The idea that Europe was ‘discovered’ by a Chinese man sounds so strange to our Eurocentric ears that we instinctively disbelieve it. Yet it is true, and we have cultural explorer and anthropologist Tjalling Halbertsma to thank for unearthing this deeply buried story. The West had Marco Polo to discover the East and the East had Rabban Sauma, a Nestorian monk. But unlike Polo’s The Description of the World, Sauma’s 725-year-old account is uncontested, with scholars agreeing that the journey of the ‘Chinese discoverer of Europe’, undertaken at the same time as Marco Polo’s arrival in Asia, really did take place. Halbertsma throws new light on Sauma’s ancient account, now buried in the vaults of the British Museum in London. He stumbled across Sauma’s legacy more than once while writing an earlier book, The Lost Lotus Crosses, a remarkable history of the Nestorians (early Christians) of China and Mongolia. InLeap to the West he follows the desert trail of a man who felt compelled to set off for the Promised Land and ended up in Europe. Halbertsma covers the 7,000 kilometres from Beijing, formerly Khan Balek, to Kashgar in the far west of China like a modern pilgrim, searching for traces of Sauma and his travelling companion Mar Markos. Like Sauma, Halbertsma is repeatedly mocked by fate. For the time being his leap westwards will take him no further than the western border of China, where the conflict in Iraq forces him to retrace his steps. As he travels through China, Halbertsma describes relics of a faded past as well as the far-reaching, sometimes tempestuous changes taking place today in the immense interior of the country. Western China is a repressed and therefore little visited region, but this does not deter Halbertsma, as he lurches and rattles along in his unreliable Beijing Jeep, exploring a virtually forgotten part of the world. He stops to investigate grave-robbers in Mongolia, a mausoleum for Genghis Khan, some possible descendants of Roman prisoners of war, an oil town in the middle of the Taklamakan desert and much more besides. Throughout his account of his own journey into the world of Sauma and Markos, Halbertsma provides revealing images of continuing Chinese oppression of Mongols and Uighurs, along with marvellous descriptions of two Asians’ historic exploration of the unknown West. |
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(Sprong naar het Westen)