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December 2, 2008 |
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Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
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Reviewed by Erik Orellana |
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Michael Yamashita's new book takes us on a photographic journey tracing the exploits of one history's least known explorers, Admiral Zheng He. Nearly a century before Europe sent out explorers in search of new lands for trade, China had launched the largest fleet the world would see for nearly five centuries. Zheng He took his Treasure Fleet of some 300 ships and 30,000 soldiers from the coast of Vietnam to the shores of the East African Coast, by way of India, Sri Lanka and the Arabian Peninsula, on seven voyages in the service of the Ming Dynasty. The fleet was not just impressive on a numerical basis alone, the junk cargo ships Zhen He used to carry silk, porcelain and other goods were some 400 ft. No European navy, no navy in the world could rival China's at the time.  cover, Zheng He © Michael Yamashita
The book is broken up into seven sections dealing with a different leg of Zheng He's travels with Yamashita writing about his experience while photographing. There's also an informative historical introduction by Gianni Guadalupi who has written several book on the culture of travel. Guadalupi addresses whether Zheng He's fleet made it to the Americas; the idea behind the book, "1421" by Gavin Menzies which got Yamashita interested in the Admiral in the first place. "Zheng He" is first and foremost a travel book and you get a really sense of that when reading Yamashita's captions and especially the excerpts from Ma Huan's account of the voyages peppered throughout the book next to photographs. As Yamashita tells us it is thanks to Ma Huan's writings that we even know about the Great Admiral. When China slammed the door shut on foreign trade and contact with the outside world, when ambassadors were recalled and the once mighty Treasure Fleet was abandon to rot, the writings of Ma Huan and Fei Hsin, the fleet's chroniclers, were all that were left.  © Michael Yamashita
Why would Imperial China at the highest of its power scuttle its ships? Yamashita answers this question as only a photographer can. In the opening pages, Yamashita has a photograph of a 31,000-ton stone monument that still lies where it was cut never having been moved. There is a person with a red and white umbrella helping to give the monument perspective. The Forbidden City was commissioned by Emperor Zhu Di as were extending huge sections of The Great Wall and expanding of the Grand Canal System. One of these projects alone would have been a mammoth undertaking and on top of all this was Zheng He's fleet. All these projects put great strain on the treasury. Imperial China did not do things on a small scale.  © Michael Yamashita
Yamashita had only about a week in each country before having to move on and he made great use of his time if the 300 plus photographs in the book are any indication. Yamashita doesn't just take one photo and move on to the next place on the list. When you see the photographs together you see the story of the Zheng He's journey. Some of the books most notable photographs are of the sulfur miners in East Java. We encounter a yellow so vibrant and strong we can all most smell it. The camera captures dense plums of volcanic gas escaping the earth. We see men with buckets of sulfur across their shoulders. Men lit by the early morning sky. Men who have clearly known work their entire lives. Yamashita has one photo of a man with two full buckets of sulfur and the picture just grabs you. You see in the gaze of his eyes and in the position of his face, an expression Zheng He must also have seen for these men do the work in the same way as was done back then.  © Michael Yamashita
Yamashita's use of the camera opens up a myriad of perspectives on to the world. There are the action shots of Mongol tribesmen trying to coral a rebellious horse, worshipers at the Hindu festival Datkut Chachar pulling along religious carts by way of metal hooks in their skin, Buddhist monks prostrating themselves at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth and of a young Muslim boy looking to his father for guidance on how to hold his hands in prayer. There are photographs of the markets from Yemen and Viet Nam, thousands of miles apart and people trade and barter as they have always done.  © Michael Yamashita
Yamashita brings us vividly energized photographs of the San Po festival which takes place in the Indonesian city of Semerang where Zheng He is worshipped. Zheng He is long dead but his godhood is still intact. The colors of the photographs give an added dimension to the proceedings. Yamashita shows us people in elaborate costumes and make-up reminiscent of Chinese opera. Zheng He's travels helped to spread Chinese cultural influence to places he visited. The veneration depicted in Yamashita's photographs show that Zheng He must have been one extraordinary human being to elicit such remembrances.  © Michael Yamashita
There is an outstanding photograph of Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka where one can see why such a place would be considered holy. A cloud snakes around the emerald peak giving the photograph an almost mythic quality as if it were a passage from an epic poem. Yamashita recounts the serendipitous story of how he got the photograph. As all really good photographers know it is about getting "the" picture that can tell the story you want. As Yamashita tells us he got very lucky in getting that shot and he wasn't the only one. A prominent aspect of the inherit beauty in Yamashita's photography is the diversity his camera sees. The world has always been a diverse place, it has never been monolithic. Zheng He was a follower of Mohammed in the service of the Chinese emperor establishing trade and diplomacy along the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia . How is that not incredible?  © Michael Yamashita
It is a shame Zheng He is not mentioned along Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan since his expeditions clearly merit recognition. When da Gama arrived on his three ships the people on the Swahili Coast of Africa were not impressed. They told the story of "white" ghost dressed in silks who had visited long ago on massive ships full of cargo for trade. It is on the Swahili Coast that Zheng He found "celestial horses", as zebras were known by the Chinese then and he also brought back to the Imperial court giraffes thought to be "qilin" a scared animal in Chinese mythology. Yamashita has done a remarkable job on taking us to the places Zheng He saw and showing legacy he left. With books like "Zheng He" the Great Admiral will not be lost to history again.
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