Educational Fetish and Chinese Emigration to Poland

Educational migration to Poland has recently served to reshape the local Chinese community, previously known largely for trade and small entrepreneurship. This marks a broader trend, with a number of European countries promoted in China as sites of elite learning and increasingly fetishized among the Chinese middle class. Drawing on research among families, students and intermediaries, I discuss the process through which Poland has been embraced as one of such ‘imagined’ destinations, meant to provide an alternative to the pressures of life in modern Chinese society. I also show how, despite the growing access, the actual pursuit of new aspirations remains complex, often leading to a conflicted experience abroad.