"Chinese mariners and their incredible craft represent one of the
world's oldest and most advanced seafaring traditions. "Chinese
Junks on the Pacific" is a scholarly and readable examination of
the subject and how the West's mistaken perceptions of China's
seafarers led to more than a century of neglect and misguided
condescension."--James P. Delgado, Vancouver Maritime Museum "Van
Tilburg's whole-hearted admiration of the achievements of Chinese
shipbuilders and sailors underlies . . . his exploration of their
role in modern North American and Chinese maritime
culture."--Cheryl Ward, Florida State University Beginning in 1905,
a handful of traditional Chinese sailing vessels, known as junks,
sailed from China to North America across the Pacific. These were
some of the last commercial sailing junks of China, most of which
had little trouble crossing thousands of miles of ocean on their
way to American ports. Crowds welcomed them in Victoria, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and San Diego, yet often regarded
them with a mixture of surprise and contempt as quaint, unwieldy
constructions in the fashion of sea monsters and even bizarre
objects of fancy. As traveling cultural objects, displaying a
variety of gruesome weaponry and other artifacts, some of them
served as public floating museums. The arrival of these vessels
allowed Western observers to catch a rare glimpse of a little-known
yet sophisticated maritime technology and seafaring culture. Van
Tilburg's study of this history--the maritime heritage of Chinese
junks and their transpacific voyages--examines ten junks, how they
were made, why and how they traveled, and how the West received
them. Combining historical narrative with ethnology, anthropology,
maritime archaeology, and nautical technology, he draws on a wide
range of newspaper sources, secondary texts, nautical treatise,
archaeological site work, rare historical photos and sketches, and
the personal testimony of the sailors themselves to examine these
vessels not only as transport vehicles but as complex cultural
artifacts that "speak" of a distant seafaring past and intimate
cultural ties to the sea. While attention to maritime China has
focused primarily on periods versus centuries, "Chinese Junks on
the Pacific" is the story behind the traditional Chinese vessels of
the 19th century and how the West misunderstood them. Accessible
reading, this book will appeal to scholars of Asian seafaring and
archaeology, sailing aficionados drawn to the junk's form and
sailing qualities, and those interested in Chinese-American
interactions and encounters. Hans Konrad Van Tilburg, maritime
heritage coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's (NOAA) Marine Sanctuary Program in the Pacific
Islands Region, has also served as an instructor in maritime
archaeology and history at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa.
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