Forest needle

Forest needle

Lin Zhen, No. liuxuan, who lived in Xiamen for a long time, is a representative work of the Qing Dynasty.

Personal experience Lin Zhen's family was poor when he was young, and later moved to Xiamen with his uncle. In this seaport city full of foreign sailors and businessmen, Lin Zhen quickly learned and mastered foreign languages when he was young, and made a living by working as an interpreter and teaching Chinese to foreign businessmen. At that time, there were few people who could learn both Chinese and foreign languages. Lin Zhen was appointed to manage the business affairs just because he had the advantage of "being familiar with the Chinese language and being valued by all countries". In the spring of 1847, Lin Zhen was invited by American businessmen to teach Chinese in the United States. In February of the lunar calendar that year, Lin Zhen embarked on a three masted sailing boat in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. After a 140 day boat trip, he arrived in New York on the east coast of the United States in June, starting an "unprecedented feat" of visiting foreign countries in the West Sea. During his stay in the United States, Lin's feeling of traveling and working in the Empire was different from that of living and working in the United States. He recorded what he saw, heard and experienced one by one in his works, describing his understanding and feelings of this western capitalist power. In February of 1849, two years after he left his native land, Lin Zhen returned to Xiamen from the United States and lived on Gulangyu Island. At the same time, he began to write his travels and experiences in the United States into a book called "journey to the west", which became the first modern Chinese travel notes to the West. During his settlement on Gulangyu Island, Lin Zhen once inscribed the word "Lujiang No.1" on the giant cliff of riguangyan. Lin Zhen's deeds were included in "the first person in modern China to go to the United States - Lin Zhen" and seen in "Xiamen Evening News" in 1997, September and 24.

Chinese PinYin : Lin Zhen