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Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 欢迎回来酒馆. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone.

So I have a question for you, 安澜.  

Okay.

If you had 6 months, a decent amount of savings and absolutely no obligations, what would you do?

First of all, I would say thank you so much, Lulu, for giving me all of that time off and...

Oh, that's hypothetical! It’s for the discussion. Don't even think about it, yeah, but hypothetically.

Hypothetically speaking, because I'm definitely not going to get that. I would travel, not the three cities in 10 days kind of travel. I mean really travel, slowly, deeply with no set return date. I'd go somewhere completely different, live there for a while, learn the language, make some local friends, and basically just experience it, really.

That would be your dream life.

That would be my dream life, yeah.

So not just a holiday, a vacation, something more intentional.  

Yeah. Something that's not about just checking boxes or taking photos so I can post on WeChat, something that is deeper, something that I would probably call 安澜's grand tour.

I've heard of the word ‘grand tour’ before, the concept. That's not 安澜's grand tour. I thought it was rich kids from the West before the aristocrats.

It is. So we're gonna actually be looking at the history of the grand tour and its modern descendants like the gap year and what it means to go on your own grand tour in the 21st century.

I'm also going to share with you that in China we had a history of that as well.  

Yeah. So let's start first of all with the Western tradition.

Okay,

What exactly was the Grand Tour? The Grand Tour was a practice that began in the late 16th century and reached its height in the 18th century.

Back then, normal people just couldn't really travel. They were stuck in their villages, right?

Well exactly. This was the idea that people were traveling for fun and to learn things. Whereas in the past, travelling was something you avoided because it was so dangerous.

So this kind of travel involved wealthy young men from northern Europe, particularly England, traveling through France and Italy for anywhere between a few months to several years.

You know, you read these stories in a lot of the literary works would describe something about these rich kids traveling.  

Yeah. The very famous German poet Goethe.  He went on a grand tour and he went down to Italy.

Yeah, even later when I was reading things like Frankenstein, it also talks about them traveling in Europe.

Because this was all part of a classical education. So these rich kids spent years studying Greek and Latin, learning about ancient Rome and Greece, but they hadn't actually seen it. So the grand tour was about experience in that culture firsthand.

Is it the equivalent of a field, a very long field trip?

Yeah, so what they would do is they would cross the English Channel. They would spend time in Paris, study French, manners, fencing, dancing, and riding. Bear in mind that back then, rich kids could generally speak French.

Then they would cross the Alps into Italy, go into Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples, to experience the culture.

I bet Rome was the highlight.

Yeah. Because they studied art, they visited private collections.  They even got paintings from artists like Canaletto (全名Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697‑1768)，18 世纪意大利威尼斯顶尖城市风景画家) and bought antiquities to bring back to England.

Wow, rich people traveling was really different.

Oh yeah, and this was also networking because they made connections with the European elite.

也是各种各样的社交，是吧?

Well, yeah, these were the days when gentleman would just go to speak to a friend of a friend. Give them a letter and say I am in town now, would you care to meet? So people were constantly meeting other people as well.

In salons and exclusive clubs, I imagine.

Yeah exactly.

The high society things. Yeah, but it does sound just like the original gap year for the aristocracy.  

Well yeah. It only came to an end by the 19th century because travel became more accessible because you had railways and then you started have guidebooks as well. So traveling became less exclusive.

Yeah, and it turned from a luxury to something that average people could afford.

Well yeah.

You know, that's a Western tradition. You know, there's a Chinese counterpart.  安澜, you've been learning Chinese all these years. Have you ever heard of a term called 壮游?

Yes, uh, from 杜甫, isn’t it?

Wow, I’m so impressed. So壮as in强壮的壮, so it literally means Heroic Journey, the Big Journey or Journey of Ambition.

Okay,

So, like you said it’s coined by 杜甫(Du Fu), the great Tang poet who wrote a long autobiographical poem called 壮游(Zhuang You), which I think it's the very apt translation of the grand tour.

Yeah. So what was his tour?

He describes his own youth traveling from 洛阳(Luoyang) to the south, exploring the 江南(Jiangnan) region and sailing on the East China Sea. He spent about 4 years on the first journey, and then after failing the imperial exams, he traveled North and East for another 8 or 9 years, meeting people, making connections, and just experiencing the world.

So that was really a grand tour, and he wrote a poem about it.

Yeah, a long poem about this. So this... and you also have to think that he called it Zhuang You, heroic or ambitious, because he wasn't just like wandering aimlessly.  It was with a purpose; it was intentional travel, meant to shape a person and prepare them for something, whether it's a career, life's mission, a calling, or simply a broader understanding of the world.

Yes.

Sounds like all of the things the kids saying why we need to take a gap year to find myself.

Yeah.

So I think across Western and Chinese cultures, we always have that whole idea of the grand tour.

Yeah. But the question is what makes a journey a grand tour rather than just a very long holiday?

Because there were, I don't know, they're rich.

I would say there are three core criteria.  So first of all, it's long. We're talking months, not days, so a grand tour is measured in seasons, not weekends. It's not a 3-day city break; it's a complete cultural immersion.

You do need that time, actually.

Second, it's challenging. So it pushes you out your comfort zone. You face unfamiliar situations, language barriers, logistical difficulties, and sometimes even real hardships. So you have to overcome obstacles and build your own resilience.

I think the third is it involves some form of cultural exploration and deep human interaction.  It's not just 走马观花; it's not just like standing in front of a landmark and says oh yeah, that's the famous landmark. It's not 打卡.

No, exactly. And it involves a deep human interaction: you're connecting with people from different backgrounds, not just seeing the sights.

It's also you’re reflecting on your own life.  You're building, or you're forming understanding of the world.

Precisely.

By the way, do you feel that when you travel.

I’d like to feel like I do, to be honest. I really don't talk to many people when I travel. I really should; I really should do that.

But when I travel, it's about kind of really me being on my own in a new place, you know, dealing with all the language difficulties and just kind of experiencing the place on my own. That’s why I actually prefer solo travel rather than traveling with friends or family.

Gives you that time to have a deep contemplation.

It does. I know it sounds really weird, but when I travel, it really kind of gets me thinking about the things that are important to me.

So I end up coming back from traveling with like new ideas. What was that Chinese expression读万卷书, 行万里路,

读万卷书, 行万里路,  I'm impressed, so read 10,000 books, travel 10,000 miles...

I notice that you actually read, and you have read relevant literature and history books when you were...

When I travel, what I generally do is I usually find an old travel book.

It could be like a Travel Guide. Sometimes it is. But other times it's maybe a book written in the1930s, 1940s or 1950s about the place I'm visiting. And the thing is in England, there's so many of those type of books, so it's very easy to find one of a place that you've been to or you're going to.  I like to take the book with me and read it as I'm actually there.

So it’s kind of like comparing the past with what you can see right in front of your eyes. That's a very interesting idea. It's almost like you're doing time traveling.

For example, I went to Marrakech (马拉喀什) in Morocco, and I found a book written by this guy who lived in Marrakech in the1950s, and it talks about his life.

I, on the other hand, read about folklore in that place. So I guess we have the same idea but different focus.

Yes.

It's basically about the balance between scholarly study and life experience.

Yeah, exactly.

排版长图：Jer.ry

文稿校对：脆脆面 & Jenny

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