What if China found Mexico first?

I think I made it abundantly clear that that's NOT my theory. I found some information on the Net and I just wanted to share with the forumers here.

BTW, I don't think you read my summary of that article very carefully. It doesn't claim that the Chinese helped to develop the Amerindian civilizations. It says various civilized societies had already been in existence there when the Chinese allegedly arrived there. It even goes as far as the Chinese borrowed some religious symbols from the Amerindians.

Please don't assume that everyone who's interested in the possibility of any Asian presence in pre-Columbian Americans is a sinocentrist. One can look at this interesting question from many different angles.

I think when one's refuting a theory or hypothesis, one should provide some arguments (like the one provided by Mixcoatl - very good point BTW) instead of just saying things like "the theory is weak" or "the theory is crappy" with no substantiation. The idea behind any good discussions is of course to exchange opinions, but good opinions are based on facts or arguments.

For instance, in the case of Prof. Wei's theory (which I don't honestly know much about), he seems to rely a lot on ancient Chinese texts that I am sure most of us do not know anything about. This guy has been devoting himself in digging out and dicephering ancient Chinese texts for over 4 decades. I think for us lay people to dismiss his work using just an adjective "weak" is doing him and the research community a whole a huge injustice (even though he may be entirely wrong).

And for those of us who don't know much about ancient Chinese texts specifically, maybe we could instead ask constructive questions like, "How much should we trust ancient texts like those?" For instance, I don't know about the two ancient texts - San Guo Zhi and Liang Shu used by Wei here, but I have heard of another ancient text called Shang Hai Jing which has in fact generated a lot of interests from Chinese and non-Chinese scholars alike. A lot of research on this text has been done and scholars have been able to come up with interesting hypotheses, for instance, on pre-historic Korea and pre-historic Southeast Asia.  

flyingzone

I think when one's refuting a theory or hypothesis, one should provide some arguments (like the one provided by Mixcoatl - very good point BTW) instead of just saying things like "the theory is weak" or "the theory is crappy" with no substantiation.

I think I was very explicit in my comment about the theory you posted on the Chinese being weak: it's because the way you put it, the roles could be easily inversed, being the Amerindians who discovered China instead.

 

Edited by Voyager

Originally posted by flyingzone If you ask my personal opinion on the possibility of contacts between the people of ancient China and those of pre-Columbian America, I would actually say that the chance is pretty slim

Then why do you keep insisting on such contact, post after post?

Voyager, what is this hostility about?   We are all just trying to talk about stuff that we're all interested in. We may not agree with other people's opinion all the time, but there are many ways to show disagreement. You don't have to sound so angry and hostile all the time!?! Take it easy, relaxed, and have some fun talking about history!!!

 

� Zone, I believe Voyagers hostility might come
from you not accepting his counters to your points,
and folding quietly.

�� In the past fifteen years there have been several
accounts�of Chinese archeologists opening
undisturbed tombs, ca 2000bce and finding peanuts
and peanut shells, squash seeds and even traces of
cocaine in pottery containers.� All of these are native
to central and s. america.

    On the idea of Amerindians discovering China,
sure, it's possible, show me some evidence that
Amerindians had developed ocean going vessels
and I would take it more seriously.

     There is more evidence pointing to the chinese
being in N. America at an early date than to the
contrary.

      

�

       Zone-� Maybe Voyager got ahold of some
Szechuan that didn't sit well.

      �

Edited by red clay

Voyager, let's keep the discussion on the topic.
I personally do not get agree with the idea about the Chinese discovered the Americas.

From my personal point of view , I see no influence from the chinese on Mesoamerican cultures ( no iron tools, artfifacts or the reference of horses ). This hipotesis sounds to me like the flavor of the day, but we still have to be open to discuss in a mature manner and accept others point of view.

My Best Regards

Originally posted by red clay In the past fifteen years there have been several accounts of Chinese archeologists opening undisturbed tombs, ca 2000bce and finding peanuts and peanut shells, squash seeds and even traces of cocaine in pottery containers.  All of these are native to central and s. america.

I wonder why it is always Chinese archaeologists who discover that...

Originally posted by flyingzone If there is anything I say that offends you, please send me a private message to let me know instead of turning an interesting thread like this into a forum to put me down. I will apologize if indeed I've offended you.

You didn�t offend me and you don�t need to worry about that. I just happen to have a harsh style, which has a tendency to getting harsher every time I read stuff that is non-sense to me. 

Originally posted by Jalisco Lancer This hipotesis sounds to me like the flavor of the day, but we still have to be open to discuss in a mature manner and accept others point of view.

I don�t agree with you about accepting other points of view when it is proved that they are wrong. A forum is a place to discuss ideas, not to blindly let the others say whatever they want when there are elements that prove that they are wrong.

PS - a lot of smileys appeared in my previous post due to bad copy and past and so I deleted them now in order to avoid any misunderstandings.


Edited by Voyager

We'd be eating egg rolls instead of burritos.

If it was the English who took Mexico we would call them bean puddings or corn pastries. If it was French we'd have maize eclair avec haricots.