Thursday, December 01, 2005

Genghis Khan & Kublai Khan & Marco Polo in Beijing


kazakh nomad
Originally uploaded by rkchapman.
Marco Polo, Italian trader, spent some 20 years in the court of Kublai Khan, Beijing. Kublai's grandfather, the successful Mongol invader Genghis Khan, made beijing the capital.

Polo was the first European (about 1200 AD) to describe life in China.

Map:
* Huang He (Yellow R.) and the Chang He (Yangtze R.).
* Taiwan, democratic Rep. of China
* Gobi Desert
* Pyongyang, N. Korea
* Seoul, S. Korea
* Nagasaki & Hiroshima, Japan

Another terrific movie by Zhang Yimou: Hero. It takes place during the reign of the first emperor, Shi Huang Di. Hero is quite an epic; it shows another side of a versatile director.

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