ABSTRACT
Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveller of the fourteenth century, must have gazed upon the sights of Lin’an (Hangzhou), then capital of the Southern Song dynasty, andwondered howman could construct such a place of infinite splendour. Polo described Lin’an as the most beautiful and magnificent city in the world. All under heaven was spectacular. In his Travels Polo wrote about the communication system by which important messages were rapidly dispatched and about the merchants who transported goods up and down the Yangzi river. Today the area that Marco Polo saw is spectacular in a different way. The great canals that carried traders have been replaced by four-lane highways and electronic networks delivering instant messaging. Hangzhou is a vibrant industrial centre, the capital of Zhejiang province, the engine of China’s economic miracle, producing household commodities proudly bearing the Made in China label.
