Zheng He arrived in Africa twice, one at the mouth of the Juba River in present-day Somalia, and the other in Mogadishu, and perhaps he went further to Malindi, Kenya.
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Ambassador Guo Chongli received a letter from a girl from Kenya in which she said that she was a descendant of Chinese sailors hundreds of years ago and hoped to get help from the ambassador.
The ambassador, accompanied by museum specialists, personally went to the girl's hometown. There they found some evidence of the authenticity of the legend. The legend says that hundreds of years ago, a Chinese ship was caught in a storm at sea and the ship sank, but more than two dozen sailors survived and climbed onto the island.
They are regarded as aliens by the local villagers, but in the end they earn the respect and friendship of the villagers by killing the local python. The girl's ancestors lived alone on the island, and they named their village "Shangjia", which is pronounced exactly the same as "Shanghai" in the local language.
In the distant past, a group of Chinese sailors drifted to a strange place. Some of them took local wives and multiplied. In order to perpetuate the orthodox Chinese bloodline, they agreed that their daughters must marry into a family of Chinese sailors who had sons.
To commemorate them, sailors built Chinese-style tombs by the sea, embedded with shards of porcelain salvaged from the sea. However, over time, the water source in the place where they lived dried up and the villagers were forced to relocate.
They are the inhabitants of today's Xiyou Village, and among their descendants is a little girl named Sharif, whose mother family is the only descendant of Chinese sailors. To prove this, Sharif took out an ancestral large blue and white porcelain bowl with several clear Chinese characters engraved on the bottom: "Da Ming Xuande".
Sharif's mother and daughter have a different appearance from the locals, their hair is not curly, their lips are not thick, they are lighter in color, and their bodies are not as thick and tall as the locals. Ambassador Guo was deeply curious about this, and after investigation, he found that the starting point of Zheng He's fourth voyage to the West was Taicang and other places in Shanghai County, and four Ming Dynasty shipwrecks were also found in the waters near Shangjia Village.
All this seems to point to a possibility: the Chinese sailors who were shipwrecked missed their homeland, so they named the village "Shanghai", and the inhabitants of this village were also called "Shangjia".
Sharif, who grew up listening to stories about Chinese sailors, may be their descendants.
On the Kenyan island of Lamu, there is a sheep herding girl named Sharif, who firmly believes that she is a descendant of Zheng He's sailors and is eager to visit China.
Despite the poverty of Sharif's family, she did not give up on finding materials and opportunities to learn Chinese. In the provincial city of Mombasa, she found a Chinese businessman named Zhao Hanqing, who was so moved by Sharif's story that he not only promised to help Sharif learn Chinese, but also financed her a sum of money.
Sharif is deeply grateful for this, and he is even more determined to be of Chinese descent, and looks forward to reuniting with his relatives in China. Soon after, a Western delegation came to the village of Journey to the West, and Sharif's opportunity came with it.
During Sharif's expedition to Shayou Village, she met a dark-skinned and dark-haired team member who she guessed was Chinese. At Sharif's invitation, the man came to her home as a guest and brought out a large porcelain bowl that had been handed down from the family.
However, the man accidentally broke it into several pieces while looking at the bowl, and Sharif was very sad about it. After the delegation left, Sharif learned that the man was not Chinese, but Japanese.
Despite this, Sharif received the help of Zhao Hanqing and successfully completed high school. Locally, Sharif is highly regarded for her learning, and relatives and friends have urged her to marry early, but she holds on to her dream of going to China.
On June 12, 2005, Ambassador Guo Chongli visited Xiyou Village again, accompanied by Sharif's mother and daughter to the deserted village of Shangjia, where several Chinese tombs and porcelain fragments were still preserved on a hillside by the sea.
Ambassador Guo paid his respects to the sailors who had left home at the grave and recommended Sharif's story to the film crew. Soon after, Nanjing TV filmed the documentary "Zheng He's Voyage to the West", in which Sharif was recognized by Wu Jianning.
In July 2005, after returning to China, Ambassador Guo Chongli told the Ministry of Education about Sharif's wishes, and she was finally given the opportunity to study abroad at the public scholarship and chose to study at the School of International Education of Nanjing Medical University.
On September 7, 2005, Sharif finally arrived in China.
Sharif, a young girl with a dream, crossed the ocean to Nanjing to begin her seven-year study journey. In the first two years, she will focus on language learning, and in the second five years, she will delve deeper into Chinese medicine.
In order to better integrate into Chinese culture, she gave herself a Chinese name - Xia Ruifu, but after a short attempt, she felt that this name did not match her identity and dreams, so she chose "Zheng Hua" as her new name, because her ancestors used to be sailors in Zheng He's fleet, and she also carried half Chinese blood.
After Wu Jianning of Nanjing TV learned the news, he personally went to the airport to greet her, and invited her to live in his own home and eat and live with his daughter. Ms. Sun Lihua of Nanjing Radio Station took her to the Xinjiekou department store and selected beautiful clothes for her.
Although Sharif's mother expressed concern about her long journey, Sharif always excitedly told her that she had been warmly received like a family member in China and that she had a good time.
After learning the story of Sharif, Taicang City, Jiangsu Province specially sent someone to take her over, visited the ruins of Zheng He, and went to the Jinghai Temple built to commemorate Zheng He's voyage to the West.
Outside the Jinghai Temple, Sharif insisted on washing her feet before entering, and when she saw an ancient painting of a giraffe presented to China by ancient Kenya, she knelt down excitedly. Sharif deeply felt the warmth of her relatives in China, and her dream came true.
She returned to her hometown for her ancestors and experienced a warmth that she had never experienced before.