Why was the Silk Road trade so one-sided?

by Isewein

As far as I can tell, we have no records whatsoever of Chinese merchants ever travelling to Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. Now I know of course that the Silk Road trade was mostly in the hand of Persians, Turkmens, etc., but considering how relatively normal the sight of Western Asians was in post-Yuan China, it does beg the question why no Chinese ever travelled the other way at all?

DanKensington

The problem is that, credit to u/EnclavedMicrostate, there's no such thing as a 'Silk Road', and there would have been no reason for a Chinese merchant to depart the territory of China.

WelfOnTheShelf

To add to the other links and answers, hopefully one of my old answers will also be helpful:

Folklore in western Europe puts much emphasis on the silks and spices brought from the east through the silk road as in Il Milione by Marco Polo. Was there any equivalent the other way around? Eastern merchants awed by what saw in western markets and writing about it?

In brief there were lots of things from the west that the Chinese were interested in, although since "the silk road" was not a real thing, Chinese merchants never really travelled to very far west themselves, and they received products from the Middle East/Europe/Africa indirectly through intermediary trade.