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Thread: Do you believe that Marco Polo travelled the whole of China in 14th Century?

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[quote=LEONARDO,253746]Quote: 
"Leonardo, before this thread I would have believed in Marco Polo´s stories, but after doing some research, I am not so sure any more. Knowledge increases pain, heh"

CARLOS ,
You are right. "Knowledge increases pain."  Yeah, there are a lot of controversies about Marco Polo and his travelogue. I also did some research. Here, I want to share the knowledge with you:

"Many people took his accounts with a grain of salt and some skeptics question the authenticity of his account. Many of his stories have been considered as fairytales: the strange oil in Baku and the monstrous birds which dropped elephants from a height and devoured their broken carcasses. His Travels made no mention about the Great Wall. While traveled extensively in China, Marco Polo never learned the Chinese language nor mentioned a number of articles which are part of everyday life, such as women's foot-binding, calligraphy, or tea. In additional, Marco Polo's name was never occurred in the Annals of the Empire (Yuan Shih), which recorded the names of foreign visitors far less important and illustrious than the three Venetians. So did Marco Polo ever go to China? "

We are not sure what Marco Polo has wrote in his travel journals is reliable or not. I am also doubtful and a little bit disappointed. Personally, I hope his travelogue is not a fiction but a reliable record of his travel experiences. Hopefully, the archeologists would provide more reliable evidences in the near future.

According to the research,  the reasons for Marco Polo's return to the West are also controvesial. Some people said that Marco Polo was actually amazed at the splend of the Eastern civilization and was reluctant to return to the West; while some others insisted that Marco Polo came back to his country to spread the eastern civilization.

Here is Marco Polo'  own words about his return to the West: 
" I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice."
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