Admiral Zheng He Fever Grips Asia ->

So, after re-reading Descendents of the Enunch Admiral (Pao Kun's Play), essence of Zheng He keeps coming back.

May 26, 2005
UPFRONT
Admiral Zheng He fever grips Asia

By Larry Teo
SINGAPORE - NAVAL architect Chung See Kit loves ships. But he has no taste for weird designs, even if he is only creating a replica.


RE-LIVING HISTORY: Actors re-enacting the start of Admiral Zheng He's voyages in Taiping Harbour in Fujian province earlier this month. -- XINHUA
If the real thing is unlikely to work at sea, it won't appeal to him, he says.

He is referring to the long-drawn-out debate by experts who cannot agree on the size of the boat that legendary Chinese seafarer Zheng He used to sail a third of the way round the earth in the 15th century.

Some believe the Ming Dynasty admiral's Treasure Boat was enormous - as long as a football field and 50m wide.

'They insist that what's not doable now was somehow possible in the past, like the pyramids,' scoffs Mr Chung, director of a shipping company and a member of the Friends of Admiral Zheng He, a Singapore group devoted to celebrating the life and deeds of the admiral.

'That must have been a huge, fat duck of a vessel, a design defying aerodynamics.'

For its replica to mark the 600th anniversary this year of its hero's first voyage, the group chose a simpler version based on lesser-known records.

The 2m-long replica represents a 60m original, and will be unveiled at the new National Library at Victoria Street in August.

Several other events, all involving the Singapore Tourism Board, kick off here in July. These include a Zheng He Festive Village at Marina Promenade, a musical and the installation of a huge stone landmark at Labrador Park that the admiral is believed to have noticed as he sailed past.

July is roughly when he embarked on his maiden voyage. He went to sea six more times over 30 years.

Zheng He fascination has endured worldwide along with legends about his life and how he sailed with at least 30,000 men and 200 boats on each trip.

Said to be of Arab descent, he was born to a Muslim family surnamed Ma in China's south-western Yunnan Province. He was captured by soldiers of the Ming Court as a child and became a eunuch in the palace.

Because he helped Emperor Yongle (1360-1424) seize the throne, he enjoyed royal favour and was eventually made an admiral.

His voyages took him to Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Malacca, India, Sri Lanka and as far as the Arab Peninsula and East Africa. All this, nearly a century before Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean and Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope.

He brought with him China treasures like silk, ceramic wares, gold, iron tools and artefacts, and returned home with exotic items and diplomatic representatives of the places he visited. From his voyages to Africa, he brought home leopards, lions, ostriches and even a giraffe, which stunned the court.

The China travellers are also said to have left a trail of descendants in several places, including Malacca, where the admiral is better known as Cheng Ho.

His exploits earned him no less than deity status in Chinese communities stretching across his South-east Asian route.

At this year's jubilee celebrations across the region, China is making the biggest splash. In March, a 31m wooden junk, financed chiefly by overseas Chinese, left the north-eastern port of Qingdao to trace Zheng He's route to Mombasa in East Africa.

Modelled on a vessel dating back 800 years, the Green Eyebrow has been described as the largest imitation ever of an ancient Chinese ship.

Mr Yao Mingde, the official overseeing all jubilee activities in China, told the media recently: 'Zheng He's mission was to ensure China's maritime security and initiate trade and exchanges with faraway countries. He achieved all these in a laudably peaceful way.

'Today's China must match his lust for adventure and his savvy in forging durable peace with our neighbouring countries.'

Jubilee festivities in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore comprise mainly exhibitions, seminars and enactments of the voyages.

Hong Kong's Chinese-language Phoenix cable TV station also sent a vessel to Africa - a sailboat with a crew of three, and their six-month odyssey is being aired now.

Captain Shaun Weng said of the trip: 'It helped me discover my pride as a Chinese. We had travelled between two oceans 600 years ago, way before the Westerners.'

Even Taiwan is celebrating. 'We're building a life-size Treasure Boat, which we'll put to the sea in July as a symbol of our search for peace with the mainland,' said Cheng Chi University's Professor Tang Shao-cheng.

In Malacca, an 8,000-sq-m Zheng He museum will open in August on the site of the admiral's warehouses. Building it cost S$3 million, which was raised privately by the Singapore-based International Zheng He Association.

Singapore's celebrations might seem the least justified, considering the admiral never docked here. But Professor Wang Gungwu of the East Asian Institute says older Singapore Chinese can relate to his adventures because their forefathers emigrated here by sea.

Amid the accolades being heaped on Zheng He, Dr Geoff Wade of Singapore's Asian Research Institute says it is important to remember that the admiral had colonialist designs.

His voyages certainly were not violence-free. There are also records of Zheng He attacking and destroying a fleet of pirate ships in the Malacca Strait. He took the leader back to Beijing to be executed.

To Chinese national Yu Zhoufeng, a manager in a Singapore shipping company, it is worthwhile noting what happened after Zheng He died in 1433, aged 62.

The court burnt all his log books and banned all boats from venturing afar because it decided that sea trade was not lucrative and it feared that its coastal subjects would become pirates.

'After that, China closed its doors to the outside world until they were rammed open by Western warships in the 19th century,' said Mr Yu. 'I'd rather this year be a reminder of the bad things - China's tendency to look inward and the harm that autocratic regimes can cause.'

But Prof Wang sees Zheng He's adventures as continuing to inspire the Chinese who want China to become a sea and naval power.

'In South-east Asia, Zheng He and his fleet have that added importance of being a model of benign power. That is the image China wants to present to this region as it becomes a mighty power,' he said.