United States -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
This eBook, while building on the 1985 revised edition, takes a
different approach. I hope to provide access to the original publication
with less editorial mediation but more American context. My eBook,
therefore, provides not only a transcription as faithful to the original
book as digitally possible, but also pictures of each of its pages. Also
included are select American press reports with hyperlinks to relevant
parts of the traveler's account.
For more information, please see my online project at
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/firstchinesetraveler/.
A note about the author’s names and the book title's translation
The author calls himself 林綤㿝景周 (Lin Shao Xiang Jin
Zhou) or 林綤㿝 (Lin Shao Xiang) in his book, but those who
wrote supplements simply call him [林]景周 ([Lin] Jin Zhou)
. However, without any editorial note, the 1986 revised edition replaces
林綤㿝 (Lin Shao Xiang) with 林鍼 (Lin Zhen or Lin Qian) as the author's
name. The latter does NOT appear in the original publication on which
this eBook is based. To stay true to the author, I keep 林綤㿝 (Lin Shao
Xiang) as his name.
Lin probably used the transliterated name “Lin King Chew” when he
traveled to the United States. This name appears in several American
press reports of the time, and it is phonetically close to one of his
Chinese names, 林景周 (Lin Jin Zhou). The front cover of this eBook’s
source has an inscription of another transliterated name: "Lin Kung
King"; however, the Chinese counterpart for this transliteration, 林君
景, is not the author's correct name. I therefore adopt "Lin King Chew"
as the author’s English name for this eBook. However, please note that
American newspapers and periodicals of the time used other incorrectly
transliterated names for Lin, including, for example, "Ling Keng Chow"
and "Sin Ken Chem."
As for the book title, the front cover has an inscription of its English
translation: “Reminiscences of Western Travels.” I do not know if it was
Lin’s translation, which was a possibility. Since this is a good
translation, I use it for this eBook’s English title.
TMT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of First Chinese Traveler to the United
States, by Shao Xiang Lin
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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