Why Marco Polo did not mention the use of chopsticks in his travel journals of China？
Marco Polo (1254-1324) is perhaps the most famous explorer in the medieval period who had introduced the mysterious orient to the west. As soon as his book was published, people raised questions on whether he had ever made the trip to China. In recent years, a number of scholars, Chinese and foreign, expressed their serious doubts on this subject.
According to Frances Wood, the head of the Chinese department at the British Library, Marco Polo never made the trip to China. In her 1995 book, "Did Marco Polo Go To China?", she challenged this fact by asking why Marco failed in describing all the details on China customs, "such as using chopsticks, Great Wall, Foot Binding, etc..."
Many other scholars supported that Marco did come to China, although his claim as a trusted cabinet member to the great Mongol Ruler – Kublai Khan can never be supported by any Chinese historical archives, we do find his description on many historical incidents match official sources of information.
Take the description about his departure from China for example, he claimed that he and his father, his uncle was commissioned by Kublai Khan to escort a Mongol Princess to marry the Persian Argon Khan, and when the mission was completed, they left for Italy. In this chapter of the book, he put down the names of the three envoys from Persia, and these names match not only the Chinese historical record, but also the records from ancient Persia.
So, it is quite likely that he made the trip to China just as a merchant only, or a low-ranking official of the Khan, not as high-ranking as he claimed to be, because most of the narration in his book is about the local products and anecdote of the local area, rather about the insights of the political arena.
As far as the chopsticks is concerned: this is a good argument, however, there are many people in Central Asia that use chopsticks. In the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, most if not all Uighurs use chopsticks when eating noodles. Perhaps Marco would have been surprised to see people in Central Asia using chopsticks at first, but by the time he traveled all the way eastward to China he had become accustomed to seeing the use of chopsticks and so this was not such an exciting thing. There are other possibilities that he was always with the Mongols, who are not very used to eating with chopsticks.
Given the above reasoning, we feel very certain that Marco Polo did manage to come to China, and tried to have a very detailed account of his visit when he was in prison, but obviously, he can't possibly record down every single details of Chinese culture.
Of course, there will always be people who question the statement, and this argument will probably continue forever, but we can’t forget how the Travels of Marco Polo had helped to shape the western views about China, inspired Columbus to discover America, and how it had changed the world. From this perspective, whether he mentioned chopstick or not is not that important anymore.
