Chang Pi-shih and Nanyang Chinese Involvement in South China's Railroads, 1896–1911

Abstract

Around the turn of the century, railroads seemed to have a special attraction for the overseas Chinese. In that era, the iron horse was, indeed, the very symbol of the industrial age brought to Asia. Chinese modernizers had long advocated the construction of railroads as a crucial step toward self-strengthening. Many coolies had worked on the great American, Canadian and South African railways and shorter lines had been built in colonial Southeast Asia. Peasants in South China may still have feared the disruptive introduction of Western technology, but more worldly Chinese at home and abroad understood the significance of railroads not only as an improved means of transportation but as a symbol of Wealth and power.