3 Early relations
Indirect trading contact between China and the Nanyang, or Southern
Ocean, the name by which the Chinese referred to Southeast Asia,
goes back as far as the Shang dynasty when cowrie shells were used as
currency. During the Zhou dynasty a variety of luxury products, includ-
ing ivory, rhinoceros horn, tortoise-shell, pearls and birds’ feathers,
found their way to the Chinese capital. Little is known about early
trade routes, or the traders who plied them, but it would seem likely
that while most of these products reached China overland, some
arrived too on small coastal vessels crewed by ‘Malay’ or Yue seamen.
How far merchandise travelled by sea and in what early entrepôts it
was exchanged during the later Zhou period, we can only guess.
What we do know from Zhou period texts is that the Chinese
were acutely aware of the difference between themselves and non-
Chinese ‘barbarians’, and of their own cultural superiority, no matter
what desirable products the barbarians might possess. It is clear,
however, that intercourse with non-Chinese peoples, while it might
reflect Chinese assumptions of superiority, had yet to become