Burton Holmes, who began his travel speaking career at the age of 20, gave Americans their first insights into China since 1892.

"Travel is about the world," Burton Holmes wrote on his fan signing album during his top travel instructor career.

Holmes had to cover his own overseas travel expenses, but made about $ 5 million over the course of his career, or about $ 80 million today, according to biographer Genoa Caldwell.

"He was one of the most famous people in America and was not a movie star or politician at the time," said Patrick Montgomery, Holmes' film archive manager and video licensee for use in the film.

Often referred to as the "greatest traveler of his time," Holmes gives the wealthy of America's coastal cities visualization of places most of them have never seen, and helping to determine

Elias Burton Holmes was born into a wealthy family in Chicago in 1870. When Holmes was nine years old, his grandmother gave him money to meet the famous travel instructor John Lawson Stoddard.

From 1886 to 1890, she took Holmes to Europe and when she returned from her second trip, at the age of 20, Holmes gave a lecture about her travel with the local photography club.

In 1892, Holmes borrowed money from his family to pay for a five-month trip to Japan, and when he returned to Chicago, he rented a large hall to present four presentations of what he had seen.

The presentations after the trip to Morocco did not draw crowds.

Instead of the familiar slide-through-image technique, Holmes used a more modern presentation method: blurring one image before switching to another.

He was also the first person to bring the camera to many foreign locations and capture street scenes the world has never seen.

Holmes arrived in Beijing 12 months after the Nghia Hoa Doan movement in June 1900, to oppose foreign influence in China.

By the time Holmes arrived in Beijing, the streets were a lot safer for foreigners.

When Holmes brought back to the United States pictures of famous places in Beijing, anyone who wanted to see the Forbidden City, the Heavenly Yard or the Amitabha during that time was the only way to go to Holmes' presentation.

Much of Holmes's knowledge of China, however, is viewed as ambiguous and general.

Opening the printouts of Holmes's presentation was the lengthy remarks on China: "Beijing, the capital of the Chinese Empire - the strong base of conquerors from Manchuria - a vast area of beauty.

This style does not seem to be consistent with the teaching material.

The roads in Beijing are "wide and dusty like the desert, or as wide and gleaming as the ocean, depending on the weather ... I swear that many times when we wanted to cross the street, we would not dare to go until

However, when describing buildings in Beijing, Holmes spoke only in general terms.

The palaces at the Forbidden City "were in very poor condition, with rags covered with dust, birds nest between the rafters and above the entrance," he wrote in a 1901 travel book. "Lacquer parapets

Holmes must have been delighted to see these areas firsthand, for by September of that year, the Americans withdrew from the Forbidden City and this place continued to become "forbidden", making his material

Holmes also visited Di Hoa Vien, located about 20 km northwest of the city center.

Holmes also complained about the looting carried out by the siege forces and foreign communities in Beijing, but not including the Americans, which he considers "the only pure" in China.

In Holmes's eyes, the Chinese are held back by superstition and it is the Westerner's duty to bring the light of Christian civilization here.

Much of the knowledge that Holmes included in his lectures on China is also judged to be general and contains many false information.

But the brick-wall sections he visited were only built a few decades earlier, and he didn't seem to know that nearly the entire length of the wall was made of only earth.

To an audience with little or no travel before, Holmes is like a prophet.

Mark Twain wrote in the 1869 book The Innocents Abroad that "tourism is the death penalty of prejudice, stubbornness and narrow thinking", but many argue that there is little evidence that Holmes can open his mind.

Nonetheless, Holmes maintained his popularity among audiences and still gave many presentations at the age of 80. He retired in 1952 in California and died six years later at the age of 88.