LogFAQs > #972047583

Norman_Smiley posted...

Aladdin is a supposed to be Chinese and the story is supposed to take place in China.

There is a caveat to this though, The tale is Arabic in origin, but they set it in "China", because when the tale was written China was a far-off exotic place.
A bit like a lot of Western stories might take place in "Darkest Africa", such a place does not really exist, and never existed, and authors at the time that used it probably either knew this, or had never actually visited the place.
It's an "exotic" place that exists only in stories, and often amalgamates multiple Africa countries into one, and anything they're unsure about, they just plaster over with their own culture.
For example in Aladdin there is a Sultan, not an Emperor and the princess is called Badr al-Badur, which is obviously not a very traditional Chinese name.

For example in the West they might say "from here to Timbuktu" meaning far away, and one of sayings in the Muslim world is "Seek knowledge even if you have to go as far as China".