it may be true that marco polo never went to china. if he did, he would have picked up the language after all those years and mentioned quanzhou in her original chink name. instead he used the persian reference of quanzhou, which was zayton. if he learned the prevailing chink language then, he would have corrected many of the wayward and offbeat persian references to original chink pronunciations in order for italian readers of his account to get facts and names firsthand, i.e. not hearsay, translated, unsubstantiated, and fake.