WERE THE CHINESE THE FIRST TO DISCOVER AMERICA
WERE THEY WITNESSES TO THE LAST NEPHITE/LAMANITE WARS?

(Note: The following is some research work I did while studying at the University of Washington 1960-68. It has always been my intent to follow up on this, but nothing much was done until about fifteen years ago. Dr. David Chen and I started a research project to try to get the original diary microfilmed in Beijing. This research project was ended with Dr. Chen's death in 1993, and I have done nothing with it since then.) H. Grant Heaton

Another topic that kept coming up during my research work was about the Chinese being the first to discover America. Each time we would get a new batch of periodical literature from Communist China, I would search the tables of content for anything relating to Chinese Minority groups. Each time I would pass over some articles about China being the first to discover America.

At a time, after I had completed my Masters Thesis, and was tired of my research time, I decided to look into some of the articles I had seen about the Chinese discovering America. It was a very interesting study. There were literally hundreds of articles about this subject in the Chinese press, and nothing in any of the other publications at the University of Washington. When I finally got into the subject, and tested it against known history and other articles, I found a very intriguing story.

About the year 418 AD , a very famous Buddhist Monk, by the name of Hui Shen, left China with about 40 other Buddhist Monk. Hui Shen is famous in Chinese history for his visits to Rome, Moscow, Europe, and other travels, but none of the Chinese scholars ever suggested that he had visited the American Continent.

Hui Shen described the place to where he traveled as the land of Fu Sang. This was the name of a special tree that grew in the city of Hangzhou, at the Summer Palace of the Later Liang Dynasty.

Because the Later Liang Dynasty was only a minor dynasty, and not part of the official Dynastic Histories, few scholars bothered to read about Hui Shen's journey in 418 AD. Much is written about his other travels, but not the one to the land of Fu Sang.

The few scholars who did investigate the history of the Later Liang Dynasty, made the decision that the land of Fu Sang referred to the Islands of Japan. The special tree, the Fu Sang tree, after which Hui Shen had named the land of his travels, also grew in the areas of Osaka and Kyoto Japan. Finding this same tree in Japan led them to the conclusion that Hui Shen had visited Japan. In some Chinese literature, Japan is referred to as "Fu Sang" At that time in history, Japan was a dual society, divided between the Japanese (Asian) inhabitants and the Ainu, a non-Asian group. These two groups were in constant conflict in a sort of feudal war. Japan also was undergoing feudal struggles between several strong groups of Japanese people.

It was not until 1789, during the reign of the Emperor Ch'ien Lung of the Ching Dynasty, that any other view of Hui Shen was taken. Ch'ien Lung was interested in Western culture. He invited Jesuit Catholic scholars into his court and gave them permission to peruse all of the official dynastic histories. One of these Jesuit Priests found the diary of Hui Shen and studied it for many years. He found that Hui Shen had made a note of the direction and distance they traveled each day. He described the landscape and the weather, the flora and fauna, and people he encountered. This Priest traced the journey of Hui Shen up along the coast of Siberia, across the Bering straits, and down through Canada, North America, into Central America. The tree, known in China as the Fu Sang tree, also grows in Honduras and Guatemala.

Hui Shen's visit lasted more than 14 years, and he returned to China. Other such groups retraced Hui Shen's steps and there are records of several groups leaving, and not returning. One interesting note is that during the first years of the T'ang Dynasty, a famous poet, Tu Fu wrote a poem about how delighted the T'ang Emperor was to be given a gift of a bird that would fly backward. Only hummingbirds fly backwards, and they are indigenous only to the American Continent. Tu Fu is apparently making reference to a group who had followed Hui Shen's road to the American Continent, and brought back a gift to the Emperor.

I have often speculated about the possibility of getting microfilm of this 1100 page diary of Hui Shen, and find out if he had any interaction with the Nephites and Lamanites. Perhaps he even met Moroni.

This migration of people from China to America answers many questions. We refer to the American Indians as our "Lamanite Brothers" they are also our Asian brothers. This may be only partially true. The American Indian is a mixture of the Central American natives and the Asian immigrants to North America. When I first went to Japan in 1950, I wondered why so many Hopi Indians lived in Japan. I had grown up with the Indians in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, and I met people in both China and Japan that were the "spittin" image of American Indians I had known in Utah.

When we deal with the Alaskan "Indians", we do not even call them Lamanites, but "Eskimoes".

The American Indian has sufficient Lamanite blood to be eligible for the Gospel, but they are still related to the peoples of Asia.

With all the travel I had done in Seminary work, trips to Utah and back, our "Church car" was well worn. The cost for repairs were so high, we decided to trade it in for a new station wagon. The problem was, the car belonged to the Church. I had never received the title to it.

In 1966, the Department of Education sent me the title, and we traded in the blue Chevrolet Station Wagon for a nice new brown one.

In the Spring of 1968, I was able to purchase a car for Luana. I had saved enough money to pay cash for this car. It was a tan Plymouth, two door sedan. It was a very pretty car. I felt so proud that I was able to pay cash for a car and surprise her with it. It was a surprise alright. Luana has an allergy problem with certain plastics. Several years earlier, she found that she could not ride in one of her father's cars, or hold the steering wheel. She would break out in a serious rash.

The first time she drove this new "surprise" car, she had the same reaction. I think she felt that the surprise was that I was so stupid to buy a car without first letting her sit in and drive it. I was able return the car with a small penalty. We couldn't find a car at that dealership that Luana could tolerate.

We later purchased a bright red Chevrolet Nova for her, and it worked out fine, until I took it up in the mountains to hunt Elk, and damaged the transmission and some of the front end suspension. Being a new car, the car dealer assumed some of the repair costs, but said they could not be responsible for such car abuse. I had to pay several hundred dollars.

When we moved back to Utah, we took the Brown Station Wagon, and the Red Nova with us.

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1. There are two different calendars about this time. One is the calender of the Later Liang Dynasty, one of the Six Dynasties, which was a period of confusion in China that lasted almost two hundred years, ending with the establishment of the short lived Sui Dynasty and then the famous T'ang Dynasty. long, and the other is the calendar of the T'ang Dynasty, which was successful in establishing itself after the fall of the Han Dynasty. Several small dynasties were competing for power, and only one survived. The people spoken of in this study left China before the T'ang Dynasty was recognized, and considered themselves to be of the Later Liang Dynasty, which no longer existed, when they returned to China. There is a 30 year difference between the calendar of the Later Liang Dynasty and the T'ang Dynasty. I have used the date of the Later Liang Dynasty for dating this period, because the record left by Hui Shen, does not appear in the Dynastic Histories of the T'ang Dynasty, but is preserved in the history of the Later Liang Dynasty, which is not part of the Dynastic Histories contained in most libraries. I did discover, however, that the complete 1100 page diary of Hui Shen does exist in the Imperial Archives in Beijing, China.

2. They were probably transplanted there during the T'ang Dynasty when the Japanese were trying to imitate the splendor of the Chinese dynasties.

3. I have been able to find only about 75 partial pages of excerpts from this diary. They speak of a civil war, and two groups of people at war. (A feudal war). They talk a little of marriage customs and such, but mostly it is just geography which cannot be understood without any proper reference point. When I presented this to the History Department at the BYU, my suggestion was met with hostile silence. I guess it is the philosophy at the BYU, that if they didn't think of anything first, it was of no value. This is also the way they treated David Chen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Missionary Work in Asia, BYU Studies, Vol. 12, No.1,