Did Chinese explorers reach America first? Pair out to recreate mythical journeys to show trip was possible before Vikings
- Sun Haibin and Christian Havrehed are rowing to North America, via Korea and Japan, retracing the mythical steps of an ancient explorer
- The boat is in Shenzhen as they await official approval to leave Chinese shores
Two rowers are preparing to embark on a mammoth journey from China to America, hoping to show that Chinese explorers could have reached the US long before the Vikings or Christopher Columbus.
Sun Haibin, 47, and Christian Havrehed, 53, met in China more than 20 years ago and crossed the Atlantic together in 2001, becoming the first from their respective countries, China and Denmark, to do so. Now, they have a more ambitious aim.
In May, they will depart from Ningbo, in Zhejiang Province, row first to Korea, then to Japan, and on to America via Alaska all the way down the coast to Mexico.
Two stories from the history of China have inspired the pair’s latest adventure, with the mythical exploits of Xu Fu in 219BC and Hui Shen more than 700 years later inspiring the journey.
Xu, a member of the court of Qin Shi Huang, was sent into the eastern seas to find the elixir of life and never returned. In 499, Hui Shen claimed to have visited Fusang, which in Chinese mythology can refer to a location east of the country.
In the 18th and 19th century there was some debate among historians that American could be Fusang, and the Frenchman Joseph de Guignes argued that Chinese explorers had reached the coast of California first.
