Once upon a time in the land far, far away
there was a princess...

Once upon a time in the land far, far away there was a princess...

Lu zi in New Jersey had a unique way of incorporating ancient history in her recent travel journals. Her words fascinated me. When she saw in Khotan, Central Asia, that silk processing method was the same as what she had known all her lifetime back home in Southern China, she wrote:

"Before Princess was sent to marry, all her belongings -- including the clothes on her -- were thoroughly inspected. When finally arrived in Khotan, she took off her headcloth, let loose her long hair, and released all the silkworm eggs she had hidden in her hair. Princess must have also brought mulberry seeds with her. From that time on silkworms from Zhong Yuan started to settle in the oasis."
(*My translation.)

The original (in Chinese): http://www.worldjournal.com:82/gate/gb/
www.worldjournal.com/wj-books_news.php
?nt_seq_id=1718370&ct=86&page=1
(May 19 & 20, 2008 )
Sorry, this link is old.

Princess in the story was from China. She was to marry Prince of Khotan, whose kingdom was several thousand kilometers from "Zhong Yuan" (= "central plain"; my translation), which was the region where the capital of China was located. The time was about 2,000 years ago.

Imagine being ordered to permanently relocate in a strange land far, far away from your home without seeing pics or videos of the place you are going to live for the rest of your life beforehand! Imagine traveling for months through the rough country without an air-conditioned vehicle or a motor-bike, without a cellphone in your purse or any public phones on the way, only to meet up with an almost total stranger who speaks another mother tongue...

Romantic? I don't think so!

I do not know if Princess had the opportunity to meet her future husband in person before she was sent to marry him. Probably not! Was she given the right to refuse at all? Maybe not, either, as it involved lots of political factors. When did she master the language of her husband's people? Only heaven knows.

In the time when there were no roads Princess and her companions must have spent many months crossing the wilderness and the vast desert. We may never know whether she had cried, whether she had been injured, or whether she had lost any travel companions along the way, but thank heaven she arrived safely in the foreign land -- with silkworms that she had smuggled from her country.

Khotan, or Hotian, is a very old city on an oasis bordering the southwest of Taklamakhan, "one of the largest sandy deserts in the world" in Central Asia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakhan)

Lu zi mentioned in her journal that the desert was 520,000 square kilometers without any highways. When the above story happened Buddhism was flourishing in that oasis, in which there were many races living in and passing through incessantly. It was only 1,000 years later that Khotan embraced Islam. The territory is now populated almost entirely by Uighur, a minority in northwestern China.

Here are pics of modern days Khotan, which was what Lu zi saw when she was there not long ago:

According to Lu zi,

"The Prince of Khotan had told his messenger to request Princess to bring silkworms so that she could always have silk attire even when she was far away from Zhong Yuan."
(* My translation.)

Throughout history Khotan has long been known as "the first place out of China to begin cultivating silk."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Khotan)

Before the time of Princess, however, silk manufacturing had been controlled exclusively by the Chinese authorities.

"Anyone who revealed the secrets or smuggled the silkworm eggs or cocoons outside of China would be punished by death."
(http://www.silk-road.com/artl/silkhistory.shtml)

Come to think of it, Princess had been very brave to have defied such rule! Legends said with those silkworms and mulberry seeds she and her maids successfully started and promoted silk manufacturing in Khotan. Thank goodness it was very far from China!

Silk was later spread to many places in Central Asia and eventually to the Roman Empire and Europe.

Lu zi quoted a well-known old poem written by Ma Zhiyuan (1260 – 1325), a poet and playwright who lived in the era the fierce Mongols roamed China. The poet, upon seeing the thinly polulated wilderness in Central Asia about 1,000 years after the days of Princess, wrote:

There is an excellent translation in Wikipedia:

"Autumn Thoughts"
A Withered vine, an ancient tree, crows at dusk
A Little bridge, a flowing stream, some huts
An old road, wind out of the west, an emaciated horse
A heart-broken man on the horizon at sunset.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Zhiyuan)

The poet's simple words strongly depicted the bleakness in the remote country as seen through the eyes of travellers from the prosperous heartland in China. In reality, ancient paths in the desert were not just lonely but also full of unpredictable danger. Those who were dispatched away from home to such territory must have been completely heartbroken fearing there was little chance for them to return to their families safely within their life time.

Princess, however, did not leave much traces of her lamenting for the impossibility of coming back to her beloved parents in China. Instead, records showed that she had busily engaged herself and her people in promoting silk manufacturing in her husband's land. Her enthusiasm and efforts eventually brought great changes to human history. These days silk is still expensive but it is almost everywhere. Here we have another wonderful example of the power of a displaced Chinese female.