This week we're continuing our story about China's great expedition to discover the world.

As I mentioned last week, everything comes from Gavin Menzies 2003 book: 1421 The Year China Discovered The World.

In addition you can find more evidence and what's still happening by checking the two websites here:⁠https://www.gavinmenzies.net/china/book-1421/⁠⁠https://www.1421foundation.org/

I have to apologise to my Chinese listeners for the pronunciation, unfortunately the book is only in English and I couldn't find the Chinese pronunciation for most of the characters.

In addition, I wanted to note that at the end of this episode I have an emphatic little speech, remember, I am saying this from the perspective of a British national, a citizen of the British Empire. If you don't come from a colonizing country, feel free to skip it. For those of us who do come from colonizing countries I do think that this is an important moment for introspection.

Vocabulary

JingDe Zhen - this is the name of a Chinese city, famous for centuries (and still now) for it's porcelain

Uruapan - a city in Mexico

Michoacan - a Mexican state and ancient people

Reinvigorated - Suddenly got more energy

Limped up - usually 'limp' is used when we can't walk normally, but we can also use it when transport is struggling to get somewhere

Shunned - to not be accepted, to be turned away and avoided

Venetian - Niccolo De Conti was the man who brought the maps to Venice, Portugal and Spain. He was from Venice originally and turned to Islam when he married his wife. He was a merchant. Venetian is the word used to describe people from Venice.

Colossus - describing something very large

Bogus - something that is false, a lie or fake

False pretenses - a common co-location meaning someone did something but they lied about what they were doing or why they were doing it

Posterity - for remembering in the future, for recorded history

Circulatory - related to the circulation of something, in this case the way air and water move around the planet

Xenophobia - prejudice or fear of people from other countries

Zealot - someone who is fanatical, obsessed in pursuit of their ideals, could be religious, political or other.

Barbaric - in English we think of a barbarian as a really violent terrible person, so this describes behaviour we think of as violent and terrible.

Cinders - when something is burned so much we can only see the black ash

Folly - a lack of good sense, foolishness

Latitude - measuring the planet from north to south

Longitude - identifying where we are on the planet east to west

#emmaseslenglish #1421 #chinesehistory #englishlisteningpractise