Marco Polo’s Unsuccessful Attempts to Spread Christianity in the Yuan Dynasty

Abstract

Since the start of his journey in 1275, Marco Polo has been one of the most significant figures to promote cultural exchange between the East and the West throughout history. Instead of discussing the authenticity of Marco Polo's experiences in China, this essay focuses on finding the reasons that contributed to Marco Polo's unsuccessful attempts to spread Christianity in China during the Yuan Dynasty by concentrating on "The Travels of Marco Polo" that he wrote. Combining details from this primary source text along with contemporary documents, artwork, and Chinese culture during the Yuan Dynasty, there were many factors that prevented Christianity from spreading. In particular, this essay explores three key factors: the prevalence of Buddhism, the customs of the Chinese people, and the failure in converting emperor Khan to Christianity during the Yuan Dynasty. In conclusion, the convergence of these factors serves as the explanation for the unsuccessful popularization of Christianity during the Yuan Dynasty.

An integrated mechanism and challenges of mountainous sustainable development: A review of Hani Terraces, China

“…For example, the song sung during the Hani spring festival narrates how the Hani spring festival was born; some songs narrate how a house is built and who is the first man to build a house there (Lu, 2011). Besides, there are lots of festivals in a year and each festival needs all the villagers to participate in celebrating activities and enhance their ethnic consciousness and ethnic sense of honor, such as the Angmatu Festival, Kuzhazha Festival (celebration after finishing seeding), New Rice Festival (celebration after rice harvesting), Festival of the Ten‐month Year (similar to the spring festival of Han Ethnic) (Bai, 1989; Zhang, Min, Zhang, He, et al, 2017). Abundant ethnic food types and their making methods also play a critical role in transmitting traditional knowledge on the utilization of crops and wildlife, which teach children when a plant begins to be grown and what functions and values it has.…”