Educational Fetish and Chinese Emigration to Poland

Abstract

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.