Marco Polo's Adventures in China - Documentary and Movie

[Winston]

Check out this documentary about Marco Polo's exotic adventures in China in the 1200's. He spent 20 years there and said that he lived for traveling and seeing the world, and that it made him feel alive to see new lands. He found the typical life of staying in one place everyday to be like a "living death". He sure had the heart and spirit of a gypsy or nomad, like many of us do.



Here also is a 3 hour movie about Marco Polo in China that was made in 2007. It's pretty good. It's so exotic watching a Westerner visit China and experience it all there!

Part 1:



Part 2:

[HenryGeorge]

It must have been an incredible journey for Marco Polo traveling through Asia for 24 years. He reached further than anyone before him, beyond Mongolia to China. It was also said that he was amazed at the great wealth, enormous power and complex social structure China had as well. I would imagine he was probably a bit sad when he had to go back home after such an experience.

[Winston]

Yeah imagine being a foreigner in China in the 1200's. He must have been the most exotic thing. Why didn't he take advantage of that and bang tons of Chinese and Mongol girls?

The documentary above said that in those days, parents would sell their daughters as prostitutes to travelers passing by. That's hard to believe.

Did Marco Polo really bring the concept of noodles back to Italy from China? Is that how Italians developed pasta and spaghetti? Or is that a myth?

[HenryGeorge]

It appears those have been myths after all.

The legend can be traced to an American trade publication called the "Macaroni Journal," Journal's issue for October, 1929, included a story recounting how the famous Venetian traveler, accompanied by an Italian sailor named Spaghetti, observed Chinese cooks making their favorite noodles. Spaghetti learned the process and Polo brought a recipe named after his companion back to Venice, thereby opening the pasta era in Italy. The legend spread, and it still shows up in news articles and cookbooks. The tale of the Chinese origin of pasta is a complete fabrication. To prove it, we need only to show that pasta existed in Italy before 1295, the year Marco Polo returned from his 20-year voyage of discovery in the east. Sure enough, there is a legal document dating from 1279 that lists the possessions of a Genovese soldier named Ponzio Bastone. Among them are una bariscella plena de macaronis – 'a basketful of macaroni'. It seems that footsoldiers routinely carried pasta in their rations.

Pasta is an ancient food—not so ancient that it predates written records, but no one was taking notes when this popular food first came onto the scene. Scholars credit the Chinese with making pasta from rice flour as early as 1700 B.C.E. The pasta-centric Italians believe pasta dates back to the ancient Etruscans, who inhabited the Etruria region of Italy (the central western portion of Italy, what now are Tuscany, Latium and Umbria) from the Iron Age into Roman times (from the 11th century B.C.E. to the 1st century B.C.E.). Around 400 B.C.E., they began to prepare a lasagna-type noodle made of spelt. The Romans who followed made lagane, a kind of lasagna, from a dough of water and flour. However, both the Etruscans and the Romans baked their noodles in an oven, so boiled pasta had yet to be born in Italy.

Authentic dried pasta is made with durum wheat and was introduced to Italy around the 8th century when the Muslims conquered Sicily. Arab traders took the dried pasta on their travels because of its long shelf life and nutritional value. Sicily soon realized that the main ingredient, durum wheat, was a crop suitable for the soil and weather of their land. It was this Arab invasion of Sicily that heavily influenced the regional cuisine, introducing Italy to a dish that would one day come to define it.

According to the American historian Charles Perry, who has written several articles on the origins of pasta, the first clear Western reference to boiled noodles, is in the Jerusalem Talmud of the 5th century C.E. Written in Aramaic, it used the word itriyah. By the 10th century, itriyah in many Arabic sources referred to dried noodles bought from a vendor, as opposed to fresh ones made at home. Other Arabic sources of the time refer to fresh noodles as lakhsha. Credit for the invention of boiled pasta is given to the Arabs. Traders from Arabia packed dried pasta on long journeys over the famed “Silk Roadâ€￾ to China. They carried it to Sicily during the Arab invasions of the 8th century.

What about the development of pasta like foods (and especially spaghetti) in Europe? Clearly the lagana that Marco Polo spoke of was the first noodle-type food to be found mentioned in Italian writings. And the only one for quite some time. But around the 1100’s we also start seeing the word vermicelli being used to describe a kind of “pasta with strings.â€￾ In particular, there are records of it being made and sold to mainland Italians by the Sicilians. And interestingly enough, not long before that time (in the year 965), Sicily had come under Arabic rule. In addition, this same sort of food consisting of “pasta-like threadsâ€￾ can be found described in Arabic writings from that same general time period. So by all indications, spaghetti pasta was “inventedâ€￾ in Sicily roughly between say 1000 and 1100. And it was apparently invented by either the Arabs, the Sicilians, or both of them together. But whoever it was that first came up with spaghetti pasta, it is most definitely the Italians who have made “spaghettiâ€￾ such a popular dish and household word all around the globe today.

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-07-13/ ... marco-polo

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/p ... -pasta.asp

http://www.allaboutspaghetti.com/whatisspaghetti.html

http://www.sceneboston.com/pasta-the-he ... n-cuisine/

http://www.rd.com/slideshows/6-food-cre ... t-believe/

[Jester]

Yeah imagine being a foreigner in China in the 1200's. He must have been the most exotic thing. Why didn't he take advantage of that and bang tons of Chinese and Mongol girls?

The documentary above said that in those days, parents would sell their daughters as prostitutes to travelers passing by. That's hard to believe.

Check out this video at 21:48 to 23:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YywvtiTVIzI


It seems that Marco Polo was the actual discoverer of Happier Abroad!

[droid]

Yeah imagine being a foreigner in China in the 1200's. He must have been the most exotic thing. Why didn't he take advantage of that and bang tons of Chinese and Mongol girls?
The documentary above said that in those days, parents would sell their daughters as prostitutes to travelers passing by. That's hard to believe.

Check out this video at 21:48 to 23:00

It seems that Marco Polo was the actual discoverer of Happier Abroad!

Awesome!
Today they greet your business visit with a trip to the KT bar, and guess what, they line up literally dozens of girls for you my goodness.