In a review of “Strange Stories from the Lodge of Leisures,” a classic Chinese short story collection by Pu Songlin of the Qing Dynasty, Virginia Woolf concludes her discussion by saying that “[s]o queer and topsy–turvy is the atmosphere of these little stories that one feels, when one has read a number of them, much as if one had been trying to walk over the bridge in a willow pattern plate” (E2 8). Indeed, by reading Chinese literature, Woolf was able to imagine the exotic land no matter how strange it proved to be. The very imagery Woolf employed in such an analogy is the classic Chinese landscape, the willow pattern. As a most popular domestic artifact in the English society, the willow pattern plate, with its vivid visual refl ections of Chinese landscapes and the exquisite porcelain, has become an important cultural symbol of the East in westerners’ imaginations. By likening her reading experience to walking over the bridge in a willow pattern plate, Woolf was in fact materializing her perception of otherness when encountered with new literature and cultures.

Woolf 's reading of Chinese literature and mention of Chinese artifact were no accident. Woolf developed an early interest in foreign literature and culture while reading in her father's grand library. Her later travels in many European cities expanded her knowledge and understanding of foreign cultures. For those countries where she never had a chance to traverse herself, she learned about them either by talking to family and friends who had returned from abroad or through extensive readings. These experiences and knowledge are inevitably refl ected in her works. Th ough most of her novels are set in Britain, we can find foreign affiliations in the major characters in one way or another. Exotic landscapes thus become a necessary but subtle element in Woolf 's novels. Landscape writing on South America, Italy, India, Russia and even China can be found in many of Woolf 's writings, in which she chooses different imageries from the natural world and sometimes uses them as cultural symbols.