Robert Fortune’s Dangerous Mission To Obtain Tea From The Chinese
A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - After four months, Scottish botanist Robert Fortune arrived in Shanghai, China. It was a hot September day in 1848, but he had no time to rest. Fortune had to disguise himself as a Chinese official, adopting local appearance, clothing, speech, and behavior to create a new identity.
His mission was dangerous: he was to steal 13,000 tea seedlings of Camellia sinensis from China and transport them to India on behalf of the British East India Company.
He changed his name to Sing Wang (meaning "brilliant flower"), shaved his head, grew a pigtail, learned to eat with chopsticks, spoke Mandarin, and wore Chinese clothes to blend in with the locals. He was even brave enough to fight off pirates who attacked him during one of his journeys.
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