For thousands of miles across barren desert, high mountain passes, and remote plateaus, the Silk Road extended west from China into Central Asia. Along the way, oasis towns bustled with merchants, religious pilgrims, and nomads. These people carried with them their cuisine, language, music, technology, art and religion. Despite frequent periods of war, the blending of cultures resulted in a great cultural flourishing.

China was a major destination for traders. Fortunes could be made in the trade of Chinese silk, which made its way to Rome as early as the 1st century. A single trade mission often took years to complete and involved multiple transactions in different kingdoms: glass or silver for wool, wool for cotton and jade, camels and silk for horses and precious stones, and so forth.

In the twelfth century, advances in shipbuilding and navigational techniques made sea travel faster and more reliable and the Silk Road declined. Arabs, then Chinese dominated shipping from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean until the 16th century when Portuguese, merchant ships arrived from Europe. Later, Dutch, British and American ships carried goods made in China. By this time, porcelain and tea rivaled silk as China’s main export items.