Some books only appeal to certain readers:

The missionary

The story: Just prior to the outbreak of the first Opium War between Great Britain and the Empire of the Qing, German lutheran missionary KFAG boards a British ship and goes on a few trips around the shores of the Chinese Sea. Obviously, his motivation is to spread his religious belief among the Chinese population.

The resulting book is an okay read. There were some parts that I didn’t like: rantings about religion (repetitive) and weird military observations (out of place). But KFAG has a very good eye for some of the social and political ongoings around him, and some of his statements about the local population and their political representatives are still surprisingly valid today (while others, of course, have totally changed).

If you want to find out about some of the difficulties between Europeans and Chinese in the first half of the 19th century, then this might be an interesting book for you. But don’t come looking for an adventure story!

5/10