Noah's Ark remembered in China
In China, the same worldwide flood described in Genesis was remembered in the ancient Book of Documents (Shu Jing), written around 1000 B.C. The main character in the legend is Nuwa, who escaped a flood where "the heavens were broken, the nine states of China experienced continental shift and were split, and water flooded mountains and drowned all living things."
7 While the story is one of countless flood legends around the globe, the Chinese have even more clues contained in their ancient characters.
One of the better known is the Chinese symbol for ship (large boat), being the combination of symbols for boat, eight and mouth (or person to feed). In other words, a concept of a large boat originated with the famous eight-person boat, Noah's Ark. Following images from Voo K.S (TJ 2005).
The is a similarity between the asymmetrical shape of the Chinese boat symbol and the depictions from the Mediterranean around 2000 B.C. There is no "ramming bow" argument in this part of the world, so why is the Chinese boat so obviously high on one and and low on the other?
The following undated forms of the character for boat or ship show some more asymmetrical profiles. These bronzeware characters are "probably the side view of a boat with a roof" (from 15, fig 3).
It appears the third symbol became the default representation for "boat", which is not the familiar equal-ended Noah's Ark depiction. The most interesting symbol is the fourth one;
A side (profile) view of a pointed hull with protrusions on either end - perhaps one to catch the water and the other to catch the wind. Such as arrangement could create the self-steering effect on a drifting ship to keep it riding through waves instead of being trapped side-on (broaching to a beam sea). Although this may appear to be reading a lot into one small Chinese symbol, the anti-symmetry of bow and stern is otherwise mysterious in these early depictions.
A high prow and trailing stern already makes perfect sense for a drifting ship designed to handle wind generated seas, so the hint of asymmetrical bow and stern depicted in the earliest ships reinforces the case for a wind-steered Noah's Ark.
Source