Ibn Battuta’s arrival in China was a far from unusual event. Fourteenth-century China was home to many foreigners, and by the time Ibn Battuta arrived, the Chinese had a well-developed system for regulating their activities. As Ibn Battuta’s account makes clear, the Chinese valued foreigners and made sure that their needs where met. At the same time, however, they sought to minimize the potential negative consequences of the presence of foreigners by subjecting them to significant supervision and control. As you read the excerpt, think about what it reveals about Chinese attitudes toward foreigners. Why was it important to the Chinese to make visits like that of Ibn Battuta possible? How did they seek to capture the benefits of a foreign presence while minimizing its potential downsides?

The Chinese are of all peoples the most skillful in the arts and possessed of the greatest mastery of them. This characteristic of theirs is well known, and has frequently been described at length in the works of various writers. In regard to portraiture there is none, whether Greek or any other, who can match them in precision, for in this art they show a marvelous talent. I myself saw an extraordinary example of this gift of theirs. I never returned to any of their cities after I had visited it a first time without finding my portrait and the portraits of my companions drawn on the walls and on sheets of paper exhibited in the bazaars. When I visited the sultan’s city I passed with my companions through the painters’ bazaar on my way to the sultan’s palace. We were dressed after the Iraqi fashion. On returning from the palace in the evening, I passed through the same bazaar, and saw my portrait and those of my companions drawn on a sheet of paper which they had affixed to the wall. Each of us set to examining the other’s portrait [and found that] the likeness was perfect in every respect. I was told that the sultan had ordered them to do this, and that they had come to the palace while we were there and had been observing us and drawing our portraits without our noticing it. This is a custom of theirs, I mean making portraits of all who pass through their country. In fact they have brought this to such perfection that if a stranger commits any offence that obliges him to flee from China, they send his portrait far and wide. A search is then made for him and wheresoever the [person bearing a] resemblance to that portrait is found he is arrested.

When a Muhammadan merchant enters any town in China, he is given a choice between staying with some specified merchant among the Muslims domiciled there, or going to a hostelry. If he chooses to stay with the merchant, his money is taken into custody and put under the charge of the resident merchant. The latter then pays from it all his expenses with honesty and charity. When the visitor wishes to depart, his money is examined, and if any of it is found to be missing, the resident merchant who was put in charge of it is obliged to make good the deficit. If the visitor chooses to go to the hostelry, his property is deposited under the charge of the keeper of the hostelry. The keeper buys for him whatever he desires and presents him with an account. If he desires to take a concubine, the keeper purchases a slave-girl for him and lodges him in an apartment opening out of the hostelry, and purveys for them both. Slave-girls fetch a low price; yet all the Chinese sell their sons and daughters, and consider it no disgrace. They are not compelled, however, to travel with those who buy them, nor on the other hand, are they hindered from going if they choose to do so. In the same way, if a stranger desires to marry, marry he may; but as for spending his money in debauchery, no, that he may not do. They say “We will not have it noised about amongst Muslims that their people waste their substance in our country, because it is a land of riotous living and [women of] surpassing beauty.”

China is the safest and best regulated of countries for a traveler. A man may go by himself a nine months’ journey, carrying with him large sums of money, without any fear on that account. The system by which they ensure his safety is as follows. At every post-station in their country they have a hostelry controlled by an officer, who is stationed there with a company of horsemen and footsoldiers. After sunset or later in the evening the officer visits the hostelry with his clerk, registers the names of all travellers staying there for the night, seals up the list, and locks them into the hostelry. After sunrise he returns with his clerk, calls each person by name, and writes a detailed description of them on the list. He then sends a man with them to conduct them to the next post-station and bring back a clearance certificate from the controller there to the effect that all these persons have arrived at that station. If the guide does not produce this document, he is held responsible for them. This is the practice at every station in their country from Sin as-Sin to Khán-Báliq. In these hostelries there is everything that the traveler requires in the way of provisions, especially fowls and geese. Sheep on the other hand, are scarce with them.

Source: Sir E. Denison Ross and Eileen Power, eds., Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354 (New York: Robert McBride and Co., 1929), pp. 285–287.

Questions to Consider