East meets West (or West meets East): The Story of Marco Polo
Dear all,
We’ve had a joint Enrichment Week this week as we have celebrated the language and culture of Italy and China. Our assembly reading on Monday celebrated the life and legacy of the man whose life was in many ways a story of the connection between those two countries and those that lie between them.
January 2024 marked 700 years since the death of one of the world’s most famous ever explorers, whose life spanned the cultural gap between East and West.
Marco Polo was born in 1254 in Venice, Italy, a city that even then was known as a hub where East and West met through trade. At the age of 17, he joined his father and uncle on their second expedition eastward, making their way along the Silk Road on a journey that took them three years, eventually reaching the court of the Emperor Kublai Khan in what was then Khanbaliq (today’s Beijing).
He spent about 20 years in China, conducting business and serving as an ambassador for the local government, having gained favour with the Emperor, apparently due to his intelligence but also his humility. During that time, he travelled extensively throughout South East Asia, visiting India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as spending considerable time in various parts of China itself. In 1291, they began the long journey back to Venice, via Constantinople, arriving two years later.
At that time, Venice was at war with Genoa. Marco Polo was captured, and it was during the time he spent in prison that he dictated the stories of his adventures to his cellmate, which would later be published in the book ‘The Travels of Marco Polo’. Although not the first European to visit China, his account was the first to be written down in such detail, and in it were the first Western records of gunpowder, paper money, and various unheard-of plants and animals. He also referenced the many cultural differences he had seen – how women in Central Asia rode horses on equal terms with men; how people in Malabar washed themselves before eating and used only their right hand; and how the Emperor had trees planted along roadsides to provide comfort and guidance for travellers.
His book was widely renowned and was considered one of the sources of inspiration for later explorers such as Christopher Columbus. It has also been one of the sources of a debate about whether Italian pasta originated from Chinese noodles, though culinary historians now dismiss that theory, suggesting instead that the origins of pasta can be found in ancient Greece through references to laganon, a flat sheet that may have been the ancestor of lasagne, and Arabia, where nomadic tribes dried what sounds like an early form of macaroni before setting out on long journeys.
In a world long before globalisation, Marco Polo was one of the first people to share observations of people and culture from places thousands of miles distant from Europe. His book was hugely influential at the time, and his importance is shown by the many things named after him, including Venice’s airport, a breed of sheep in Asia, and the 19th-century ship that was the first to travel from England to Australia and back within 6 months. Perhaps most importantly, Marco Polo showed the benefits of shared cultural understanding for all of us. His influence in bringing eastern culture to the western world was hugely significant, perhaps fuelled by his open-mindedness and non-judgmental approach to the many and varied things he saw on his travels.
Have a great weekend
Best wishes
Michael Bond
