Railway experiences of Poles and Serbs in China before 1949: an analysis of travel writings about the Middle Kingdom

Abstract

ABSTRACT The railway is often characterised as one of the crucial innovations of the nineteenth century which transformed patterns of space and time, exposed people to the mechanical power of the industrial revolution, led to the formation of a panoramic perception of the world, and changed the economic circulation. In China, the new technology was adopted later than in Europe and America, and its development took place in a semi-colonial context. As such, the railway experience took on a different dimension there. Based on a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings about China, this article examines how travellers represented railways in the Middle Kingdom. Five main topics are discussed: (1) the railway as an icon of modernity; (2) the railway as a “purely European invention”; (3) Polish and Serbian patriotism as linked to the Chinese Eastern Railway; (4) the train as a space of interactions; (5) panoramic visions of China.