Zentrasia
The morning during which they set sail was a cloudy but quiet one. They were, however, not to leave the shores out of a visible range. They were not to veer from the all too well-known routes nor the unsurprising waters that Chinese sailors had been using for ages. This well-worn route was the path of silk, vanilla, opium and Cheng Ho, the admiral who was to become the first Chinese merchant to be introduced to the court of the Sultans of Malacca. He had a secret mission as well. His travelling companions were disguised as bookkeepers and masters of the arts of weights and measurements, but these same men were some of the most renowned masters of the arts of languages and calligraphy. Amongst them included those who would spend years at the court of King Sejong, in a search for the perfect and genuine writing, one that preceded speech in nature. Cheng Ho was tasked with the job of noting the way in which each language of the world identified existing, imagined or presumed things, together with the way in which these are bound together. His journey was a consequence of the powers that be, who thought that new knowledge could be developed by knowing all the names available in the world. This was the mission, hidden behind the piles of goods to be sold and markets to be opened. At the end of the road lay a people that was not yet created, and a burden that had no reason of ever being revealed to Cheng Ho. Weeks have passed already since the expedition has started its long way southwards along the shores. Harbours and islands drawn on Cheng Ho’s maps appeared along the way. A long letter in a scroll, describing the shores of the maps on pulp, was unfolding simultaneously as their physical entities began to appear before the sailors’ eyes on the right side of the ship. In the same way, the open waters of the Pacific were narrowing in concurrence with what was not revealed in the papers. We know little – if at all – about whether Cheng Ho had considered what was lying on the
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