East of the Eastern Ocean lie The shores of the Land of Fusang.
If, after landing there, you travel East for 10,000 li You will
come to another ocean, blue, Vast, huge, boundless. This ancient
poem, written by a 3rd century Chinese poet, describes a place
that is often referred to in Chinese folklore as the “Birthplace
of the Sun”. It was a place well known in ancient China. It
appears frequently in poetry and around the 2nd century BC, one
Han emperor is said to have sent an expedition to colonize this
land. Where was the legendary land of Fusang? Eighteenth century
mapmakers placed it in North America, usually near what is today
Washington or Vancouver. These cartographers, most notably De
L’Isle and Zatta, mapped Fusang based on a popular essay written
by the French orientalist historian Josepth de Guignes in his
1761 article “Le Fou-Sang des Chinois est-il l’Amérique? ” De
Guignes was a dubious historian at best, but with this he may
have been on to something. Fusang is most fully described on by
the 6th