Junks to Java
Chinese Shipping to the Nanyang in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20050124 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Leonard Blussé (0000-0001-6248-8943, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Pages | 221-258 |
| Publication date | 2011-12-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Chinese Circulations (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1515/9781478091486-014 |
| OpenAlex | W4403959893 |
| ISBN | 9781478091486 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Junks to JaVachinese Shipping to the nanyang in the Second half of the eighteenth century Leonard BlussThe sea is the most extensive of all things.In the southeastern islands barbarians live in great numbers, infinitely far away between the clouds and the waves.Therefore men of letters did not go there in the past.Now that the virtue and splendor of the emperor has spread everywhere, the maritime world is tranquil.Every year ships sail to faraway barbarian lands, stable and safe on the waves, as if they were coming and going over flat land.-Phan Huy Chu, "Hai trinh chi luoc " [Summary of a sea voyage], Recit sommaire d'un voyage en mer (1833) These idyllic lines open the travel account by the mandarin Phan Huy Chu, who departed in 1833 from the Vietnamese port of Hoian on a diplomatic mission to Batavia for the emperor of Vietnam.He sailed on a Chinese junk in an era when the predominance of these ships as carriers of the South China Sea trade was being challenged by the Western square-riggers that frequented these tropical waters in ever greater numbers.His poetic words are quite revealing.Because Confucian men of letters, that is to say writers of flowery travel accounts, hardly ever hazarded their lives on the stormy seas, Phan felt an urge to commit his own adventures to paper.It turned out not to be a hair-raising peregrination but actually quite a comfortable trip, "stable and safe" as if passing over land.By these words, the Vietnamese mandarin not only meant that the sea route was as trodden as a footpath-a wagenspoor, as the Dutch sailors used to call the oceanic route from Holland to Java in those days-he was also alluding to the peaceful conditions in the coastal waters of Vietnam since imperial peace had been restored after the chaos of the Tay Son rebellion
Java · Operating system · Asian Studies and History · Computer Science · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |