hi! there's lots of room for more examples, more info on these, and especially answers to your question on how their observations were received, but you can get started on these (in no particular order)

• Were there any Asian explorers just like Marco Polo in the sense that they traveled to a completely foreign land(not necessarily Europe) and wrote in great detail about it.

• Is there an Asian Marco Polo, an Asian who wrote an account of his travels in Europe during the Medieval or Renaissance periods?

• What's really going on in this passage from Rabban Sauma (the "reverse Marco Polo")

• Were there Arabs and Asians living in Western Europe during the Middle Ages/Early Modern Era?

• Do Eastern cultures have their own explorers who "found Europe" that they celebrate?

• When was the first time when East Asian country sent an official visit to Western Europe? How they described their experience?

• Why are all the famous explorers from Europe? Did the East not explore the seas with ships?

• How far West in Europe did the Mongols raid? What stopped them from raiding further?

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There are examples of Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) printers being stationed overseas. Honestly, the time periods are very close to your 1800 benchmark, and they weren't traders or scholars per se as they were employed. However, one could argue they traded their skill--printing.

Rev. Medhurst documented his experiences with his encounters with printers in 1840s and 1850s. Within these experiences, he does mention everything from labor costs of three types of printing at that time: moveable print, hand-copied manuscripts, and lithography.

Because of financial reasons they decided to copy bibles by hand. A number of these scribes and book binders were sent to England. To be the best of my knowledge there aren't any accounts written by those Chinese hired hands.

My apologies if it doesn't fit the criteria.

My source is Medhurts' journals.

What do you mean by the "West"? Just Europe, or the west as a cardinal direction?

There is indeed. I took a class one semester in college called "World Travelers Before 1500". In addition to Marco Polo, several Papal envoys to the Mongols, and the Islamic scholar/traveller Ibn Battuta, I was specifically tasked with researching the Nestorian monk Rabban Bar Sauma.

There is a great book called Voyager From Xanadu which tells his story.