle Wong]

Noticed that they pop up here and there and that History and Cordelli and the History of Cartography volume on East Asia did such a great job, along with a lot of other scholars in that volume. They did such a great job, and their arguments are convincing. And I felt compelled by their work. And I think initially I just wanted to bring all of these scholars in very different fields who talk about these drawings. I Wanted to bring them together. That's really how I started. And then also because so much work has been done on them in China, I also felt that their scholarship should also come in. And what happens when you bring all of these scholars who are in different fields all together and you try to put them in conversation with each other. And a lot of these scholars were already in conversation, but then to just pass the net wider, that's really how I started, I think. And I, I think the. What I discovered is that actually there is a very robust body of scholarship out there already. Even though there are so few of these exits early Chinese maps. But it exists, the Exon scholarship exists. And there's. There are a lot of already very interesting viewpoints. I think once I drew them all together, I. That's when I noticed there, there seems to be. There's always mention of it, but a little less focus on, well, how do you make them? So you have the technical. So here I'm thinking about Cao and who has done amazing work on cartographic instruments that could have been used or the actual skills required. But in terms of making. So how do you cast a bronze diagram? How do you actually make a silk. This diagram on this drying piece of silk? So I. That's where I felt like, huh, I wonder. So that was really the path that I went down on my own. And then I tried to figure out how to position myself within this body of scholarship in terms of a specific example. The one that comes to mind is, I should say also that this might be why each chapter reads a little bit. It's not as neat, I think, as one would want the chapters to be, because I am drawing from so many different places. One example is in one of the chapters when I talk about the Mahlon DY Garrison tool that I mentioned earlier. What's very odd to me about this drawing is that all of the mountain peaks along the outside are in a very regulated pattern. Pattern, very regulated pattern. And it's not just around the border. So there's like a rectangular, a rounded quarter rectangle border around it. But on the inside, all the mountain peaks, all the mountain ranges are also very regular. The pattern, the rhythm of the peaks. And that always struck me as strange because there's no way in the real could you have such regulator patterned mountain, a mountain range like that. And I thought to myself, well, where have I seen this pattern where it's so recognizable to me, but where? And then I realized, oh, it's because you see them in lacquer, see that Mountain peak pattern with the curves. You see it in embroidery, you see it across a lot of material surfaces. And so I wonder to myself, is there a way to explain what must have been the process of drawing such regulated peaks materially? That is, is there a material process out there? I can think of where it would explain how you get them to be so regularized. And that's when I pursued embroidery. And I have a section book that's about embroidery. A small section, it used to be larger, but I read it because I sort of went down a rabbit hole for a while and I wanted to talk about embroidery in this period and looking at embroideries excavated from the same tomb site. So not from the same tomb, but from a nearby tomb to talk a little bit about that process, marking high points, low points, and then connecting them.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

And as you were just talking about it sounds like the material form. Thinking about the material form, thinking about the making, was particularly important to you in helping you understand that map and understanding those very, very regular mountains. Is there another example of a map that you talk about in the book where considering the material form was important or transformative in some way?

[Michelle Wong]

I mean, the most obvious example for me is in reference to one of your earlier questions. It was really with the Fat Matan drawings, I think, being able to see, and I was very fortunate to be able, with the support of the museum, the Gangsu Jiang Bull Museum, to be able to also publish the infrared photos where you can actually see more clearly the lines. Because these are very old. These are very old brushing ink drawings on wooden boards. So if you see them with just a photograph of them, you can't see the details of the lines, but in the red photos you really can. And then when you see them in person, it. I. I can't explain, as a big book book historian, you can probably, you know, there is something very magical, I think, about being able to see how someone so long ago was able to make something. And I. And I mean this, you know, why is material form, or I guess materials important to me? Because a lot of times the people who actually made these objects don't appear in text, and there's really no way of knowing anything about them beyond what they make. And I think that brush and ink example really helped me see a person behind these, not just the users of these drawings. That is, how did they take it and how were they able to find natural resources, but to see the person who put their brush down and made these things. And I think that really convinced me that trying to Figure out how all of these maps were made, these terrestrial diagrams were made, were important for me.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

I'm glad you brought up that example because I think there's. I very much enjoyed the images that you were able to include in the book. And that is the example that you have a section where you're discussing, not something that you were the first one to point out. You're talking about an earlier observation about these drawings which are on wooden boards. And you talk about how early scholarship on them was very interested in trying to come up with a relationship between all of the drawings, trying to come up with a big master explanation for all of them. And you point out that someone at some point observed that the drawings are on boards and that they're on both sides of the boards, so they can't have created a single image. And I just loved that as a very, very banal, very, very simple, you know, you know, very. But very important, you know, reason for why the material form matters. Because they, they can't have been designed to have been viewed all at once. I just, I, I just wanted to point that I love, I loved that episode that you talk about in the book. It's just like, oh, they're on both sides.

[Michelle Wong]

The. So Fujita Katsuhisa, the Japanese scholar who pointed this out. When I, when I read it, I thought it was just, it was mind blowing to me because I'd been looking at them for so long and I'd read. And so it was, yeah, they're on both sides. And you can't actually use both sides at once, it seems. And then you have other scholars who have come in, you know, Ji Tsun, for example, who wrote a monograph on these particular drawings. And then other scholars who've come in who have said things that it's a real. They're material observations. For example, the direction that you read the inscription is in the direction of the water flow.

[Marshall Po]

Right?

[Michelle Wong]

It sounds simple, but when you realize that that's the case, you also realize that there's a certain efficiency embedded in this process. And that is because the water flow also follows the direction of the brush stroke. So when you're writing, you're going to draw the brushstroke and your board is going to be oriented one way and then you'll write the inscription. But it really affects what I later argue is the three dimensional aspect of this, of this two dimensional drawing, right? Because you have elevation, it's only ink and it's a, it's flat as flat can be in terms of brush and Ink, all wooden board. You know, that board is soaking up the ink and yet if you can tell where water is higher and lower, you can tell where the mountains are and you can give your two dimensional board an elevation. So seemingly straightforward, but required all of these scholars to really point them out for me to be like, okay, now let me take everything they said, put them in conversation, and what's the result of that? That, you know, so I don't think I come up with anything new. I sort of just take what scholars have said and bring them to their, you know, bring them in conversation and see what happens once they talk.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

It's a fascinating approach. And, and the maps that you, that you are working with in this book are, you know, unlike anything I have ever seen as someone who works on Ming Ching. So, you know, these are very different from what I am also familiar with. But before, so with that, before we kind of close our conversation on this book, is there any, are there any other maps, are there any other things that you talk about or any other observations that you noted in the book that you want to mention, anything we haven't talked about that you think it is particularly important for listeners to be aware of?

[Michelle Wong]

I think, I think, I think I've touched on everything. I think if there's one thing I sort of want to reiterate, it would be that maps can do a lot of things and they can appear in all kinds of media. And I think we now are very, are most familiar with apps, maps, things like that. But that, as Mark Memoir points out, maps will lie to you in very significant ways. And I think the more we are aware of how maps can do all sorts of things all at once, the more careful we can be in both using them, but also the more interesting they become as objects of study. Right. Because then, you know, going back to my own experience, how I wanted them to be maps, I wanted them to map, be maps, be permanently maps. But then I was surprised and after years I realized, no, you should, you should expand a bit out of that and then they become really interesting objects.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Yeah, I mean, I think we're all very familiar with the ways that maps lie to us in the maps that we use daily. And I'm thinking you have several mentions of subway maps in your book. And I think in some ways we almost accept the lies that subway maps tell us about how regular the stops are and where the stops are located. We accept those lies. We accept that the world does not look like. We accept that New York does not look like the New York subway map. We accept that the tube does not look like London, but when it comes to maps in the past, somehow we forget that or we are not attuned to the fact that those maps can do similar things, be different things in ways that we accept from our subway maps.

[Michelle Wong]

Yeah, I think that's if we could be a little. Or if. Yeah. The metro maps. 1. I love metro maps. I like looking at them. I taught my first course on art and cartography last semester. It's my first time trying it. Lots of improvements need to be made. But I was so happy to see a room full of students at 8:30 in the morning who are equally excited about Metro on that. So I know that there are a lot of people out there who have those interests. But yeah, to see that maybe they're not so different from these early examples. It's a thinking exercise, I guess.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

No, for sure. And I mean there is an entire museum dedicated to. There's a London Transport museum. If you have not been where. So you're in very good company with those who, who. Who find maps fascinating and will pay lots of money for posters of them.

[Michelle Wong]

I, I went for the first time last semester. Sorry in the fall. I, I was so happy. I was so happy. And I had to take a photo of every single Metro paraphernalia there was. Yeah, it was, it was really wonderful. But.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

So you are definitely not alone. You know, there are many people out there. So with that. But you know, now that you are finished with this book and such is the field in which we work that one can never be satisfied with one project. One always has to be on to the next.

[Michelle Wong]

Next.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Michelle, what are you working on now? Or I guess I should phrase it, you know, frame it in terms of what have you been flipping through? What has caught your eye? What. What have you become obsessed with recently?

[Michelle Wong]

There's nothing. There are things. There are certain. There are things that definitely I have become very, very interested in, but nothing that I'm confident enough to say anything about yet. Just because I tend to. It takes me a long time to work through material mostly because a lot of times I have to. I consider myself starting from scratch every single time. And I just have to learn. I think I have to learn whole new bodies of material. But I think one lesson that I've learned from this experience is that every time I think I'm doing something new, I sort of end up doing variations of the same. So I thought moving into early China was going to be some very dramatic thing. And it turns out actually, I'm still doing and analyzing and looking and studying some of these artifacts with the same kind of interest I had in Chinese calligraphy from much later. So, yeah, I actually just finished a chapter on Chinese calligraphy that will come out soon. But it felt very strange writing, felt like I was having a moment. Like what? This should have come before everything else, but it has come after. Yes.

[Sarah Bramau Ramos]

Well, then, in that case, you know, best of luck pulling together all of the disparate threads, all of the different scholars who have come before in different fields and, you know, putting things together and imbuing it all with your very, very clear attentiveness to material culture and how things are made and the physical. So good luck with, you know, what you are working on now and what will come out next. I'm looking forward to reading more of it in the future.

[Michelle Wong]

Thank you so much. Sarah.