"Hailu 海錄 (Maritime records), Xie Qinggao 謝清高 (1765-1822). Xie boarded a trading vessel (probably Portuguese) and sailed to America, Europe, and Asia. On losing his eyesight, he returned home and dictated his recollections in 1820 to Yang Bingnan. See Kenneth Ch’en, “Hai lu: Forerunner of Chinese Travel Accounts of Western Countries,” MS 7: 208-26 (1942). The work indicates how little was known at the beginning of the nineteenth century in China about the West (contrast Japanese knowledge at this time about not only the West, but also China)." Cf. Wilkinson, Chinese history, a manual, Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 748.