MIA
Posted by: andrew william, 13-Jan-2010
I was quite amused by the catch phrase on the Star Newspaper headlines today, "Missing Indians Abroad with bold capitals to denote "MIA" which means, missing in action.
During the early 1400, China was one of the most prominent and civilized generation in the world and they traveled the world to bring the countries under a tribute system to China. They traveled in large numbers probably in the region about 600 hundred leviathan and treasure ships with over 10, 000 crew. The Indian Engineers, their business partners used to sail with them because they were good in mining while the Chinese were good in navigation and geology. For e.g just by seeing certain plant life in a particular place, they can say with fair accuracy if that place has certain minerals and metals such as gold, copper, diamonds etc.
A potrait from Ming Dynasty
That's how the Indians and Chinese had amassed large quantities of gold and diamonds when they traveled. It was when China closed their doors to the outside world due to a freak fire in the Forbidden City, Most countries such as Malaysia, India, Egypt and Africa which were under China's protection became vulnerable to foreign invasion and theft. During the spice trade years, the Portuguese, Spanish and British fought among themselves to get a piece of the action.
Today, the biggest diamond in the world called " Kohinoor", or the African diamond which used to belong to the Emperor of India Shah Jehan, is on the crown of Queen Elizabeth.
Emperor Hung Wu, first Emperor of Ming Dynasty and father to Zhu Di in early 1400
The Chinese at that time when they traveled around the world left a few Chinese citizens to colonize the country or region, thus bringing prosperity and knowledge to the land. The Chinese who were left by Admiral Cheng Ho in Malaysia were traders, that's why the Chinese in Malaysia today have a business mindset as they come from that generation.
I guess when Admiral Cheng Ho returned to China with lesser than the number of Chinese he set out, The Emperor Zhu Di, must have asked him what happened? To this he must have replied, " Missing Chinese Abroad."
