Ever since the establishment of the Silk Road in ancient times, China has stirred spirits in the West with its mysticism and exoticism. It was only the rise of imperialism in 19th-century Europe that forced centuries-closed China to open up and trade with Western powers, thus accelerating the intensity of contacts between the two areas. Such contacts also include trips of soldiers, sailors, missionaries, diplomats, travellers and adventurers from the Slovenian ethnic territory to China, who returned with rich stories and experiences. With this, the amount and credibility of data on China in the Slovene ethnic territory became larger and more reliable from the second half of the 19th century onwards, and at the same time new perceptions and ideas about Chinese society were formed, moving away from the original fantasy and exotic to more realistic and weighty tones. Narratives, letters, diaries, memoirs and records of people returning from China were mostly published in the Slovenian press, thus establishing a formal framework within which views and ideas about Chinese society, culture and life were formed. Towards the end of the 19th century, the belief spread among Europeans and consequently also among Slovenes that the Chinese state and culture were among the oldest in the world, but that long-term isolation caused a cultural stalemate. The Chinese were acknowledged for their courtesy, patience and diligence, but they were supposed to make sense only for practical things. However, with the growing opening of China to the world, such thinking slowly began to change, especially after the First World War, when the first criticisms of the imperialist policy of Western countries and thus indirectly the doctrine of racism could be heard in Slovenia.
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