本文的發想，來自對漢唐地理書的閱讀。筆者發現，嶺南異物著作在漢晉時頗為興盛，劉宋後卻逐漸消失。直到中晚唐時期，標舉異物視角的嶺南志書才再次湧現。本文認為，此與安史亂後，大量北方人口南移度嶺的時代背景有關。本文將從「異／常」的文化意涵出發，探討異物如何成為知識的問題。有別於六朝，中晚唐嶺南異物書寫的作者，在文本中反覆現蹤，展示觀看異物的視線和面對異物的種種姿態，並拓展博物書寫的邊界。另一方面，此期的異物書寫亦有意突出語言問題。作者藉由前代文獻與典故的比附連類，將異物收納進記憶網絡，進而建構南方的知識系譜。

The essay is inspired by reading geographical books that were completed in the Han and Tang Dynasties. The books of Lingnan Yiwu (foreign things south of the Nanling mountains) were popular in the Han Jin era but gradually disappeared after the Liu Song Dynasty. By the time of the mid and late Tang Dynasty, the genre made its comeback. I argue that this vicissitude resulted from the mass migration of people crossing Nanling to its south after the An Lushan Rebellion. The essay starts from a discussion of the cultural significance of “foreign/native” and further inquires into how yiwu (foreign things) entered knowledge to become part of it. Different from the Six Dynasties, the authors appear multiple times in their texts to demonstrate their visual perspectives on yiwu, with the effects of not only presenting their gestures in the face of yiwu but also extending the frontier of the bowu (natural history) writing. Moreover, the writing of yiwu highlights issues of language. The writers adopt attachments, associations, and allusions to the literature of previous eras to absorb yiwu into the memory network so as to construct a genealogy of knowledge for “the South.”