Australian journalists, travel writing and China: James Hingston, the 'Vagabond' and G. E. Morrison

摘要

China looms large in the Australian imagination but, until recently, it has not been a significant travel destination. One result has been an imbalance between a superfluity of 'theoretical' knowledge and limited first-hand experience. This article investigates the relationship between the extensive popular 'knowledge' of China and the experience of actually being there in the travel writing of three influential nineteenth-century Australian journalists. Their accounts complicate any simple stereotype of Australians' attitudes towards China. As journalists, they sought to privilege the eyewitness. If their travels only confirmed what was already known, their 'on the spot' experience had no value. For the most part, they staged a narrative in which their discovery of the unexpected played a central role. This meant they had to construct a straw man of popular opinion, which they could then enthusiastically cut down on the basis of their superior first-hand knowledge.