Liang Qichao was born in 1873 and lived until 1929. During this time he was a young colleague and follower of Kang Youwei (1858-1927) during the failed “100 Days Reform” of 1898. During this time he visited America and wrote about his observations and experiences in a book titled Observation on a Trip to America. The majority of his experiences happened in New York City where he discussed the things he was amazed about and found admirable about America as well as the issues and experiences he found troubling. Furthermore he compared throughout much of his writing the lives of Americans to those of the Chinese, and he discussed his thoughts about the future of life in China. Throughout the writing Liang Qichao discussed many aspects of American
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Although he was aware of how busy New York City was he did not like the traffic, the trollies, the subways and the horse carriages. They were very loud and to him it left the mind confused and the soul shaken. He was not impressed with the way the Italians and the Jews lived. He explained that they clogged the streets outside of their apartments which were as dirty as the streets. He explained that the apartments were packed, rarely saw light, and why you entered them the smell would make you sick. He found it even more despicable that nearly 230,000 people lived in these conditions. He despised the high death rate among people in New York as well as the unspeakably high death rate among children. He explained that because of the hardships of these people and the lack of morality in the conditions in which they live the crime rate was higher. Furthermore he found it despicable how 70 percent of the wealth was owned by roughly 200,000 rich people and the remaining 30 percent was in the hands of 79,800,000 poor people. Although there were many aspects of life in America in which he did not find ideal, the biggest aspect that he had problems with was the lack of money, and acceptable working conditions for the large majority of the
Although he was aware of how busy New York City was he did not like the traffic, the trollies, the subways and the horse carriages. They were very loud and to him it left the mind confused and the soul shaken. He was not impressed with the way the Italians and the Jews lived. He explained that they clogged the streets outside of their apartments which were as dirty as the streets. He explained that the apartments were packed, rarely saw light, and why you entered them the smell would make you sick. He found it even more despicable that nearly 230,000 people lived in these conditions. He despised the high death rate among people in New York as well as the unspeakably high death rate among children. He explained that because of the hardships of these people and the lack of morality in the conditions in which they live the crime rate was higher. Furthermore he found it despicable how 70 percent of the wealth was owned by roughly 200,000 rich people and the remaining 30 percent was in the hands of 79,800,000 poor people. Although there were many aspects of life in America in which he did not find ideal, the biggest aspect that he had problems with was the lack of money, and acceptable working conditions for the large majority of the