Sowing the Seeds of Change

Abstract

This chapter provides the overarching context for the following chapters. It begins by explaining how Qing elites’ internalization of the ideology of Western civilizational superiority led them to pursue education in Japan. It then offers a statistical profile of these elites, detailing their native origins, educational choices, and idiosyncratic motivations for studying abroad. The core of the chapter analyzes their everyday experiences in Japan. Through a close reading of Huang Zunsan’s diary, it highlights the central role of native-place associations in organizing Qing students’ daily life. It argues that their collective experiences in these associations fostered strong native-place consciousness, sentiment, and identity, which coexisted with, but were not subordinate to, their emergent national counterparts. It concludes by showing how these students built an impressive infrastructure for knowledge exchange: translocal networks of journals connecting Tokyo with metropolises, smaller cities, and even towns across China proper.