Marco Polo's City of Heaven

The Venetian explorer found peaceful men and bewitching women during his 12th-century travels through Hangzhou

When Marco Polo entered the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, it was a different place - not just different from where he had been before, but different from what it once was.

Thirty years earlier, the child emperor of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was smuggled out under cover of darkness as Hangzhou fell to the Mongol hordes of Kublai Khan.

Whether the explorer was aware of the complexities of the decadeslong battle of the Khan against the remnants of the Song is up for debate, but he did indeed enjoy the beauty of what remained.

"The king who fled (the child emperor) has the greatest palace in the world," he wrote. "It is all painted in gold, with many histories and representations of beasts and birds, of knights and dames, and many marvelous things. It forms a really magnificent spectacle, for over all the walls and all the ceilings you see nothing but paintings in gold."

Referred to as Kinsay in the Travels of Marco Polo, he describes the city of Hangzhou thus: "Inside there is a lake that has a compass of some 30 miles (48 km), and all round it are beautiful palaces and mansions of the richest and most exquisite structures you can imagine. These belong to the nobles."

He called its residents "fair and comely" and remarked on the bridges, sugar and silk.

It's through Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem that Kublai Khan is remembered most vividly in the West, but to hear Marco Polo tell it, Hangzhou was the home of what remained of Imperial China's gentility, a bedrock of civility and pleasure, expressing a sentiment held by many visitors: "Hence, it comes to pass that when they return home they say they have been to Kinsay, or the City of Heaven, their only desire is to get back thither as soon as possible."

Now, it must be said that Marco Polo is far from a trusted source, as he omits large swathes of history and landmarks (the Great Wall is not even the worst example) as well as claims at one point that Hangzhou had pears that weighed heavier than 5 kilograms. His Venetian cultural filter is also on full view: "They eat every kind of flesh, even that of dogs and other unclean beasts, which nothing would induce a Christian to eat."

Yet in the end, this wasn't a vacation. Marco Polo was sent by the Great Khan to inspect the revenue brought in by the territories south of the Yellow River. The salt alone caused the Venetian to gush. Salt makes "fourscore tomans", he writes, referring to the ancient gold coin. "In sooth, a vast sum of money."

He remarks that the rest of the territories he visited didn't grow as much sugar, speaking of the various items that came through that great port with glowing alacrity - the rice wine, traders from India, and silks.

The business Marco Polo saw in the late 12th century is something entrepreneurs from overseas today may want to keep in mind. The people of Hangzhou "treat foreigners who visit them for the sake of trade with great cordiality, and entertain them in the most winning manner, affording them every help and advice on their business".

It was with the people of Kinsay that Marco Polo was most impressed. To him, this City of Heaven seemed like the most genteel place he had so far visited in his travels in the Khan kingdom.

The men "are of peaceful character, both from education and from the example of their kings", he says. "They know nothing of handling arms, and keep none in their houses. You hear of no feuds or noisy quarrels or dissensions of any kind among them."

The women, meanwhile, were among the most elegant in the world, adorned in silk and fine perfumes, he says, adding that certain women "are extremely accomplished in all the arts of allurement ... insomuch that strangers who have once tasted their attractions seem to get bewitched, and are so taken with their blandishments and their fascinating ways that they never can get these out of their heads."

Hangzhou was of immense symbolic, strategic and economic importance to the region of China and to the rising Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). As for the people: "They are thoroughly honest and truthful, and there is such a degree of good will and neighborly attachment among men and women that you would take the people who live in the same street to be one family."

Courtesy of The World of Chinese, www.theworldofchinese.com

The World of Chinese