"In Aix we saw a huge cross made of wood standing on one side of the town square. At its top was a smaller bit of wood made into the likeness of a crucified man, naked except for a cloth covering his maleness. What a sight it was! We were terrified to see it and thought that he was a criminal they had hung there, for without a doubt, whoever saw it [would think it] was a crucified man. I asked about this and they told me that it was the deity and the crucifix which they worshipped."
Muhammad as-Saffar, Morrocan Scholar in Paris, 1845-46 (Miller, p.168)

"After a month's journey, I arrived at the country of Kusinagara. This is where the Buddha entered nirvana. The city is desolate and no people live there. The stupa was built at the site where the Buddha entered nirvana. . . . The stupa is isolated on all sides; no people go there. The forests are very deserted. Those on pilgrimage are [often] wounded by rhinoceros and tigers.. . . On top [of the pillar] there is a [statue of] a lion. The pillar is extremely beautiful. [Its circumference measures that of] five people with joined arms. The lines carved on it are delicate. The pillar was made at the time the stupa was constructed."
Hye Ch'o, Korean Buddhist monk, 8th century (Yang, p. 39)

Depressed from living on Island, I sought the Sleeping Village.
The uncertain future altogether wounds my spirit.
When I see my old country fraught with chaos,
I, a drifting leaf, become doubly saddened.
Poem 16, Angel Island 1910-1940 (Lai, p. 54)

[Commemorating a Chinese monk who died abroad.]
The lamp at your home village has no owner,
The jewel tree fell in another country.
Where does the spirit go?
The precious countenance has turned into ashes.
Pondering this my sorrow is deep.
I grieve that your wish was not fulfulled.
Who knows the road to his native land?
Nothing to be seen but white clouds returning.
Hye Ch'o, Korean Buddhist monk, 8th century (Yang, p. 39)

"But I think the thing about India was that everybody loved it. You hated it for the first year - or the first two years - but then it got you. Suddenly you found that instead of hating it you loved it. The awful thing about it is that it's infective, it goes on to your families. And as I said, our children were left with this kind of wanderlust."
Major-General RCA Edge about British life in the Raj (British Voices website: Chapter 1 Interviews)

"The national laws of the five regions of India prescribe no cangue, beating or prison. Those who are guilty are fined in accordance with the degree of the offence committed. There is no capital punishment. … Whenever the king sits in audience, chiefs and commoners all come and sit around him. Everyone argues for his own cause. Charges and countercharges are many and it becomes very confusing and noisy. The king does not become angry. Deliberating, he passess judgement saying, 'you are right' or 'you are wrong'.
Hye Ch'o, Korean Buddhist monk, 8th century (Yang, p. 41)

"Westerners do not understand what it means to have parents. Some say that the religion of Jesus considers Heaven as Ancestor, and does away with everything else. When their sons grow up, they each seek their own livelihood, without asking their parents. Some who serve as officials leave their parents for more than ten years, and do not even go to visit them on their return to their home town."
From Liu Hsi-lung's Journal, First Chinese Embassy to the West, August 1877 (Frodsham, p.147)

"We didn't go out for the money. In fact, there wasn't any wealth in it at all. You just scraped by, and you got a decent pension at the end. But it was the life. It was a splendid life, and we went out with a certain sort of sense of dedication, I think. In those days, the climate of opinion was so different from what it is now. We really believed in the British Empire. We though we had a mission to perform. It sounds a little bit naïve now, but we really did feel that it was the right thing for a young Englishman to do to go out and rule over a lot of people."
Interview with Fergus Innes, British officer in the Raj (British Voices website: Chapter 1 Interviews)

"When we were about to depart, the chief (ra'is) started the engine [of the train], and it carried along whatever was joined to it as a speed we had never experienced, almost like a bird flying through the air. We covered the distance between Orleans and Paris in two and a half hours. When we looked at the sides of the road, we could not see what was there; it looked like an endless ribbon moving along with us, and we could not distinguish the rocks or anything. We tried as hard as we could to read the signs at the side of the road that measured off the miles - even though they marked on white rocks in heavy black letters the height of a finger - but we were unable to fix our eyes on them because of the speed."
Muhammad as-Saffar, Morrocan Scholar in Paris, 1845-46 (Miller, p. 115-116)

"People of wealth and importance [in Paris] do not walk on foot, but are almost always in carriages. … The uproar of the carriages and the wagons does not cease day or night. The glass in the windows is perpetually rattling and shaking from the terrible din. For days sleep eluded us because of the frightful roar that never stopped. It felt as though we were standing at the seashore or next to a turning grindstone."
Muhammad as-Saffar, Morrocan traveler in Paris, 1845-46 (Miller, p.131)

"Today was the first time that I saw a train. . . . Even traveling slowly, the train can still go over 100 leagues an hour, hence it can often cover a distance of 10,000 leagues in several days and nights. The wonder of such a trick surpasses the magic art of diminishing distances. But if we apply it to China, then the people who bare their thighs and forearms, who hold to the whip and the cord, who row the boats, who pull the carriages, to carry people or cargo, would all lose their jobs. Dynasty after dynasty has always avoided disturbing the people. . . . Since our most holy court does its best to keep the multitudes of the people in peace, to rejoice in our happy land together, the farmers, craftsmen, and workers are not very willing to leave their villages, while even the richer families which sometimes arrange with friends to visit different places together, go only to the neighbouring villages, and satify their desire to see and hear more by casting quick glances at the towns and cities. They do not resemble the foreigners who want to go to distant places, and often cover several tens of thousands of leagues on one trip before they can satify their curiosity. . . . . Hence, the fact that trains cannot be used in China resembles the fact that a tranquil policy cannot work in Europe."
Liu Hsi-Hung's Journal, 7 December 1876 - First Chinese Embassy to the West (Frodsham, p. 115)