He was a merchant of Venice which was a popular seaport during the 13th century in Europe. Archer (2011) explained, "The three travellers started from the coast of Syria, and made their way through Armenia and Persia to the famous city of Baghdad"(p.18). They crossed multiple cities of great repute including Kashgar, Khotan, and Yarkand which were also popular trading centers of that period. They even crossed the Gobi desert and reached China to meet Kublai Khan, a Mongol Emperor. He later wrote a book that includes vivid descriptions of the distant lands.
Yet he is unknown to most of us and even to most Chinese. Sun Shuyun, herself brought up in China, was determined to follow in his footsteps, discover more about Xuanzang and restore his fame. So she retraced his journey from China to India and back. In the 8th century, crossing 110 kingdoms, he took 18 years. He opened up the east and west of Asia to each other - and to us.
Silk Road journal entries: an insight into the human psyche Day 86 It seems like years since I last saw my family in China. It was hard to leave them, but I knew I had to leave and try and support them through trade. In the beginning, my travels were very harsh. Before our first trading post, we came close to completely running out of supplies. Fortunately, we made good friends with fellow traders from a northern Chinese village.
In Calvino’s Le città invisibili the Chinese emperor Kublai Khan is unable to keep track of his expanding and also decaying empire and so he sends a traveller, Marco Polo to visit the cities. Marco Polo travels to fifty cities in the empire and returns to describe the cities to the Khan. Le città invisibili is a fragmented text in which there are two levels; one is the italicised dialogue between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo and the other is Marco Polo’s description of the cities. In this novel Calvino evokes feelings of “nostalgia for lost illusions, loves that never quite were, happiness perhaps only tasted” (Bloom, 2002) The male point of view predominates in Calvino’s Le città invisibili. In this novel the city is a metaphor for the female body, and so in the text women’s bodies are subjected to the male gaze of Marco Polo, and through description that of Kublai Khan.
He was not the first European to explore China his father and uncle, among others, had already been there. But none of them became as famous as Marco this is due to his famous travels which has been written
Marco Polo is an Italian merchant, explorer and writer from wealthy merchant family. In 1271, Marco Polo set off for the voyage to Asia with his father and uncle, and during this adventure, he passed though China and met with Kublai Khan, a Mongol ruler, who found the Yuan Dynasty China. After he made a great fortune, he returned to his homeland, Venice, in 1295, but during this time, Venice was at war with Republic of Genoa. Unfortunately, Marco Polo was captured in the war and imprisoned. He spent several months of his imprisonment writing a detailed documentation of his travel with his inmate, Rustichello da Pisa.
Starting from Mao, traditional art of thousands of years in the making, like ink painting and calligraphy, has been abandoned for the new and absurd art of contemporary artists. I personally disagree with this claim, as contemporary art seeks to redefine and expand upon Chinese culture. If we only remember the past, there is no way to move
There are two main situation that should us religions are limited in china. The first one, in China, most people do not really understand religions and they do not have beliefs. According to Giles (1950) Christianity, comparing with other religions, Christianity’s entrance into Chinese society is earlier than others, but that did not affect people’s life. Some people think practicing religion could affect their lives, work and study, because practicing one religion needs a lot of time and energy. Even some people think religion cannot bring benefits to their lives since religion cannot change if they live in poor area or not.
Why would people decide to go from “money” with actual wealth to something that ultimately is worth nothing to the owner? People back then, at the time paper money was being made, wondered the same thing. The people who used metals as currency thought the idea of paper money was a joke. “After Marco Polo visited China in the late 13th century, he returned to Europe with tales of a society that used paper money. People found the ideas so ridiculous that they thought he was exaggerating” (Merritt).
As Chanakya, an Indian scholar once said “A man is great by deeds not but birth”. This quote is quite true to Gandhi as even after being born in a aristocrat family he wore dhoti and spun his Irish spinning wheel to make cloth. He did this because he had started a movement in which the Indian’s stopped buying cloth from the British called ‘Stop British Cloth’. Gandhi was famous around the world due to the impact of his deeds like spinning the Irish wheel. There are many deeds he did which helped him achieve his standard but the three most important one’s are: the 21 day fasts he did to protest against the between the Muslims and the Hindu’s; becoming a successful lawyer with a law office in South Africa back when no one respected India; taking three bullets right in the chest to free India from the British control.