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As global trade  expanded, this land of reputedly boundless wealth, pale-faced women, and  indecipherable tongues began to feed the fantasies of European  merchants and adventurers. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, saw in this  great people millions of souls who would be damned unless the Christian  message could be brought to them.   In this book, Mary Laven tells the extraordinary story of the first Jesuit mission to China.  Confronting enormous challenges, the Italian priest Matteo Ricci and a  tiny handful of learned companions gained  permission from the notoriously xenophobic Wanli emperor to settle in  the fabled Forbidden City.  Living among eunuchs and mandarins,  wearing the clothes of Confucian scholars, Ricci  and his associates strove to master the language and culture of their  hosts. At the same time, they energetically preached the virtues of  Western art and science.   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The woman said that she had heard that many of the little ones don't reach the ocean because they are grabbed up by sea gulls as they run down to the sea. The woman she was talking to remarked that it was lucky that turtles have shells; otherwise, many predators would be able to have them for lunch. And that was it. 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