Word: zheng
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...When backpackers first hit the road in the 1970s, they were seen as an antidote to sterile package tours, a return to travel as exploration and adventure. Cheap flights and cheaper costs on the ground meant any Westerner could play discoverer, a modern-day Marco Polo, Magellan or even Zheng He. By living with "the people"?as opposed to living with fellow foreigners in five-star hotels?the backpacker would witness and experience true culture, not some resort-show pastiche. By staying in cheap hostels and eating at small family-run restaurants, he would give his money to those...
This summer TIME embarked on an ambitious odyssey to the once powerful spice islands, sultanates and trading ports visited by Chinese Admiral Zheng He in the 15th century. Our team explores the color and chaos that characterize those ports today -- and the mix of peoples and cultures that have shaped them for 600 years...
...brief interlude, Zheng He challenged such conservative tendencies. By the end of his fleet's seven voyages, China had become an unrivaled naval power. As a result of the expeditions, the Emperor in Nanjing (and later Beijing when the capital was moved north in 1420) commanded the fear and respect of leaders throughout South and Southeast Asia. China had established itself as a trade and diplomatic force, its authority backed up by the thousands of troops who accompanied Zheng He on his travels. If countries could be said to "own" centuries - the 20th century is often viewed as America...
...transport and other internal commerce in gentle inland waters, obviating the need for an ocean route. And the tax burden of maintaining a big fleet was severe. But the decision to scuttle the great ships was in large part political. With the death of Yongle, the Emperor who sent Zheng He on his voyages, the conservatives began their ascendancy. China suspended naval expeditions. By century's end, construction of any ship with more than two masts was deemed a capital offense. Oceangoing vessels were destroyed. Eventually, even records of Zheng He's journey were torched. China's heroic...
...philosophical dispute is far more than a historical curiosity. Through the centuries, China has struggled to find its proper place in the world. The pendulum has shifted back and forth between openness and insularity, between the spirit embodied in Zheng He and that of, say, Yang Rong, the Confucian tutor to the Emperor who argued for rolling back the power of eunuch adventurers like Zheng He. The Confucians won; China wouldn't emerge again as a naval force until the past decade or so, as it began to build up a sizable fleet, probe disputed islands like the Spratlys...