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It takes a certain character to sail off into the unknown, driven by the elemental forces of wind and water. Did Zheng He balk when the Emperor Yongle gave him the command of the treasure fleet? There's no record that Zheng He did anything but display those shell-shaped teeth in a smile of gratitude. Most likely the Emperor reasoned that the kind of cool courage Zheng He had shown in battle would prove handy in dealing with tempests, sea monsters, pirates and conniving Sultans. After all, the nautical stuff could be left to the fleet's multitude of captains.
Even a confident warrior like Zheng He must have been daunted by the sea's many perils. The Chinese, like the Europeans in those days, believed that if you sailed too far, you would cascade over the edge of the world. The treasure armada had charts and maps (some dating back to the 10th century Song dynasty), which described the coastline, the positioning of stars and where fresh water could be collected along the route. But there was always the danger that a storm could blow them so far off-course that they would be sucked up by colossal whirlpools and spun off the side of the planet. It didn't matter if you were the Imperial Grand Eunuch. If you strayed too far, you could still vanish down the plug hole.
The Chinese also believed that storms were caused by giant, green-blue dragons; and sailors had to keep incense burning constantly as an offering to Tianfei, the Celestial Consort. Her gentle spirit was supposed to calm the dragons, preventing them from whipping up giant waves. Even though he was a Muslim, who theoretically believed only in Allah and his Prophet Muhammad, Zheng He didn't take chances. He carried out elaborate prayers to Tianfei, who was thought to float above the sea in a red dress, leading seamen away from danger. Before embarking, he and his crew presented offerings to Tianfei's altar — entire herds of goats, pigs and cattle, boiled alive with their hooves bound as if kneeling.
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At sea, pacing on the ramparts of his top deck, Zheng He consulted daily with Taoist priests and astrologers as well as with his navigators. Every ship in the fleet had its Tianfei altar and no matter how rough the seas, there was always a curl of incense smoke rising for her, as there is in hundreds of junks today along the South China coast.
My motorized junk still bears a faint resemblance to Zheng He's ship. Both have wide bellies, shallow bottoms, a prominent galleon-type stern and teak timbers that probably came from the same South Asian forests. They also share a squared-off nose that may have been designed for hauling in nets or repelling pirates but is now used by weekend junkies for their corporate bashes. My junk was built by the Shing Lee Fat shipyard at Aberdeen harbor. Like the old master shipbuilders, today's junkmakers don't use blueprints. Wiry, and wearing a stained Jean Paul Gaultier T shirt, Chan Shing-chow says: "I go by feel." It's a skill he learned from his father and grandfather. "I was forced into it. I couldn't even think of doing anything else," he adds. "You know, when I finish a boat, I really have to admire my own handiwork. I make beautiful things." He has no sons to apprentice, no one to whom he can pass along this millennial knowledge.
I ask him how much it would cost to build Zheng He's vessel today. "Impossible," he replies. There is no shipyard big enough in Hong Kong to do the job. One sailor guesses that the imported teakwood and the silk sails alone would cost upwards of $10 million. And, unless you want to navigate the ship, as Zheng He's crew did, with a magnetized needle floating in a water-filled stone basin, you'd need to shell out a few million dollars more for guidance systems and satellite communications.
Even though my junk retains some residual DNA in its timbers from the treasure ship, I want to experience something closer to the real thing: a vessel with sails. I want to know what it felt like for Zheng He, as his ship crashed through the waves and the wind ribboned his long beard and mustache. In Hong Kong and around the southern China coast, only four or five sailing junks remain afloat. One of them, the Precious Dragon, belongs to an Englishman living in Hong Kong, Marc Cuthbert, who at first rented it out for filming kung fu movies and staging beauty pageants. Then Cuthbert decided to sail it to England, which he planned to reach on the day the British handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese in 1997. (He arrived four months late, after run-ins with Vietnamese and Indian authorities, an indignity that Zheng He never suffered).
Blond with craggy Nordic features, Cuthbert is an engaging mixture of gadget-head and high-seas sage. He undertook the voyage, he says, "to complete a karmic cycle." He explains matter-of-factly: "You see, in a previous reincarnation, I came out on a clipper ship. So now I'm retracing my route in a Chinese boat." This seems an odd confession to make in an office filled with the latest computer gear and pictures of high-tech racing catamarans and flying boats, and Cuthbert grins at my amazement.