Six Hundreds Years Ago

My idea of heaven is simple enough. A constant feed of 'History Channel' plus an on-demand 'Comedy Central'. That's one of the reason why I won't subscribe to a cable TV. That'll be endangering, whatever tiny they may be, the real life that I have. For the same reason, I also love 'National Geographic' magazine. For me, it's one of the most elegantly designed magazine and enriched with beautiful collection of photos. But two things I dislike about the magazine: (1) they carry a heavy price tag, and (2) they tend to mixed the background historical facts with the journey commentary in the same article. I wish they emphasize more on the history.

Recently, I have the opportunity to read the lattest edition of NG (their local edition still counted as one of the highest priced magazine here). This month they celebrate the 600 years of the of Admiral Cheng Ho (a.k.a. Zheng He in Han dialect) journey. He is an important, but mostly unnoticed, historic figure that connect the Far East (Chinese) world with the South East, Middle East, through as far as the East coast of Africa during the first half of 1400's. Although the historical proof were sketchy at most, he docked and made cultural contact with: Champa (Vietnam), Ayuthia (Siam), Surabaya (Majapahit), Palembang (South Sumatra), Malacca (Malay Peninsula), Samudra Pasai (Aceh), Chittagong (Bangladesh), Calicut (West India), Ormuz (now part of Iran), Jeddah (Arab), Mogadishu (Somalia).

Several facts that I find interesting: (1) he lead at least seven fleet expeditions, each a grand fleet that made the subsequent European expeditions seemed pale in comparison (the first one alone comprised of 30,000 men and over 300 ships), (2) one theorize that during this periods, the Chinese sailors has circumnavigated the world, reach among other things, the American continent 70 years before Columbus, (3) Cheng Ho is a moslem and once was a POW taken from Yunnan, a Mongolian province, -the same region where our said anchestor came from, (4) this said to be huge Admiral, 7ft (2m) tall with 1.5m waistline, is a catastred eunuch. (ouch?)