Gavin Menzies, author of 1421 and 1434 visits Shanghai

I went to a talk today by Gavin Menzies discussing his books 1421 and 1434. The talk was one of M on the Bund's Literary Luncheons and I can't recommend them enough. If you find yourself in Shanghai, please check M's web site to see what's on - it can be really worth your time.

Mr. Menzies' discussion focused on the maps he has used to establish his well-received (and much criticized) theory that not only did the Chinese treasure fleets led by Zheng He, the eunuch admiral under the Emperor Zhu Di, map the entire world by 1421, but that European explorers including Columbus, Magellan and da Gama, were armed with copies of these maps when they set out on their own "explorations".

What I found terribly interesting was the genesis of Menzies' interest in the subject. During a 1990 visit to Beijing, he found that many of the great accomplishments that are major tourist attractions in the area were completed in 1421. His guide told him that the Great Wall*, the Ming Tomb they had visited and the Forbidden City were all completed in that same year. This was during the legendary Ming Emperor Zhu Di's reign, a forward-thinking man who commissioned the treasure fleets and sent admiral Zheng He with thousands of emissaries to explore the world and bring back diplomats from the places he visited.

Menzies decided to go home and compare England at historically the same time. Where British rulers were eating dried cod from plates of stale bread, Zhu Di was celebrating with a massive banquet that included 26,000 guests eating from the finest blue & white Chinese porcelain. It is not difficult for me to make the leap, as Menzies does (with countless items of proof), that the Chinese did, indeed, circumnavigate the globe years before the Europeans did.

In any event, whether you're a believer or not, Menzies' theories are interesting reading and subject matter. Don't forget, if we are still to believe the commonly-held opinion that Europeans were the first to map the world, they did so all the while believing the earth was flat. They too were proven wrong.

*The Great Wall was not completed in one go. What most of us know now is a Ming Dynasty refurbishment of interconnecting walls begun as early as 656BC during the Chu State. Read more about the History of the Great Wall.

From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture.