Controversy on the high seas

2009-11-8 | NEWSPAPER EDITION

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Menzies is at the Concordia School lecture and author's reception last month.

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AUTHOR Gavin Menzies' theory that the Chinese discovered the New World decades before European explorers has drawn mostly scorn from historians. Nancy Zhang reports on the seagoing tale. In person and on paper, author Gavin Menzies is a riveting storyteller.

With light blue eyes reminiscent of the sea, this former British submarine captain tells of ancient Chinese maritime maps, secret Portuguese voyages, and mysterious references in the diaries of famous explorers Ferdinand Magellan and Christopher Columbus.

Twenty years of seafaring experience is written into his white haired form, and into his books. In 2002 Menzies published the international best-seller "1421: The Year China Discovered the World."

The book proposed a revolutionary theory that Admiral Zheng He set sail from China during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and that his fleet discovered America decades before Columbus.

Despite reader popularity, the book's sensational claims got him into trouble with the academic world. Last year with his second book "1434," Menzies again caused waves with a theory that it was the Chinese who sparked the Renaissance.

"I was just really lucky to hit upon a true story. All these theories already existed amongst some historians, it's just that they were sidelined and didn't have a good publisher," he told Shanghai Daily on a recent visit here for a talk at Concordia International School Shanghai.

Looking frail for his 70 years, the polite Englishman is an unlikely historical upstart. Menzies left school at 15 with no academic qualifications and had no experience in writing books or historical research. He only began writing as a hobby after retiring from the British Navy in 1970.

His first attempt at writing sprawled over 10 years and a proliferation of subjects, unrelated to discovering continents.

The China connection began in the 1930s when Menzies' father, also a submarine captain, was stationed at the port city of Weihai in Shandong Province. He brought his family, including then three-week-old Gavin, to live there for two years.

Even after returning to London, they had a Chinese "amah" or housekeeper for five years who taught Chinese to Menzies.

As an adult, traces of China all but disappeared from Menzies' life, and he is unsure what influence remained from this early contact. But half a century later in 1990, he returned to China for a holiday.

It was in Beijing that he became obsessed with the year 1421. While standing in awe of the Forbidden City, a tour guide mentioned that the palace was finished in this year and that the then Ming emperor hosted a lavish banquet.

Most tourists would have forgotten this bit of trivia, but Menzies promptly decided to devote himself to researching the differences between Ming China and Medieval England.

"I compared the inauguration of the Forbidden City to the wedding of Henry V and Catherine of Valois. I found that China had 26,000 guests and 10 courses eaten off magnificent plates. England had 600 guests and were too poor to have plates - they had one course of dried fish eaten off a piece of bread."

But his first attempt at a book was not a success. While writing about the year 1421, a coincidence linking China, the year and his maritime experiences completely changed his focus.

While doing research, Menzies came upon a map in the University of Minnesota library. The Pizzigano Map was made in 1424, before Columbus' voyages in the 1490s. Yet when Menzies saw it, a cluster of islands immediately caught the navy veteran's eye.

"Here were the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe, some 70 years before they were meant to have been discovered. I thought this was staggering."

Menzies suddenly had a compelling theory and the seeds for "1421." He rewrote everything and began traveling the globe to gather what he saw as mounting evidence that China discovered the New World before the Europeans.