Compare And Contrast Ibn Battuta And Marco Polo

Throughout history, the term “barbarian” has been used to refer to groups of “uncivilized” people with savage and evil qualities. What it essentially means is foreigners. A specific group of people called “barbaric” are the Mongols, a small tribe from central asian grasslands who during the 13th century, conquered much of the known world. The Mongols lived a nomadic lifestyle, often at the outskirts of other developing civilizations. An illiterate people, the Mongols trained themselves to ride horses and use siege weapons, making them excellent warriors. As they swept through much of Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, conquering numerous lands, the Mongols began to be known as strong

For a brief time in world history, China dominated maritime exploration. Even though quite unintentionally, a previous century’s invention of the magnetic compass played a pivotal and facilitating role and provided Chinese sailors a two-hundred-year head start over their European counterparts. However, it was not until blending those navigational advancements of the day, together with nautical technologies of shipbuilding architecture and propulsion found China readily thrust to the forefront. Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty desired to leverage those technologies to construct an immense armada attesting to the court’s military prowess. Supported by a backdrop of politically favorable winds and a generous endowment, the Emperor commissioned the undertaking of explorations to an experienced Admiral named Zheng He.

In the eleventh century, China and the world of Islam were flourishing. However they were conquered and ruled by the Mongols. The political and economic effects of Mongol rule on China and the Middle East were similar but different in their own way. The Mongols toleration and acceptance of the religions in that region were slightly different from each other.

By examining these four documents one can easily see the diverse exchanges throughout the Indian Ocean Basin by the spread of trade and religion. One can easily compare these exchanges to that of the Silk Road in the post classical era of history. Just as the Indian Ocean Basin helped spread religion to east and southeast Asia, similarly, the Silk Road spread Buddhism to southeast and central Asia. From this evidence, it is clear that the dynamics of cross-cultural exchanges in the Indian Ocean Basin was mainly through trade and

Ancient China was a highly developed civilization whose many dynasties each had some kind of significant development, let it be in trade, invention, art, religion, government, or architecture. Two dynasties in particular, however, marked the Golden Age of Chinese history. This period is known for its large economic revolution. The two dynasties were called the Tang & Song Dynasty. The Tang & Song Dynasties were experiencing a Golden Age due to the fact that they had a fair system in granting government positions, brought highly advanced inventions to the world, and had very intricate architecture.

Christopher Columbus as we know is the historical person credited for the discovery of the New World. Zheng He was a Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. Each men and their fleets had two completely different reason for their travel. Christopher Columbus purpose was to find a new trade way to the Asian countries. Zheng He's purpose was to enlarge empires control of seaway trade. Zheng He's voyages took place in the Indian Ocean and Christopher Columbus's took place in the Atlantic Ocean. Though their voyages were different they both made a huge impact on the politics, economics and human civilization.

There are many things that could be compared between the two books Sundiata an Epic of Old Mali and Ibn Battuta in Black Africa. Any characters throughout the books could be compared, small or large themes, or even the struggles the main characters faced throughout the story. Sundiata and Ibn Battuta had many characteristics that made them similar, like their courage and determination. Comparing Sundiata and Ibn Battuta, they were both respected and brave in different ways; Sundiata being brave and respected by fighting against all odds and taking his empire back and Ibn Battuta traveling all around Africa constantly showing respect to the people he met and a willingness to learn about the cities.

As Marco Polo roamed through steaming deserts, and vast seas, he had multiple discoveries and was very successful. But one thought was always on his large, intelligent mind, the death of his dear, departed mother. His mother was there for poor young Marco everyday of his infancy, and then she just fanished, and sadly passed away. Although Marco Polo left with his father in 1271, he had 15 years of a complicated childhood. Marco Polo was born in Venice, Italy, and began his childhood with his mother. His mother died when he was five years of age. His aunt had to raise him for most of his childhood. His aunt taught him how to read, write, judge products, and also about foreign money. The adventurous Marco Polo was a very successful and influential explorer because he

During the 1405-1433, Ming dynasty of China under the ruling of Yongle appointed Zheng He to go on a voyage to reestablish trade route. This is an important event in term of trading because the Black Plague of the 1300s caused the global trade to be halted. Zheng He's expedition shows China's effort to reenter this global trading system. Many accounts of Zheng He's voyage comes from novels and secondary resources, and these sources exaggerated many aspects of the expedition such as the size of the "Treasure Ship". One of the most accurate accounts of the voyage comes from Ma Huan's "Ying-Yai Sheng-Lan - The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores". Ma Huan is a eunuch appointed to go on the voyage with Zheng He and he is known to be a precise

Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng’en, a novelist in Ming Dynasty, originated from Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, folk legends and Yuan Zaju operas. As the first full-length romantic god-evil novel in ancient China, this novel portrays the social reality at that time in depth, and is the beginning of magic realism. In the original version of Wu Cheng’en, the main characters are Sun Wukong, Tang Seng, the pig and the sand monk. This novel tells a story that Tang Priest and his three disciples travel westward for Buddhist Scriptures. After eighty adventurous experiences, Tang Sanzang finally reach the west and got the real scripture. As one of four great classical novels in China, Journey to the West has been interpreted and represented in forms of script for story-telling, poetic drama, novel, traditional Chinese opera and film during the long cultural history (CHEN 1). With the carriers of film and television program, doing visualization to classical texts is the most distinctive representing way in modern times. This paper presents how to recompose, represent and interpret classical national texts like Journey to the West in the form of animation from two aspects of the creation and inheritance of original texts.

Xuanzang started his journey in 629 C.E. An imperial decree by the Emperor Taizong forbade him to go beyond the borders of the Chinese Empire. So he snuck out of the empire when dusk had arrived. Xuanzang traveled by night and hid during the day so that it was easier for him not to be detected. He traveled along the Silk Road surviving the dangerous Taklamakan Desert and the high and deadly mountains of Tian Shan. Since the obstacles that they had encountered were too dangerous, then Xuanzang’s companions that traveled at the beginning of the journey lost their confidence, turned around and ditched him. He was now alone with very little to eat and he had very little supplies. Then, he ran into a guide that had traveled the route that he was

“The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that’s especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and

We all know about Marco Polo and his travels, which serve as one of the main historical sources about Central Asia and China for that time period. However, Muslim world has also their own “Marco Polo”. His name was Ibn Battuta and it is believed that he traveled more than 70 000 miles.[ Marlène Barsoum, “The traveller and his Scribe: In the footsteps of Ibn

There are two giants in the Axial Age of human history, Confucius and Plato, who are considered as the landmark in the oriental and western world. They are great philosophers, ideologists as well as excellent educators, whose thought have profound influence to the oriental and western world. Confucius’s ideas maintain authority for more than two thousand years, which have intimate connections with development of Chinese federal society. Even to this day, it still remains practical significance and reflects the glorious radiant. Plato’s doctrine is a source of Western political thought. The political elites of the west today can still see the shadow of his influence. Confucius and Plato share the similar life experience and the life pursuit. Both of them lived in the period when the slavery system declined and both of them had the ambition to create an ideal society. Therefore, through compare with Confucius and Plato’s idea, we can see there are some similarities in their concepts of philosophy and education. But contribute to the diversity of historical background and culture tradition, we can also see many differences of their thought, among which there are many sparkling points that is worth exploring. In this paper, we’ll study some of their famous pedagogy thought to explore what influences they have brought to the Chinese and westerners’ cognition and behavior and why the two civilizations developed in same period would diverge in such a degree. Furthermore, I

It is usually hard to avoid stereotypes in any representation of China or Chinese people in Western film. As argued in Part 1 of this thesis, stereotype is necessary in representation of the “Other” because we need ordered, fixed and simplified information for things we are not familiar with; we want to exclude things that are different to free ourselves from anxiety; it is always inequalities of power behind stereotypes.