All summer in the South Valley townhouse/condo complex where I
live, I’ve listened to my neighbors yelling his name. Over at the
community pool, they keep shouting it. In fact, in pools all across
the United States, folks have been busy calling out for him:
”
Marco!
”
”
Polo!
”
”
Marco!
”
”
Polo!
”
All summer in the South Valley townhouse/condo complex where I live, I’ve listened to my neighbors yelling his name. Over at the community pool, they keep shouting it. In fact, in pools all across the United States, folks have been busy calling out for him:
“Marco!” “Polo!” “Marco!” “Polo!”
It’s enough to drive a columnist crazy. Who exactly is this Marco Polo? And, for the sake of my sanity, why can’t anyone ever find the dude?
Of course, the real Marco Polo is long dead – and not, as you might suspect, from drowning in some horrible backyard swimming pool accident.
So, as the summer winds down this Labor Day weekend, I thought it might be fun to consider the history of this Italian adventurer whose name everyone at every swimming pool has been incessantly hollering the last three months.
Marco Polo was born in the year 1254 in Venice, Italy, to a family of jewel merchants. Shortly before his birth, his father, Nicolo, and uncle, Maffeo, had set out on a business trip to the Turkish city of Constantinople. But war sidetracked their travels and forced them to venture eastward to Cathay (what we call China). The Polos met the emperor Kublai Khan, the grandson of the Mongol warrior Ghengis Khan, who made them envoys with a mission to return to him with 100 of the Pope’s Christian priests.
At age 15, Marco joined his father and uncle on their second expedition to Cathay. Two priests volunteered to go, but they soon gave up on the arduous trip. But the dauntless Marco thrived on the adventure and kept a diary detailing the wonders he saw.
And what wonders. In the Black Sea region, he witnessed “fountains of oil” bursting from the ground and used for lighting and heating. Along the Persian Gulf, raiders swooped down on his caravan during a blinding duststorm. Many of the Polos’ traveling companions were “taken and sold, and others were put to death,” he says.
But after an 8,000-mile trek, the marvels of imperial Cathay astounded the lad most of all. Khan welcomed the Polos as distinguished guests when the Venetians finally met him in the Mongol city of Shangtu in the summer of 1275.
Marco Polo saw a magnificent stone and marble palace here surrounded by 16 square miles of a pleasure park that might be compared to Bonfante Gardens (without the amusement rides). Here, the Polos were entertained at lavish banquets where thousands of guests were served a large variety of exotic dishes.
In Cathay, Marco Polo found a civilization far more technologically advanced, and politically tolerant, than to Europe. Silk, jewels, gold, paper, porcelain, spices and other luxuries abounded here.
The printing press allowed for the mass distribution of documents. Intelligent and a quick-learner with languages, Marco Polo became the emperor’s emissary and roamed for 10 years through the provinces taking care of government business. He saw many marvels.
Finally, the Polos grew homesick and asked the khan for permission to return to Venice. After surviving many dangers on the sea journey back, Marco and his father and uncle sailed into the Venetian harbor in 1295.
People were astounded by the stories the Polos told – and the jewels they brought back. A romance writer from Pisa used these travelers’ tales as well as Marco’s diary to write a manuscript called “A Description of the World.”
In 1324, as Marco lay on his deathbed, a priest begged him to confess that the wild claims in his stories weren’t true. Marco exclaimed: “I have not told half of what I saw!”
Historians believe Marco Polo’s travel book helped spark the phenomenal growth of trade between Europe and China in the 1400s. And without that trade, the accidental “discovery” of the New World by Europeans searching for a shorter route to Asia might have taken place a century or so after 1492. Christopher Columbus reportedly kept a copy of “A Description of the World” on his voyages.
What does Marco Polo mean for the modern world? As China grows into a giant power of the 21st century, the story of Marco Polo takes on new relevance. Just as the Italian traveler commercially tied the West to the East and transformed the globe’s political landscape, nations again face the fact that China, as the world’s second largest economic power, will likely shape humanity’s future in the next 100 years and beyond.
With its economy rising at an astounding annual 8 percent for the last 20 years, and its population of 1.3 billion people also becoming consumers, China will prove a trading partner of vast magnitude. But along with that rising affluence comes serious challenges for our future.
For instance, many Chinese consumers are now buying automobiles, which, of course, require gasoline and emit pollution. Scientists have found that winds blow dangerous gases from China’s factories and cars across the Pacific Ocean and traces of pollutants have been detected along the West Coast. No doubt China’s pollution wafts in the air we breathe here in the South Valley.
And recently, some politicians were alarmed at a Chinese company’s bid to buy the California oil company Unocal. They feared a potential Asian takeover of many other American companies. That attempt was dropped, and Unocal shareholders instead agreed to a merger with Chevron.
Marco Polo might be amazed by how China has so quickly transformed itself into a powerhouse of a nation in our new millennium. But then again, he might not. In the days of Kublai Khan, he saw what marvels the Chinese are capable of. And he truly respected their innovative culture.
Where’s Marco Polo now when we need him to help us appreciate the historical significance of China’s economic boom? No matter how long we call his name in a pool game, we’ll never get an answer from Venice’s most famous traveler.
