Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition: A place called Shangrila (Routledge Contemporary China Series)

Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition

This book explores the relationship between tourism, culture and ethnic identity in Shangrila, a Tibetan region in southwest China, to show how local ‘Tibetan culture’ is reconstructed as a marketable commodity for tourists. It analyses the socio-economic effects of Shangrila tourism, investigating who benefits economically, while also considering its political implications and the ways in which tourism might be linked to the reassertion of ethnic identity. It goes on to examine the spatial re-imagining provoked by the development of tourism, and asks whether a tourist destination inevitably becomes a ‘pseudo-community’ for the visited. Can a fictitious name, invented for the sake of tourists, still provide the ‘natives’ of a place with a sense of identity? This book argues that conceptions of place are closely linked to notions of social identity, and in the case of Shangrila particularly to ethnic identity. Viewing the spatial as socially constructed, and place-making as vital to social organization, this is a study of how place is constructed and contested. It describes how local villagers and monastic elites have negotiated the area’s religious geography, how agents of the Communist state have redefined it as a minority area, and how tourism developers are now marketing the region as Shangrila for tourist consumption. Overall, this book is an insightful account of the complex links between tourism, culture and Tibetan identity, and will be of interest to a wide range of disciplines including social anthropology, sociology, human geography, tourism and development studies. Åshild Kolås is a social anthropologist and researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in northern India and western China, studying Tibetan ethnic and religious identity, and the cultural politics of tourism.

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Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition A place called Shangrila

Åshild Kolås

First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Åshild Kolås This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kolås, Åshild. Tourism and Tibetan culture in transition: a place called Shangrila/Åshild Kolås. p. cm. – (Routledge contemporary China series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Tourism–China–Xianggelila Xian. 2. Tourism–China–Xianggelila Xian–Social aspects. 3. Ethnic groups–China–Xianggelila Xian–Economic aspects. 4. Tibet (China)–Social conditions. I. Title. G155.C55K65 2007 338.4⬘791515–dc22

ISBN 0-203-93994-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–43436–X (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–93994–8 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–43436–2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–93994–9 (ebk)

2007007854

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Note on transliteration Location map of Shangrila

ix xi xiii xiv

1

Localizing Shangrila

2

The political economy of tourism

10

3

Issues and methods

27

4

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination

38

5

Hallowed ground

55

6

Imagining the nation

78

7

Shangrila: a space of dreams

104

8

Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity

120

Glossary of local terms with suggested Tibetan spellings Notes Bibliography Index

130 132 138 149

1

Preface

My first encounter with Tibet was in 1988, while traveling across Asia. A few years later I returned as a master student of anthropology, traveling in Tibet and Nepal and spending a year of fieldwork in the Tibetan settlement of Dharamsala in Northern India. I started working as a researcher in 1997 at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). My first responsibility there was to coordinate the Research Project on Tibetan Culture in China, which had the objective of charting conditions of contemporary Tibetan cultural life, including the teaching of Tibetan language in schools, the use of Tibetan language in public life, the revival of religious institutions and the ‘cultural activities’ sponsored by the Chinese state. The key question raised in this project was one of ‘cultural survival’. Were the Chinese authorities preserving and developing Tibetan culture, as Chinese sources asserted, or were they destroying it, as the Tibetan exile government in India contended? As a part of this work my colleague Monika P. Thowsen and I conducted a number of research trips to Tibetan areas of China outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, which had been defined as our area of study. The first of these trips, in 1998, was to Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. During the weeks I spent in Diqing I interviewed prefecture and county government officials in the Education Department, the Religious Affairs Department and the Culture Department. Visits were made to several schools and I talked with a number of educators. I also visited religious sites and had talks with monastic leaders as well as ordinary monks. When I first introduced my research interest in ‘Tibetan culture’, Diqing officials explained that they had just made a five-point plan for the work of the prefecture government, where the top priority was to ‘revive Tibetan culture’. As they said, Tibetan culture was becoming an important resource in the development of tourism. This was in July 1998, when logging was still the key source of revenue for local governments. Just as I was conducting my research, heavy monsoon flooding caused devastation on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, damaging the houses of millions of people, and taking more than 3,000 lives. The cause of this flooding was identified as excessive logging in upstream areas, among them Diqing Prefecture. As a

x

Preface

result, in late 1998 the central government in Beijing, and later provincial governments, introduced a ban on logging. Local governments were suddenly forced to look for substitutes to logging, and in Diqing the development of tourism thus became an even more vital concern. After writing up our conclusions for the Research Project on Tibetan Culture in China, one of the unanswered questions was how tourism was affecting Tibetan cultural heritage and notions of Tibetanness. Was tourism a potential aid in cultural reconstruction, or was it rather a cause of cultural deterioration and commodification? In a few Tibetan areas where tourism was well established (in particular Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan, Labrang in Gansu and Lhasa in the TAR) researchers had already studied some of the effects of tourism. As for Diqing, the issue suddenly attracted enormous attention from journalists in 2001, when Zhongdian County (the administrative center and most populous county in Diqing) received permission to rename itself ‘Shangrila’ (or Xianggelila as it is transliterated in pinyin). In numerous newspaper reports journalists busily debated the location of ‘Shangrila’, deplored the potential effects of tourism and/or marveled at the beautiful scenery and exotic people living there. The National Geographic Society even launched its own expedition to neighboring Muli Tibetan Autonomous County (in Sichuan), where the ‘real’ Shangrila was supposedly found. One thing was obvious: tourism entrepreneurs in Diqing had made a commercial coup. The development of tourism in Tibetan areas raises the complex question of ‘cultural preservation’. What is ‘culture’? When does ‘culture’ need to be ‘protected’, how can it be ‘preserved’? The case of ‘Shangrila’ brings up even more complex issues. What is ‘authenticity’? How do we judge what is ‘authentic’ and what is not? For whom is this important, and why? The present study of the case of Shangrila may clarify some of these questions. It illustrates how tourism can serve as a vital force of cultural commodification, as well as a powerful tool of cultural politics. Finally, it exposes some of the emerging trends in Chinese thinking about minority ‘nationalities’ in general, and the Tibetans in particular.

Acknowledgements

Throughout the work on this study I was employed as a researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). I would like to thank both former director Dan Smith and current director Stein Tønnesson for their support, and all my colleagues and friends at PRIO for their good company. Before leaving for fieldwork I studied Tibetan and Chinese at the University of Oslo. At the Department of Cultural Studies Rinzin Thargyal was my Tibetan teacher, and at the Department of Oriental and Eastern European Studies Rune Svarverud and Halvor Eifring were my teachers in Mandarin Chinese. My husband Tashi Nyima was my informal teacher in both languages. If I’m still not fluent in Tibetan or Chinese, I should certainly take the blame myself. While conducting the fieldwork I was formally registered as a student of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, where the staff of the Foreign Affairs Office took care of the necessary paperwork. In Shangrila I was affiliated with the Tibetan Studies Research Center, which functions as a local ‘branch’ of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences in Diqing, although it is formally administrated under the Diqing Prefecture People’s Consultative Committee. I am grateful to the head of the Tibetan Studies Research Center, Wang Xiaosong, for inviting me to Shangrila, introducing me to a number of people in Diqing and assisting me in numerous ways. Wang Xiaosong, or Tsering Wangdu as he is known in Tibetan, truly deserves the epithet he has received: Teacher Wang (Wang Laoshi). Other friends and fellow academics in the field were Ben Hillman, Denise Glover, Loa Stefansdottir and Kathrine Krøijer Hørsted. I greatly appreciated our sometimes lively discussions, and hope we can continue them in the future. I also enjoyed the good company of other ‘ex-pats’ in Shangrila, including Andy and Katia, Ken and Ellen and their daughter Isabelle, Jason and Amy, and last but not least, the Skalsky family. I was fortunate to have Thomas Hylland Eriksen as my supervisor throughout my postgraduate studies at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. He certainly deserves acknowledgement for his enduring support. Other friends, teachers and fellow students at the

xii

Acknowledgements

University of Oslo who deserve a special mention are Aud Talle, Unni Wikan, Heidi Fjeld, Kathinka Frøystad, Hanna Havnevik, Mette Halskov Hansen, Tanja Winther and Anne Ellingsen. An article based on my preliminary fieldwork in Diqing was published in Tourism Geographies in August 2004, entitled ‘Tourism and the Making of Place in Shangri-La’. This initially formed the basis for Chapter 4 of this book. I want to thank the editor of Tourism Geographies, Dr Alan Lew, and the journal’s anonymous readers, for very constructive comments on the article manuscript. An earlier version of the paper was presented in September 2003 at the Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, convened by the Michael Aris Trust Centre at Oxford University, where fellow conference participants also contributed with many helpful comments and questions. At a much later stage, invaluable comments to the book manuscript were provided by Peter Sowden, my editor at Routledge, as well as two anonymous readers. I would like to give a special thanks to Monika P. Thowsen, a former colleague in the PRIO Research Project on Tibetan Culture in China, and co-author of our book On the Margins of Tibet: Cultural Survival on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier. After leaving PRIO for work in Norwegian ministries she steadfastly sent me newspaper clippings on Shangrila, collected not only from the Internet but also from newspapers she picked up while working in China. We had some memorable times together in China, especially in Monika’s second hometown Beijing. This study was funded by a grant from the Research Council of Norway, Department of Environment and Development, which was generous enough to make the long period of fieldwork possible. In 2004 I spent three months as a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), also funded by the Research Council of Norway. I am grateful to Professor Richard Madsen and Department Chair Harvey Goldman, Department of Sociology, UCSD, for inviting me to San Diego. My last words of thanks go to my fieldwork companions, my sons Lukas and Sondre, Tashi Nyima, and all my friends in Shangrila. Without their contributions this study could never have been carried out. This book is dedicated to Lhatso and her family, for opening their home to me.

Note on transliteration

Chinese terms are transliterated according to the pinyin transcription system, except for the name Xianggelila, which is rendered as Shangrila throughout the text. The spelling Shangri-la is reserved for direct references to the monastery described by author James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon. Proper names in pinyin are capitalized as in English, and are not italicized. Tibetan terms are either transliterated according to the Wylie system (in the case of words known in literal Tibetan) or in phonetic transcription (in the case of proper names and local Tibetan words with uncertain spelling). When I differentiate in the text between ‘local Tibetan’ and ‘Tibetan’ terms, the latter refers to standard central or literal Tibetan, and indicates a literal spelling according to the Wylie system. It is important to note that there are marked differences in pronunciation between standard central Tibetan and eastern Tibetan dialects, and that quite a few terms are unique to the local dialects. A glossary of suggested Wylie spellings of some of the local terms is provided as an appendix.

Vietnam

kis

Pa

tan

1

Localizing Shangrila

Zhongdian used to be the name of an obscure Chinese county. Local Tibetan farmers would rather call their home place Gyalthang, a Tibetan name meaning ‘victory plain’. In December 2001 the local government received endorsement from China’s Civil Administration Department to change the name of the county to ‘Shangrila’ (Xianggelila in pinyin). Thanks to a huge amount of media coverage, the name change made the place famous in China and situated it on the map of tourism enterprises worldwide. Tourism grew rapidly in the following years, and suddenly Tibetan cultural products were in high demand. The scene was set for an ardent cultural reinvention, which made Shangrila County, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, an ideal place to explore links between tourism, ethnicity and cultural representation. The authorities of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) first allowed tourists to visit areas inhabited by ‘minority nationalities’ (Chinese: shaoshu minzu) in the mid-1980s. State policy in the last decades has been to ‘develop tertiary industry’ (fazhan disan chanye) in these regions, and tourism has become increasingly significant as a part of this effort. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, tourism was identified by Chinese policymakers as a key to economic development in minority areas. In contemporary China the development of ethnic tourism (i.e. the promotion of ethnic or indigenous cultural attractions by tourism developers)1 has become a task for a range of private tourism enterprises as well as government units such as departments of tourism (Chinese: lüyou ju). As chief agents of the tourism industry, managers of such units and enterprises are actively involved in advertising the exotic appeal of China’s ethnic minorities to domestic and foreign tourists alike. At the same time, tourism has also given minorities new opportunities to represent their ethnic identity. Minority cadres in government units contribute to the planning of tourism, whereas others are engaged in private enterprises, in the development of handicrafts, performing arts and other products for the tourist market. In these capacities minorities often contribute actively to the reinvention of their own ‘ethnic culture’. In short, ethnic identity has become important in new ways as it is replayed against the backdrop of tourism.

2

Localizing Shangrila

The present study investigates representations of culture, ethnicity and place in the context of tourism development, taking Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture as its case. Diqing is situated in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, home to about one-sixth of China’s registered ethnic minority population, and currently an important region for the development of ethnic tourism. Diqing can best be described as a multiethnic area, despite that it is officially recognized as ‘Tibetan’. According to recent statistics, Tibetans continue to be the largest ethnic group in the prefecture, comprising about 30 percent of the population, with Han Chinese following closely as the second largest group. The ethnic composition, however, varies considerably among the prefecture’s three counties: Shangrila, Deqin and Weixi. Weixi was included in the ‘Tibetan’ prefecture when it was established in 1957, although its population was mainly Lisu. In 1985, after a new census was undertaken, Weixi was accordingly re-designated as a ‘Lisu Autonomous County’. Deqin County, though sparsely populated, contributes much to the Tibetan share of the prefecture population. As for Shangrila, the county had a registered Tibetan population of 38 percent in 2001, followed by Han Chinese comprising 28 percent and minorities other than Tibetans, mainly Naxi, Lisu, Yi, Bai, Miao, Hui, Pumi and Zhuang, comprising the remaining 34 percent (Diqing Nianjian Bianjibu 2002: 44). The Han Chinese population is concentrated largely in the towns, especially the prefecture capital Zhongxin Town. The surrounding rural areas, on the other hand, are almost exclusively inhabited by Tibetans.2 My field site was mainly limited to the area known in Tibetan as Gyalthang (Tibetan: rgyal thang), in Shangrila County, where I conducted fieldwork between July 2002 and June 2003. Whereas most of my fieldwork was spent in and around Zhongxin Town, I made numerous trips to tourist sites in other parts of Shangrila County and several trips to neighboring Deqin County. When I first visited Diqing in 1998, Deqin County had just been opened for foreign travelers. In spite of this, the prefecture was far from ‘untouched’ by tourism. A number of construction sites and several newly built hotels lined the streets of Zhongxin Town, as visible tokens of an anticipated tourism boom. As I interviewed local government officials, I soon learned that the prefecture was starting to implement a new five-point plan for developing Diqing, where the top priority was to ‘revive Tibetan culture’, including Tibetan language, literature, religion, cultural legacy, cultural relics and art traditions. Local officials in the Tourism Department, Culture Department (Chinese: wenhua ju) and other government units were eagerly planning the development of tourism, and understood cultural revival as an important aspect of this development. Officials in the Department of Religious Affairs even spoke of the revival of Tibetan culture as ‘good for investment’. Many of the officials I met were Tibetans or members of other minorities, although they were of course college or university graduates who spoke

Localizing Shangrila

3

Chinese fluently. To ensure that they were on solid ground in their decisions about cultural preservation and promotion, the officials worked in close cooperation with local ‘cultural experts’. Ironically, these were typically educated in the field of Tibetan studies in Beijing, in institutions such as the Central Nationalities Institute, where they were taught by scholars from Central Tibet. Thanks to their expertise as Tibetologists and language skills (in both Tibetan and Chinese), these cadres were in a position to act as ‘culture brokers’ (Smith 1989), as developers of cultural ‘products’ for the tourist market and in the training of tour guides. Government officials and other cadres were not just engaged as tourism planners, but sometimes also as private entrepreneurs in tourism-related enterprises. With their links, often through membership, to the party apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), they belonged to a powerful local elite, and were in a good position to profit from tourism. The political climate of economic liberalization and marketization appeared to have provided those who were already advantaged with further economic opportunities. Little of this seemed to be ‘trickling down’ to the local villagers, who still lived mainly from subsistence farming and mushroom harvesting. During my first visit to Diqing in 1998, I must admit that I was not entirely convinced by the enthusiasm of the local tourism planners, despite the scenic landscape and the beautiful farmhouses scattered across the countryside. After my host had picked me up at the Lijiang airport, the dusty drive to Zhongdian took the entire day. This included a short stop en route to visit the impressive Tiger Leaping Gorge, and a much longer stop to repair his run-down car. I was a little surprised when we were near approaching the prefecture capital and my host pointed out an airport construction site. When I returned four years later, the Shangrila Regional Airport had been built, in the middle of the valley, on grazing land that used to belong to local Tibetan villagers. Their characteristic wooden and pounded earth houses with walled front yards, facing East and the morning sun, still dotted the valley on each side of the runway. On the flat plains, surrounded by mountains, locals still grazed their cattle (yak and cow crossbreeds), sheep and goats, and worked in their fields growing crops of barley, turnips, rapeseed and potatoes. Whereas in 1998 the town itself was unassuming, dominated by the usual grey and unimaginative concrete blocks that could be seen in any Chinese town, in 2002 this was no longer the case. By then all the buildings lining the main street were being repainted with bright colors in ‘Tibetan’ designs, described by one visiting journalist as the creation of a ‘Tibetan toy town’. Following this, elaborately decorated streetlamps were put up, and the sidewalks were repaved with stones ‘just like the Old Town in Lijiang’. The Old Town of neighboring Lijiang was in fact often seen as a model for tourism developers, as a World Heritage site that was receiving ever increasing numbers of tourists. Although the traffic in Zhongxin Town was still easy to navigate, the first traffic light appeared in 2003, while new hotels were

4

Localizing Shangrila

emerging all over town. In the Old Town of Zhongxin, Dokar Dzong, things were also happening. The streets were still squalid, as in the rest of the town’s back streets, but this area was gradually developing a reputation as a backpacker zone with quaint little guesthouses and cafes opening up. On the other hand, some things never seemed to change. One could never feel safe from power outages, especially in the winter. The escalators never moved in the (so far) largest shopping center, the four-storied Khampa Supermarket, even after it received competition from a new shopping mall, complete with a trendy water fountain and electronic cash registers. In the streets and markets, however, one could still spot the colorful costumes and headdresses of the local minority women, carrying their baskets on their backs on their way to buy vegetables and other goods, or sell surplus butter or cheese. And although the new bus station was under construction for the duration of my stay, the clock on top of the building relayed a familiar melody: ‘The East is Red’.

The politics of a name The places we define as our ‘research sites’ are never just there, as a matter of ‘fact’. They are always constructed, and always in some sense disputed. Investigating the construction of place is important in any anthropological study, as a methodological approach and as a way to discern what ‘society’ and ‘community’ may be about. The study of spatial representations of a particular place called ‘Shangrila’ has an added significance, as a case that highlights issues of authenticity, symbolic power and identity. Place names are often at the heart of identity politics, and the very choice of a name is thus fraught with political implications. Before the 2001 name change, Gyalthang was the official Tibetan name of Zhongdian County. The name dates back several centuries, although local histories disagree on the time it was first used and, related to this, also its meaning as a marker of the ‘Tibetan-ness’ of the area. One explanation of its origins is that the name ‘Jie’ (in pinyin, but close to local pronunciation) dates as far back as the third century AD, when an ethnic group called ‘Jie Qiang’ settled along the bend of the Jinsha (Golden Sand) River. The area was then supposedly named after the people living there (Duan 1997: 46). According to a different story, shared widely by local Tibetans, the name Gyalthang means ‘victory plain’, and is made up of the Tibetan words rgyal meaning ‘victory’ and thang meaning ‘plain’. The name is said to commemorate the battles that were fought in the area during the seventh century, between the armies of the Tibetan king Songtsan Gampo and the rulers of Sathang (contemporary Lijiang) and the kingdom of Dali. Gyalthang has a century-long history as a frontier region and zone of conflict between imperial Chinese and Tibetan spheres of interest, and especially the competing agendas of local rulers of Gyalthang and those of the ‘Mu kingdom’ of Lijiang. However, the area was also a zone of contact,

Localizing Shangrila

5

as a trading post along the ‘tea and horse’ trade route between imperial China and the Tibetan kingdom. The ‘tea and horse’ trade route is being reinvented today as a tourist route and, associated with this, historical research on the trade has had an upsurge in recent years. The Chinese name Zhongdian means ‘middle pasture’. According to a local historian, this name was first used in the fifteenth century (during the Ming Dynasty) by the ‘Lijiang Mu clan’, in reference to Gyalthang Township (Tibetan: rgyal thang rdzong), which was one of five townships within the borders of present-day Shangrila. Later the name came to refer to the whole of the county, and the areas previously known in Tibetan as Gyalthang and Yando became known in Chinese as Da Zhongdian (Greater Zhongdian) and Xiao Zhongdian (Lesser Zhongdian).3 The name Yando is not much used today, even by Tibetan villagers living in the area. The name Gyalthang, on the other hand, became the official Tibetan name of the county. On 5 May 2002, Zhongdian County was officially renamed Shangrila, spelled Xianggelila in pinyin. The name Shangrila is not Tibetan, nor is it Chinese, it is a loan word from English, invented by the British author James Hilton when he wrote his best-selling novel Lost Horizon (1933). The story of Shangri-la, a rewriting of the myth of the ‘fountain of youth’, was made even more famous in Europe and North America by the Hollywood movie of the same name, directed by Frank Capra a few years later. In Hilton’s novel, Shangri-la is the name of a hidden Tibetan monastery, set in beautiful surroundings in the Valley of the Blue Moon. The valley is a peaceful community that sustains and is governed by the monastery, in which the ‘High Lama’ turns out to be a centuries-old Capuchin monk from Luxembourg. Although the valley’s inhabitants are Tibetans, the monastic keepers of ‘civilization’ are thus actually Western, and so is the ‘civilization’ that is preserved and developed in Shangri-la, safely hidden from the looming threats of war and social upheaval. Another point of the story is that the hero of Lost Horizon, Hugh Conway, and his fellow passengers are brought to Shangri-la against their will. Despite the lure of longevity and peace, Conway is both fascinated and repelled by the prospect of leaving the outside world behind to become the new ‘guardian of civilization’ in Shangri-la. Ironically, these ambiguities seem to have been forgotten as Shangrila became a household name for the Oriental version of paradise. In post-World War II Europe and North America, the popular image of Shangrila became the romantic fantasy of a harmonious, peaceful and secluded society. Until the 1980s Tibet remained one of the most inaccessible destinations in the world, and was hence still shrouded in the myths of European and American popular fantasies. With the subsequent rise of tourism to the Tibetan region, the search for Shangrila, seen as a ‘peaceful, harmonious land untouched by the evils that plague developed civilizations’, became the single most defining feature of the Western tourist agenda in Tibet (Cingcade 1998: 5).

6

Localizing Shangrila

The ‘Shangrila’ label was soon picked up by international tour operators to market Tibetan areas to Western tourists. By the early 1990s, this had caught on in the Chinese market as well, and as the economic importance of tourism to Tibetan areas grew, the value of the name ‘Shangrila’ became increasingly evident to local tourism planners. Despite recognizing that the name originated in a work of fiction, tourism developers across the Tibetan Plateau were soon engaged in various attempts to find the ‘real location’ of Hilton’s Shangri-la. In late 1996, Diqing government officials stepped up their efforts by inviting a ‘search party’, commissioned by the Yunnan Economy and Technology Research Center, to find evidence that Shangrila was located in Diqing. More than 40 academics from Yunnan and other Chinese provinces were involved, including experts in the fields of literature, ethnology, religion, linguistics, geography and Tibetology. The report on these investigations concluded that Khawa Karpo Mountain in Deqin County was indeed the model for Hilton’s ‘Mount Karakal’, and that the surrounding area matched the description of the Valley of the Blue Moon. As in Hilton’s novel, the study claimed, three rivers crisscross the area, the Nu (Nujiang), the Mekong (Lancang) and the Golden Sand (Jinsha). After a ‘careful investigation’, the researchers also found that an American transport plane did in fact crash in Zhongdian, which made them certain that Diqing was the model for Hilton’s story of Shangri-la. Ironically, the plane crashed during World War II, years after Hilton’s novel was written.4 As soon as the report of the search party was released, the prefecture government held a press conference, claiming that Shangri-la had now been ‘found’ in Diqing. Their next step was daring. They put together an application to change the name of Zhongdian County to Shangrila (Xianggelila).5 In support of the name change, the Diqing Prefecture Tibetan Studies Center maintained that Xianggelila was the transliteration of the Tibetan phrase sems kyi nyima zlawa (literally ‘sun [and] moon of [the] heart/mind’), as it was pronounced in a local Tibetan dialect unique to the area. The abbreviated form of the phrase, ‘Semkyinyinda’, was therefore proposed as the new Tibetan name of the county. The Yunnan search party to Diqing was not the only ‘expedition’ in search of the ‘real Shangri-la’. Among several competing projects, one was supported by the National Geographic Society and another was sponsored by a Los Angeles company named End of the World Entertainment.6 Quite a few journalists were also inspired to travel to eastern Tibet to write their own eyewitness reports. Subsequently, accounts of the discovery of Shangrila made headlines, with allegations such as ‘utopia has been found’, ‘remote region hides lost world of mystery’, ‘heaven on earth found at last’ and ‘paradise has been brought to Earth’. As media attention intensified, so did the competition between Zhongdian and other Tibetan areas lobbying for recognition as Shangrila, among them Daocheng County in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Muli Tibetan Autonomous County, both in Sichuan province.

Localizing Shangrila

7

Academics were also involved in the promotion of Zhongdian as Shangrila. For instance, in the semi-academic ‘Shangrila book series’, researchers of Tibetan language and history provided evidence of links between the Diqing area and the location of Hilton’s Shangri-la. In one of the volumes one can read an account of the history of local place names in which the authors maintain that the name of the Old Town, Dokar Dzong, means ‘blue moon township’ (Lean et al. 1999: 111). What a coincidence, then, that Hilton’s Shangri-la was situated in the Valley of the Blue Moon. The authors of this book further claim that after the Naxi ‘Mu clan’ from Lijiang had conquered the town and its environs, the name they gave the town also meant ‘blue moon’, in the Naxi language. The rest of the authors’ argument backs up the Tibetan translation of the name Shangrila, Semkyinyinda (Tibetan: sems kyi nyi zla), or sun and moon (nyima zlawa) of the heart/mind (sems). The authors maintain that another important town near Dokar Dzong was Nyima Dzong, meaning ‘sun township’ in Tibetan. Stating that Songtseling was sometimes referred to as Nyima Dzong in the past, the authors link this name to the monastery that has become one of the most popular tourist sites in Shangrila. The case of Zhongdian was noticeably strengthened in September 1997, when Diqing hosted the Khampa Arts Festival and Vice Governor of Yunnan Province Dai Guanglu made a public announcement that this area was definitely Shangrila. Diqing officials immediately held several press conferences to make sure that the announcement was widely cited in the news, and with great success. Stories about the discovery of Shangrila in Zhongdian appeared in several of the major Chinese newspapers, including China Daily (1 November 1997) and the monthly Beijing Review (November 1997). Finally, on 17 December 2001 the Civil Administration Department of China formally agreed to the name change, and soon after the State Council ratified the decision. The name Shangrila was secured by Zhongdian County after a tough battle with neighboring administrative units, particularly the bordering Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County, which was already a well-established tourist destination. The Austrian-American botanist Joseph Rock was the first to make Lijiang and the Naxi minority known to a Western audience, through a series of articles in National Geographic magazine published in the 1920s and early 1930s. Rock lived in the Lijiang area on and off for more than 20 years, between 1922 and 1949, and made several trips to Diqing and Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces. In his articles he described many of the places he visited, including the Amnye Machen Range, Mount Minya Gonkar, the kingdom of Muli and Chone Monastery, as well as Mount Khawa Karpo. When James Hilton wrote Lost Horizon he may well have been inspired by Rock’s articles, in addition to the accounts of earlier American and European travelers to these areas. But he never revealed publicly which sources his novel was based on, or (less surprisingly) where his ‘Shangri-la’ was located.

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Localizing Shangrila

In the post-Mao era, Naxi people in Lijiang have been successful in reinventing their ‘Dongba culture’ as an important tourism resource (see, for instance, Chao 1996). It would have been a great asset for tourism entrepreneurs in Lijiang if their area had been acknowledged as the site that inspired Hilton to write Lost Horizon. One of the great disadvantages for the Lijiang case was that Hilton identified his ‘Shangri-la’ as Tibetan. Unlike Diqing, Lijiang is officially designated as Naxi, not Tibetan. It now seems that Diqing has won the competition, for better or worse, to capitalize on the popular fantasy of longevity, peace and harmony.

An outline of the book This is a study of processes involved in the reconstruction of ‘Tibetan culture’ as a marketable commodity for tourists, and of the (re)invention of Shangrila/Zhongdian/Gyalthang as a ‘Tibetan’ place. As such, it questions the socio-economic effects of tourism, and asks who benefits economically. It also looks for political implications of tourism, and asks how tourism might be linked to the reassertion of ethnic identity. More fundamentally, it investigates how place is constructed by different actors, including agents of tourism, state representatives and local villagers. By way of a discussion of place, it explores linkages between contemporary tourism, the reproduction of ethnicity, and the revitalization of cultural and religious traditions. In the following chapter I outline the economic interests at stake, investigating the impact of tourism on the local economy and the changing economic relevance of ‘cultural’ activities in the context of tourism. The chapter discusses the concept of ‘cultural commodification’, and distinguishes the impact of tourism on income distribution from the much more multifaceted consequences of tourism for ‘cultural meaning’. Chapter 3 describes some of the key issues that are debated in the tourism studies literature, and reviews literature on place and authenticity, identifying the theoretical approach of this study. Chapter 4 gives an historical account which simultaneously outlines three different strategies of place-making that inform the production of ‘cultural meaning’ in contemporary Shangrila. These are the strategies used by local villagers to ‘make up’ the communities in which they live, the strategies used by agents of the People’s Republic to define the peoples and territories of the Communist state, and finally the strategies used by tourism developers to market the area as ‘Shangrila’ for tourist consumption. The next three chapters provide an in-depth account of the three placemaking strategies just described. Chapter 5 details the ritual practices performed by Gyalthang villagers for the protection and prosperity of households and local communities, which are seen as crucial to their placemaking efforts. These ritual practices, which have a long history in the region, are understood as ways to ‘sacralize’ place. The chapter describes

Localizing Shangrila

9

how these practices are linked closely to agricultural activities and other vital concerns of the villagers. Locals of Shangrila are not the only actors engaged in place-making.7 Propagated through state media and educational institutions at all levels, notions of places and people are also key to the work of nation-building. In Chapter 6 I describe how the Communist state defines Diqing as a ‘minority area’ and how its ‘ethnicizing’ project integrates the area and its people into the People’s Republic. The chapter further discusses how official ethnic categories are negotiated locally, and how ethnicity is reconfigured in tourism marketing and ethnic performances, and through the commodification of ethnic products. Stakeholders in the development of tourism have their own agenda, which has implications for the construction of Shangrila as a tourist destination. With the promotion of tourism, a completely new ‘Tibetan look’ has been created for the Shangrila townscape, and a ‘holy land’ for pilgrims has emerged in the surrounding landscape. As described in Chapter 7, tourism developers are thus engaged in yet another re-making of place. The name Shangrila highlights the transformation, spelling out a future that is very different from the ‘New China’ envisioned by the Communist Party during the Mao era. Crucial to the significance of Shangrila is its resonance with the mythical Shambhala (Tibetan: bde ⬘byung), a place of happiness and great fortune (bde chen) prophesied in the Kalachakra teachings of tantric Buddhism. Through its association with the powerful imagery of Shambhala, a renowned Tibetan ‘pure land’ or spiritual utopia, the name of Shangrila is made all the more meaningful to local Tibetans. As place is continuously reinvented, it is also invariably contested. Placemaking involves challenging some spatial representations and advancing others. The concluding chapter of this book takes a closer look at the current (re)invention of Shangrila, and the disputes it engenders, especially over questions of authenticity. In so doing, it discusses how inhabitants of Shangrila reconstruct their place in meaningful ways, even as it is commodified for the sake of tourism.

2

The political economy of tourism

Writing on tourism and cultural identity in Third World communities, MacCannell (1992: 168) maintains that ‘reconstructed ethnic forms are appearing as the more or less automatic result of all the groups in the world entering a global network of commercial transactions’. Under these conditions, he claims, ‘ethnicities can begin to use former colorful ways both as commodities to be bought and sold, and as rhetorical weaponry in their dealings with one another’ (ibid.). While MacCannell’s description highlights the importance of economic as well as political outcomes of ethnic tourism, it does not do justice to the mechanisms involved in producing such outcomes, the roles of different stakeholders, or the relationship between the commercial and the political. The reconstruction of ethnicity inherent in ethnic tourism is, I will argue, far from ‘automatic’. Moreover, to begin to understand the workings of tourism (or its agents), it is important to detail the processes through which Shangrila has been brought into the global network of commercial transactions. International and local NGOs, provincial authorities, officials in local government departments and private tourism entrepreneurs are all important actors, who have different agendas and interests that contribute in various ways. This chapter describes the economic interests at stake, how the tourism industry is regulated and promoted by the authorities, who profits from tourism, and who is involved in the manufacturing and marketing of cultural products in Shangrila. The history of tourism to the People’s Republic dates back to the introduction of new economic policies in the late 1970s. The launching of foreign tourism was an important part of the move to open up the Chinese economy to the outside world. Tourism was first facilitated in China’s major cities and coastal areas. During the 1980s and 1990s foreign tourists were gradually admitted to visit inland China, where areas inhabited by ethnic minorities became popular tourist destinations. As profits from foreign tourism increased, and facilities catering to tourists were improved, the authorities also encouraged domestic tourism. Travel has since become one of China’s largest industries, accounting for more than 5 percent of GDP at the turn of the millennium (Wen and Tisdell 2001: 2). The central government regula-

The political economy of tourism 11 tion to prolong national holidays caused a rapid growth in China’s domestic travel market in 1999. The following year earnings from domestic tourism (comprising about 90 percent of tourist trips) reached 317 billion Chinese yuan (CNY), while foreign exchange from overseas tourists totaled more than 16 billion US dollars (WTO 2000: 58–59). Tourism was introduced as a development strategy for Tibetan and other ethnic minority areas in the early 1990s. Compared to cities and coastal areas, minority areas do not receive the largest share of tourists or tourism revenue. However, due to the lack of other means of income generation, in many of these areas the economic importance of tourism is relatively significant. For instance, in Yunnan province tourism revenue reached 13 percent of local GDP in 1995, while taxes and profits amounted to 25 percent of local fiscal revenue (Ghimire and Li 2001: 102). Until 1998 commercial logging was the major source of revenue for the Diqing government.1 According to an official in the Diqing Prefecture Forestry Department, forestry provided nearly 75 percent of prefecture revenue in the years before it was stopped. In 1998, soil erosion due to the depletion of upriver forest was identified as a primary cause of the extensive flooding of the Yangtze River that year. By the end of the year regulations had been issued to ban all commercial logging. At the time of my fieldwork the former lumberyard was almost deserted, except for some shacks put up by migrant construction workers. A sign above the gate still declared: ‘Develop the economy’ (Chinese: fazhan jingji). In 1999 a new campaign to ‘Open up the Western Regions’ (Xibu Da Kaifa) was heralded by the central government. Tourism was singled out as an important development strategy for the western regions, and Diqing officials responded quickly. As a local government that was heavily dependent on state subsidies, tourism appeared as a promising new source of revenue.2 During the 1990s new policies were introduced to privatize enterprises that were formerly under public ownership, including hotels and travel agencies. This meant that local governments could no longer obtain revenues directly from business activities. Hotels formerly owned by local governments were contracted out, providing government income from leases and business opportunities for private entrepreneurs. A completely new form of ‘outsourcing’ was in the business of charging entrance fees to scenic sites. Local governments could demand fees for such ‘outsourcing’, as will be explained in the following pages. Governments could also profit from leasing non-agricultural land to private tourism development companies. Finally, governments had the opportunity to invest some of their capital directly in shareholding tourism development companies.

Governments and tourism Despite fierce competition over the name Shangrila, Diqing officials made considerable efforts to join forces to promote tourism with their counter-

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The political economy of tourism

parts in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Tibetan areas of Sichuan province. Their goal was to establish a ‘Shangrila Ecological Tourism Region’ covering nine prefectures and municipalities in Tibetan areas of Yunnan, TAR and Sichuan. By June 2002, just after the name change was celebrated in Zhongdian, the project had been granted a sum of 80 billion CNY in provincial support, and was ready to submit its proposal to the State Council (Hong Kong iMail, 11 June 2002).3 The strict entry regulations and permit requirements for traveling in Chamdo District, on the TAR side of the border, have been significant obstacles to the development of tourist routes from Diqing to neighboring Tibetan areas. Diqing officials have thus lobbied national authorities on easing travel restrictions in eastern TAR, arguing that the whole Tibetan region should be developed for tourism comprehensively. Provincial authorities are key actors in the development of Shangrila tourism. Based on national legislation, the provincial government specifies policy guidelines and regulations, and their support is crucial when propositions from prefecture authorities are conveyed to the central government, as in the case of the name change. Whereas the province government wields considerable regulatory power, the prefecture government plays a vital role in the local planning of tourism, and in making decisions on the implementation of policy guidelines. The latter is often relegated to lower levels of administration. As described by one government official: ‘the prefecture government makes plans [guihua], and the county and township governments implement these plans’. In 2000, the Diqing Prefecture Tourism Department issued a document detailing their plans for the development of tourism in the prefecture.4 Among the main challenges identified were the need to improve infrastructure, the need to compete for talented business managers in the service sector, the need to compete with other areas in Yunnan developing tourism, the need to compete with Tibetan areas in Sichuan and the TAR also developing tourism, and the need to raise awareness about the importance of tourism among ‘the staff of all government departments and people of all professions’. Finally, the document describes the sustainable development of natural resources as a ‘serious challenge’ for Diqing tourism. The possible ‘depletion’ of cultural resources was not mentioned as a challenge in this report, perhaps due to a lack of concern for cultural commodification among local officials. In fact, I was often struck by the tendency among officials to take the cultural expressions of villagers completely for granted, as if the minorities were a part of the natural scenery. In an interview with the head of the Diqing prefecture tourism department, he identified two types of tourism emphasized by his department: ecotourism (Chinese: shengtai lüyou) and ethnic tourism (minzu lüyou).5 With the rapid increase in tourist arrivals (from 42,300 in 1995 to 1,280,000 in 2002),6 one of their concerns was to decentralize tourism development, to avoid crowding and create opportunities for tourists to reach the more

The political economy of tourism 13 remote areas of the prefecture. Another concern was to encourage ‘quality rather than quantity’, i.e. to prioritize tourists with money to spend. One way to achieve this was by regulating hotel prices. All hotels paid a prefecture government tax of 5.36 percent according to central government tariffs. In order to increase their revenues, the prefecture government had prescribed a standard room rate of no less than 180 CNY per night for threestar hotels. With the rapid growth of tourism after the name change, the Diqing prefecture and Shangrila county governments had no doubt found a rich source of revenue. However, township governments where major tourist sites were located (including Hutiaoxia and Sanba) received few direct returns from tourism development, with the exception of local business opportunities, some road building and improvements in power supplies. A case in point is the White Water Terraces (Baishuitai) in Sanba Township, a spectacular ‘terraced’ waterfall formed by sediments of calcium carbonate. When the development of Baishuitai as a tourist site was first proposed, the township government negotiated an agreement with the county government for a small share of the income from entrance fees to the terraces. As a part of the deal with the county they also received an upgraded road and new power lines. When the agreement was later renegotiated, the township no longer received a share of the income from ticket sales. A Tibetan former official criticized this, and claimed that the villagers were being treated unfairly: Actually Baishuitai should belong to the administrative village [cun], since the water running down from the terraces is used to irrigate the farmers’ fields. However, the farmers are unaware of their legal rights, so they are deprived of the income from tourism. The case of Baishuitai illustrates several problematic issues. First, there is often considerable conflict potential in tourism development when investors are allowed to profit whereas local communities are neglected. This may well give rise to legal disputes as people are made aware of their rights and find ways to pursue their cases. Second, when governments are obviously earning very substantial revenues from tourism, the lack of government spending on services that benefit local communities easily becomes a contentious issue. At the time of my fieldwork there was little or no evidence of improvements in public services such as schools in rural areas. The town center seemed to be the scene of most of the public expenditure, whereas a substantial share of the revenue no doubt went into re-investments in new tourism development projects. With the advent of tourism, Shangrila’s scenic sites were eyed by local governments as ‘natural resources’, whereas religious sites such as monasteries were viewed as ‘cultural resources’ that could be used to attract tourists. The county and prefecture governments effectively controlled both

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The political economy of tourism

these ‘resources’. Thus, monasteries and temples that started to receive substantial numbers of tourists were instructed by local governments to charge visitors entrance fees, contrary to the tradition of keeping monasteries open to pilgrims. At Songtseling, the most visited monastic tourist site in Shangrila, a management committee (local Tibetan: gyamagyä) was responsible for the financial affairs of the monastery. Donations left on the altars were managed by the monastery itself, and were spent on supplies for the monks. The income from ticket sales, however, was administered by a ‘ticket office’ under the county finance department (Chinese: guo you zi chuang guanli ju). This office would collect the money and ‘help the monastery manage the funds’. Of the income from entrance fees, 40 percent was returned directly to the monastery, another 40 percent kept in a development fund, while the remaining 20 percent covered ‘tax and administration costs’. My informant claimed that: ‘this system is very good for the monastery, because the monks are not used to dealing with economic management and now they can focus on their studies’. In fact, monks and monastic administrators have handled financial affairs throughout the history of monasticism, and there is no reason to assume that monasteries were in need of such ‘help’ from the government.

The move to marketization The policy known as Reform and Opening Up (Gaige Kaifang) was first put into effect in Diqing in the early 1980s. During the 1980s and 1990s more and more people found jobs in newly established private enterprises, or found themselves working in enterprises that had been privatized. Within tourism, for instance, many of the hotels were once owned and managed by the prefecture or county governments or other public units, such as the armed forces, China Telecom or the public transportation department. The first travel agencies were set up as branch offices of nationwide public organizations such as China International Travel Service (CITS). However, during the 1990s new policies were gradually introduced to privatize these enterprises, either through subcontracting and leasing out, or through sales. Regulations on ‘developing horizontal economic cooperation’ were also introduced, with the explicit aim to encourage ‘units and individuals from outside the prefecture’ to set up private enterprises in Diqing (China Intercontinental Press 1997: 62–68). Preferential policies for such ‘outsiders’ included tax concessions, priority in obtaining loans and preferential land use fees. At the time of fieldwork, Shangrila’s tourism industry was by no means entirely privatized, although private companies dominated the scene. One or two of these were multinationals,7 a few were Chinese shareholding companies, and many were small private enterprises such as souvenir shops, restaurants and family guesthouses. Finally, a substantial number of people

The political economy of tourism 15 worked ‘informally’ at major tourist sites, including vendors and drivers. Local villagers, especially the children, were often left with the ‘job’ of dressing up in colorful costumes offering tourists a photo opportunity for one yuan a piece. The largest corporate players in Shangrila tourism were the Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company and Yunnan Ziyuan Company. The latter was a recent arrival in 2002, with a newly obtained 50-year contract for the right to develop tourism in ‘Shangrila Canyon’ (a gorge in the far north of the county) and Qianhu Mountain.8 The Yunnan Ziyuan Company was established in 1994 and specializes in real estate, tourism and biotechnology. With headquarters in Kunming, the company boasts ‘ownership’ of ‘more than 700,000 m2 of estate projects in Kunming City, Mi-le County, Xianwei City and Dali [Bai] Autonomous Prefecture’.9 In the development of bio-pharmacy and biological insecticides, it has ‘cooperated closely with Yunnan University and Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences’, and ‘has [made] great contributions in the protection of [the] eco-environment and the increase of farmers income’. As for its Shangrila tourism development project, the company claimed in its promotional materials that it had ‘bought 140 km2 scenery area in Zhongdian Shangrila Canyon and Qianhushan from 1999 to 2001, which is known as “the last clean earth in the world” [sic]’. The company’s plans for the development of tourism in the areas it had ‘bought’ were not yet publicized when I completed my fieldwork. However, villagers living in the Qianhu area were already in conflict with the company over the use rights the company had allegedly acquired. As explained by a local Tibetan, the company had made an agreement with the villagers, offering them 5,000 CNY a year in ‘land rent’ for a lot, to be used for building a hotel. In addition, they had promised to pay 6,000 CNY in a single installment ‘for working in the village’. Soon after the contract was signed, misunderstandings started to arise. Whereas the villagers thought they had agreed to a period of three years, to see how things worked, the company and township government claimed that they had in fact signed a 40-year contract. Furthermore, the government and the company insisted that the whole mountain was state forest (Chinese: guo you lin). The villagers disagreed, arguing that the part of the mountain used for tourism was actually community forest (she you lin). An enterprise called Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company (Tianjie Shenchuan Lüyou Fazhan Gongsi) was by far the largest tourism company in Shangrila, with a staff of about 100 workers in 2003. The relationship between this company and the Shangrila county government illustrates the tight links between private and government sectors. The company was set up in 2001, when the Mekong River Shareholders Investment Company (Lancang Jiang Touzi Kongou Youshen Gongsi) came to an agreement with the county government. As a result, the Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company was

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The political economy of tourism

established as a separate company, owned jointly by the county government (40 percent) and the investment company (60 percent).10 The Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company was given the mandate to collect entrance fees, develop and promote tourism in four magnificent scenic areas in Shangrila County: Bita Lake (Bita Hai), Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiaoxia), Haba Snow Mountain (Haba Xueshan) and White Water Terraces (Baishuitai).11 According to the company’s managers, as of 2003 they had about one million paying visitors annually to the four sites. Their income from ticket sales in 2002 reached a total of 15 million CNY. The company’s expenses included an annual fee of 8.6 million CNY to the county government, and a county government tax of 20 percent of ticket sales. Moreover, the fee to the county government was due to be increased by 10 percent each year. This significant condition had important consequences, not only financially, but also in terms of the company’s future direction and development potential. In an interview, managers of the Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company described their ambitious development goals in the following words:12 Firstly, we want to build up our company image, on the basis of the ‘Shangrila’ concept. Secondly, we want to develop the sites, so that two of them reach the ‘three A’ level and two reach the ‘four A’ level according to the international standard. Thirdly we want to develop the sites to national standard biodiversity parks. We also have plans to open sales offices in a few major cities, such as Hong Kong. The Haba Snow Mountain site is not yet fully developed. We want to find an outside partner to invest more on this site. Our plans include building basic infrastructure for tourism, such as three-star hotels and restaurants at the foot of the mountain. We want to plant trees on the mountainside, and develop trekking routes. A cable car is also included in the plans for the upper part of the mountainside. In 2003 the company began renovating the Bita Hotel, located on the main street of Zhongxin Town and previously county-owned. When the reconstruction work was completed, this formerly Soviet-style block of concrete was transformed into a five-star hotel with a distinctly ‘Tibetan’ touch, aptly renamed Paradise Hotel.13 New wings had been added, and a huge glass roof covered the inner ‘yard’, which had several pools flanked by tropical plants. The nightly rate of the ‘presidential suite’ was a staggering 8,000 CNY, nearly a year’s salary for a local teacher or office worker. The Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company has played a key role in the development of tourism in Shangrila. I was therefore interested to know the views of the company’s executives, recruited from Kunming, Guangdong and Hunan, regarding the ‘cultural programs’ they would like to develop for visitors to Shangrila:

The political economy of tourism 17 Although our sites are mainly natural scenic sites, ethnic culture is very abundant in these locations. There are a number of different minorities living in the area, such as Tibetans, Lisu, Yi, Hui and Naxi. Sanba has many Naxi people, and we plan to set up a cultural center for Dongba culture at the White Water Terraces [Baishuitai]. At Bita Lake there are many Tibetan cultural symbols that appear naturally in the landscape, such as the eight auspicious symbols. This is an excellent place to present Tibetan culture. In Tiger Leaping Gorge [Hutiaoxia] there are many different villages, with different minorities, different customs and different dances. These are cultural resources that are already there. As with the local government, the major tourism developers obviously viewed cultural resources as freely exploitable. Another enterprise that treated ethnic culture as ‘for the taking’ was the Tashi Delek Movie Production Company. Their visual products were based on images of the scenery and people of Diqing, focusing on ethnic minorities, especially Tibetans. In their well-equipped editing room, I was allowed to view some of their productions, ranging from musical video footage to documentaries sold to Japanese as well as Chinese broadcasting companies. Much of the footage featured glimpses of villagers in traditional attire, pursuing their daily chores, gathering at monastic festivals or visiting sacred sites.

Local stakeholders Anybody with money to invest could in principle start up a tourism-related enterprise in Shangrila. However, all businesses that impacted on the use of land or other natural resources required the approval of local authorities.14 Small-scale business ventures would only need approval from the village leader and township government, whereas larger enterprises would need to apply to the county government. Enterprises that transcended county boundaries would also need approval from the prefecture government. Competition over ‘contracts’ for business ventures in especially favorable areas quite often gave rise to conflicts. The governments evaluated applications on an individual basis, depending on the investment needed to carry out the specific plans proposed, and the estimated income opportunities of each particular site. According to a Tibetan who was planning a new eco-tourism project: The government doesn’t care what’s best for the villagers, they just favor the enterprise with the most capital to invest. The problem is that there are no standard procedures for giving people contracts, so the government can do whatever they want. Our company needs a contract, or else we can’t spend a lot of money, and risk losing it all later on. This is paving the way for a lot of controversy.

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The political economy of tourism

Another Tibetan informant alleged: ‘often people from the outside [waimian de ren] are allowed to lease collective land for 10 to 50 years from the village [cun], for only a small amount of money’. In fact, enterprises owned by Tibetans from within the county also secured such contracts. In one such case, the owner of a small theme park paid local villagers 8,000 CNY a year for the lease of land. This amount was divided among 18 families living in the village. The entrance fee to the park was only 15 yuan, but tourists would also have plenty of opportunities to spend money inside the park, on digital photography, souvenirs, food and pony-rides. The staff hired in for the summertime high season was mainly from outside the prefecture, and the only other income from the park available to locals was renting out ponies. The large number of visitors and the relatively small sum paid to the villagers ensured the owner a substantial profit. Unfortunately, the locals had signed an 18-year contract before this became evident. The income opportunities offered by tourism to local villagers depended largely on how much capital they had available for investment. According to statistics compiled by the prefecture government, in 2002 the per capita income in rural areas was only 999 CNY, while the per capita income among employees of work units and their families was 1,400 CNY. With such low incomes, starting up a transportation business, restaurant or hotel would require a considerable investment effort. Among the least expensive options, buying a van or jeep would require 30,000–40,000 CNY, while starting up a restaurant would cost anything from 5,000 to 100,000 CNY. Buying or building a guesthouse would require an investment of at least 80,000 CNY. For most local villagers such funds were completely out of reach. Considerably less capital was needed for making handicraft products or selling natural medicines. Highly skilled crafters could make a relatively good living from the production of wooden bowls. According to a craftsman I visited, he and his family could make 4,000–5,000 CNY a month from this business. As for natural medicine, this is a very popular purchase for Chinese tourists, and shops selling such products have been set up near tourist attractions all over the prefecture. Some also feature Tibetan doctors who diagnose patients and prescribe remedies on the spot. Such businesses may not require much capital, although medical skills are usually an advantage. Around Bita Lake and at Khawa Karpo Mountain, local villagers were profiting from hiring out horses and acting as guides. At Bita Lake a horse and guide would cost 50 CNY. On a good day a guide might make two or three trips, and earn up to 150 CNY. Before the site was connected by road, a local household might earn as much as 30,000 CNY a year from this business. After the road was built, this was reduced to an annual 3,000 CNY. Tourists visiting Qianhu Mountain could hire a pony and guide for 120 CNY a day. Here the villagers had set up a system where each household took

The political economy of tourism 19 turns at providing a horse and guide. Their earnings from tourism were still not high, despite growing numbers of visitors. It is important to note that by the late 1990s the key source of cash for many Shangrila villagers was the harvesting of Matsutake mushrooms (Chinese: songrong; local Tibetan: bishong) for export to Japan. Although only estimates are available, Yeh (2000: 214) claims that in the most productive villages it was not uncommon for families to make 50,000–60,000 CNY during a season, while a typical earning would be 2,000–3,000 CNY per capita. According to a villager in the Qianhu Mountain area, the average income from tourism in his community was only 200–300 CNY a year, while mushroom harvesting provided an income of 500–2,000 CNY. Despite local variations, for most Shangrila villagers the harvesting of mushrooms was in fact far more profitable than tourism-related activities. Another advantage was that mushroom harvesting required no other investment than time. The high season for tourism coincided with the most labor-intensive agricultural period, as well as the peak mushroom harvesting season (July– September). With the exception of souvenir manufacturing, villagers could not easily combine work in tourism with farm work and mushroom harvesting. Households that were setting up a guesthouse or related business and were depending on members of the household as their main workforce were hence forced to choose between continuing their farming activities and investing the household’s supply of labor in their tourism business. According to the local government, family-owned guesthouses have been promoted as an opportunity for locals to profit from tourism. This was first permitted in 1995 and by the time of my fieldwork 45 such guesthouses had been established, offering ‘bed and breakfast’ near the town, and accommodation in ‘homestays’ for trekkers in remote villages. In addition to accommodation, about 20 privately owned ‘Tibetan family houses’ (Chinese: zangmin jiafang) were offering entertainment and cultural presentations to tourists, most of them located near Zhongxin Town. An article published in the travel magazine Yunnan Travel (Liu 2002) explains the background for introducing the zangmin jiafang in Shangrila, and illustrates the extent of local government involvement in the process: Faced with strong market demand, some organizations and tourism services began to contact Tibetan families to host travelers and let them observe and learn from Tibetan daily life. So, the practice of visiting the Tibetan family emerged. In 1995, in order to serve these visitors, the tourism service department chose two characteristic Tibetan families in [Wangquka] as regular hosts. At that time, they only served travelers some Tibetan refreshments and introduced basic conditions. (Liu 2002: 66)

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The political economy of tourism

As the amount of visitors increased, the article continues, they required more. Visitors wanted to taste Tibetan food, see traditional costumes and experience folk songs, dances and marriage ceremonies. Consequently, ‘relevant departments’ responded by introducing cultural presentations, in which song and dance performances and samples of ‘Tibetan’ food and drink (including butter tea, barley wine and roasted mutton) became part of the routine (ibid.). The article concludes that: ‘this all increased the cultural content in the family visits and was welcomed by the tourists’. As the above account illustrates, local government officials have worked closely with travel service providers and selected Tibetan villagers to develop the ‘family visit’ into a profitable tourist attraction. Judging from the response of the tourists I observed while visiting the ‘Tibetan family house’, these enterprises do meet the demands of tourists. They also provide jobs for a number of young Tibetans, and profits for their local owners. In recent years, policies to privatize formerly state-owned enterprises, and to ‘marketize’ the labor force, have caused far-reaching changes in China. Until 1998, college and university graduates were guaranteed employment after their graduation, thanks to the job assignment system (Chinese: fenpei zhidu). When this system was canceled, graduates were forced into a highly competitive job market, where personal connections (guanxi) were an important asset. High unemployment, the easing of restrictions on mobility (especially the system of hukou or residence permits) and the rapid growth of tourism in Shangrila combined to make the county a very attractive destination for jobseekers. Due to the influx of jobseekers from outside the prefecture, and the preferences of employers, local jobseekers without well-placed connections often ended up among the ‘losers’ in the job market. For those who did find jobs, many were employed in tourism-related businesses, as staff of ‘Tibetan family houses’, restaurants and hotels, and as guides in touring operations and travel agencies. However, managers of the larger hotels recruited most of their staff from outside the prefecture, and the demand for guides was far less than the supply. As explained by a newly graduated Chinese-speaking guide, of 298 students who took the required prefecture tour guide exam the previous year, only 90 passed the exam, and according to his estimate only about 50 of these had found a job within a year of their graduation. Due to heavy competition in the job market, wages in Shangrila were low, often no more than 300 CNY a month, free accommodation and meals included. Construction workers would typically earn about 700 CNY a month. Many workers had no paid holidays, and during a low season, or if there were few customers, they might even be given an unpaid leave. Some workers received a regular monthly wage, whereas others, such as tour guides, might be given a very low basic monthly salary, room and board, and a daily wage for each day they actually worked. Benefits for workers in private enterprises ranged from nothing at all, to full medical and insurance coverage, a retirement pension, a cell phone, free housing and meals.

The political economy of tourism 21 The ‘private sector’ that benefited from tourism included self-employed shopkeepers and workers in small family-run businesses. In addition, the growth of tourism attracted numerous ‘informal’ workers: people who worked without a license, without paying taxes or fees, and usually for a very marginal profit. A typical example would be vendors, carrying around boxes of ice cream in the summer, or sitting in the street roasting potatoes and corn on the cob over charcoal cookers in the winter. Prostitutes were also among the ‘informal’ workers attracted to the area by the promises of the tourist market. As far as I heard, the great majority of prostitutes in Zhongxin Town were from ‘other areas’.15 Hillman (2003: 183) claims that in 1999 there were only ‘a few scattered brothels and massage parlours’ in town, whereas by the beginning of 2002, there were no less than 100 such places. The exact figures are not easily verified, nor is it easy to assess how much of the prostitution caters to migrant workers and locals, and how much to the tourist market. However, it is clear that sex tourism is a problem in China’s minority areas, so also in Shangrila.16

Entering global networks So far in this chapter I have investigated the economy of Shangrila tourism in terms of the ‘local’ versus the (presumably) ‘non-local’ (mainly ‘national’), and the ‘private’ versus the ‘public’ or ‘governmental’, while noting the blurry boundaries between public and private, and the ambiguities of categories such as ‘local’ and ‘outsider’. In the following I will describe how Shangrila tourism is deeply implicated in transnational, multinational or global networks of commercial transactions, reflected in what might be termed ‘global discourses’ on tourism and environmental (and cultural) preservation. These global exchanges can also be seen to cut across, and challenge, conventional binaries in the study of tourism economics such as ‘private–public’ and ‘local–national’. The ‘global’ (or at least transnational) is perhaps most immediately evident in Shangrila in the histories of a certain group of ‘local Tibetans’ – the ‘returnees’. Beginning in the 1980s, the Chinese government welcomed Tibetan refugees who had fled the country, as well as second generation Tibetans born in India or Nepal, back to their ‘native’ China. The invitation was for a while also backed by financial support to returning Tibetans, which provided additional incentives to Tibetans who were tempted by the opportunity to return ‘home’. Thanks to their English skills and other ‘cultural competence’, many of the ‘returnees’ found work in tourism, some as English-speaking guides and others as owners and managers of private enterprises such as restaurants and touring operations. In Shangrila, companies run by ‘returnees’ typically cater to Western tourists, and have spearheaded the promotion of ‘responsible tourism’, ‘soft tourism’ and ‘sustainable tourism’ in the region. In so doing, they have sometimes managed to forge alliances with international NGOs and other

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‘global’ actors. For instance, a partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) contributed to an ecotourism project in the village of Trinyi, just next to the airport. The Trinyi Eco-lodge and Community Center project was started up in 2001. During my fieldwork the lodge was under construction, and I visited the site with the Tibetan initiator of the project. The lodge was built in the style of a farmhouse, but with living and dining areas on the ground floor, where the villagers would ‘serve visitors local specialties and stage cultural performances’. The website for this project promises that income earned from dinners, cultural performance and other services will go to the villagers, helping the locals profit from tourism, while providing experiences of village life to the visitors. Another example of transnational networking is the ‘community tourism’ organized by the Shambhala Folk Environment Protection Association, which combines trekking with community work. Their main partner is a travel agency called X-Trekkers Adventure Consultant, based in Singapore. According to their website,17 X-Trekkers Adventure Centre is ‘an organization with an interest in conducting leisure and adventure activities in harmony with humanity and nature’. Tourists from Singapore and numerous other countries have visited Shangrila as tourist-volunteers in a ‘community immersion’ program known as ‘Operation Shangri-La’. This has been based at the Shambhala Folk Nature Reserve, south of Xiao Zhongdian. The Shambhala Folk Nature Reserve covers three villages with about 70 households. In one of these villages the local NGO has set up the ‘Shambhala Farm’. This village consists of only two households, who benefit from the project by collecting a visitors’ fee of 5 yuan. According to the villager who collected the fee from us, they usually also invite the tourists in for tea. The head of the Shambhala Folk Environment Protection Association explained that, due to poverty, villagers in the area currently had no other option than to cut down trees in the natural forest to sell for firewood. He reasoned that the villagers would only be able to stop cutting the trees once they had another income source, which could be provided by tourism. In his own words, the purpose of establishing the ‘Shambhala Folk Nature Reserve’ was ‘to preserve Tibetan culture, to protect nature and to maintain the balance of the existing ecosystem’. Tourism is thus presented as an instrument to help achieve the ultimate goal of protecting the environment, while simultaneously raising the living standard of villagers and preserving their culture. Local NGOs and private tourism enterprises are not the only actors engaged in global alliances to protect the environment of Shangrila. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has channeled much of its activity in northwestern Yunnan through the ‘Yunnan Great Rivers Project’, a multimillion-dollar collaboration between TNC and the Yunnan Province Government.18 The project aims to integrate conservation and sustainable development in northwestern Yunnan, and create a system of national parks ‘on 6.5 million acres of environmentally sensitive land’ (http://nature.

The political economy of tourism 23 org; see also Cater 2000; Litzinger 2004). This includes the making of a comprehensive conservation and economic development plan, a ‘two-year endeavor involving surveys, research and feasibility studies by an unprecedented 40 public and private agencies’.19 Among the strategies for ‘sustainable development’ advanced by TNC in northwestern Yunnan is the promotion of ‘community-based ecotourism’ or ‘green tourism’. At the time of fieldwork there were still only pilot projects underway, mainly centered in Yubeng, a village of 25 houses on the Khawa Karpo pilgrimage route. TNC makes a clear distinction between ‘green tourism’, which it encourages, and mass tourism, which it sees as a potential cause of environmental stress:20 Tourism is both an environmental threat and an economic opportunity, with the potential to provide desperately needed income to northwest Yunnan. The Conservancy is working with local communities, government agencies, and tourism enterprises to develop strategies for ‘green’ tourism which will limit the footprint of mass tourism while generating income for local people. In addition to plans for the ‘Shangrila Ecological Tourism Region’ described earlier, Diqing prefecture authorities have cooperated closely with neighboring prefectures (Lijiang and Nujiang), provincial authorities, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), WWF and TNC on a scheme to include the ‘Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas’ in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The Yunnan Province Construction Department was responsible for the development of a ‘Master Plan for 2001–20’ for the Three Parallel Rivers National Park, which encompasses the World Heritage Area. The project has been coordinated since 1995 by the Three Parallel Rivers Scenic Zone Management Office, under the direction of the Chinese Ministry of Construction. The master plan involves the development of ‘scenic zones for tourism’, building the necessary infrastructure during the first five years (2001–6), then expanding and improving it in phases.21 As cited by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre:22 The guiding principles are ecological equilibrium, between man and nature, ecological conservation and conformity to existing laws. The plan is to preserve the ethnic cultures, focusing on certain villages, retaining their biological, cultural and landscape diversity while developing their economic potential in environmentally friendly ways. Staff training and public awareness programs are planned, and programs for monitoring by satellite and aerial photography, and on site of the hydrology, ecology, fires, pollution, forest disease and tourist movements. According to the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, the master plan for the project explicitly ‘urges government agencies responsible for

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management of the site to develop action plans to preserve the cultures and traditions of [. . .] ethnic groups’. Furthermore, the report claims that close to the scenic zones in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture the government intends to preserve 31 ‘traditional villages’, in an effort to ‘realize their potential for tourism’.23 Interestingly, ‘ethnic cultures’ are here singled out as items of preservation and resources for the promotion of tourism, without any information on how such a task would actually be carried out. The planners of the Three Parallel Rivers National Park apparently regard biological, cultural and landscape diversity as equivalent, in effect treating ‘ethnic groups’ as a part of the natural environment. It also appears that the economic potential of this environment, and of ‘traditional villages’, lies in their value as tourist attractions. At the same time, ‘tourist movements’ are listed among the environmental threats that need to be monitored. Apart from the reference to monitoring, however, none of the documents explain how the contradiction between tourism as an economic potential and tourism as an environmental threat might be reconciled, despite that there are in fact serious contentions between the establishment of the ‘protection area’ and the further development of tourism in the area. This issue was not lost on the World Heritage Committee, which notes ‘concerns over the nature and extent of future tourism and hydro development that may affect the nominated property’.24 In its ruling on the Three Parallel Rivers protection area, the World Heritage Committee fails to mention another topic that should have been of concern: the relocation of villagers from the ‘property’. As of 2003, the provincial authorities had reportedly completed the relocation of approximately 36,000 people (9,000 households) from the ‘protection area’, mainly to resettle in Dali and Simao prefectures. A further 19,500 people were scheduled for resettlement over the next few years, 60 percent of them from core zones of the area and the remainder from buffer zones.25 No information was available on how these people would be compensated or whether they would be offered support for livelihood restoration. The Three Parallel Rivers protection area was approved by the World Heritage Committee in December 2003 as one of the world’s most important remaining areas for the conservation of the earth’s biodiversity. While the World Heritage Committee was making its deliberations, a major dam construction in the Tiger Leaping Gorge was being planned by China’s largest independent power producer, the Huaneng Group. As soon as these plans were announced in early 2004, the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam project became a rallying point for the Chinese ‘green movement’. The area that was to be flooded by the proposed reservoir included Shangrila’s Hutiaoxia Township, with a population of about 30,000. On completion, the dam would allegedly displace up to 100,000 people, including ethnic Naxi, Miao, Yi, Bai, Lisu and Tibetan villagers (Becker and Howden 2004). Tiger Leaping Gorge was slated as one of 46 dam sites on the Yangtze River alone. However, Chinese environmentalists were quick to identify

The political economy of tourism 25 this particular dam as their ‘next major campaign’ (ibid.). In 2004 at least nine Chinese NGOs were protesting the project, among them the Green Earth Volunteers and Friends of Nature. To support their arguments against the dam construction, they cited the recent UNESCO World Heritage Committee listing. The Chinese environmentalists were also backed, and supported financially, by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), a multilateral environmental initiative which has identified the Mountains of Southwest China (including Shangrila) as one of its ‘hotspots for biodiversity conservation’ (see Litzinger 2006).26 Finally, the ‘green movement’ had a very strong argument against the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam project in the Shangrila image promoted by the tourism industry, which has identified Shangrila as a place where humans live ‘in harmony with nature’. With arguments such as these, the case was subsequently ‘won’. The Tiger Leaping Gorge dam project remains on hold, at least for the time being.

The tourism marketplace With the development of tourism in Shangrila, expressions of ‘Tibetan culture’ have become objects of preservation efforts, as well as products to be bought and sold in the global tourism market. The case of Tiger Leaping Gorge highlights as well how the very concept of ‘Shangrila’ now has political currency, which can serve as powerful symbolic capital in a global conservationist discourse. Tourism marketing in China has helped establish a common understanding that a particular place, which bears the name of Shangrila, embodies harmonious relations between man and nature. In the process, the concept of ‘Shangrila’ has been brought into global networks of political as well as commercial transactions. In the academic literature on tourism, one of the harshest critiques of cultural commodification once presented it as ‘a violation of peoples’ cultural rights’: Culture is being packaged, priced, and sold like building lots, rights-ofway, fast food, and room service, as the tourism industry inexorably extends its grasp. [. . .] The massive alterations in the distribution of wealth and power that are brought about by tourism are paralleled by equally massive and perhaps equally destructive alterations in local culture. The culture brokers have appropriated facets of a life-style into the tourism package to help sales in the competitive market. This sets in motion a process for which no one, not even planners, seem to feel in the least responsible. (Greenwood 1989: 179) In this seminal work on tourism as a cause of cultural commodification, Greenwood actually identifies two distinct problems, which he describes as

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‘parallel’. One is the massive changes brought about by tourism in the distribution of ‘wealth and power’, while the other is the (equally massive) alterations in ‘local culture’, which Greenwood attributes to the appropriation of ‘facets of a lifestyle’ by the tourism industry and its culture brokers. Taken together, these two problems comprise the cultural commodification that Greenwood criticizes, and other tourism researchers have since debated. As for the first part of Greenwood’s argument, the consequences of Shangrila tourism for the local distribution of wealth are noticeable – the income gap is widening, among villagers and between villagers and townspeople. The well-off are prospering, whereas the poor are left with little other than rising food prices. Tourism has offered few opportunities for those who lack capital to invest, whereas for those who have capital, opportunities are rife. Other issues worth mentioning are the challenges linked to abrupt changes in livelihoods and income patterns, as well as tensions caused by unequal access to resources and competition over job opportunities. In Shangrila, this has given rise to a joke about the new Tibetan name of the county. Semkyinyinda has been dubbed Shangkyinyinda – ‘the sun and moon of the wolves’. Regarding Greenwood’s critique of ‘cultural packaging’, Shangrila tourism has indeed created a new demand for ‘ethnic culture’, which has led to the development of a range of new cultural products. Tourism has not ‘commodified’ all of these products, but rather helped create new markets for products that may already have been commodified long before tourists arrived on the scene. Is the commodification of such cultural products necessarily a cause of concern? I suggest that the careful use of cultural resources in ethnic tourism may have the potential to benefit local communities by providing important new income opportunities. Commodification can thus be beneficial when it provides a source of income to communities with few other options. However, it is important to note that, in the case of Shangrila, ethnic minorities have had far less to gain than investors from other parts of China, who have capitalized to a much greater extent. The last and perhaps most compelling point in Greenwood’s line of argument is that the commodification of culture ‘robs people of the very meanings by which they organize their lives’ (Greenwood 1989: 179). On this point I suggest that the multifaceted connections between tourism, expressions of identity, and cultural and spatial representations deserve a close examination before a final ‘verdict’ can be attempted.

3

Issues and methods

Cultural outcomes of ‘being visited’ is one of the key topics in the tourism studies literature, with a number of works focusing on touristic consumption and cultural commodification (Greenwood 1989; Burns and Holden 1995; Selwyn 1996; Ritzer 1998) and very few leaving the topic uncommented. One issue of debate is the importance of tourism as an agent of change. Nuñez (1989: 267) claims that in order to survive and perpetuate their cultural identity and integrity, emerging new nations or quite traditional cultures caught up in a competitive world economy encourage and invite the most successful agents of change (short of political or military agents) active in the contemporary world. Other tourism researchers have questioned the power of tourism. Smith (1989), for instance, argues that in the Alaskan Arctic, even mass tourism (introducing four times the total population of a community during a period of three months) has not been a significant agent of cultural change. Other factors, including land rights, patterns of trading and government welfare policies, have been far more important. In order to inform any discussion on cultural outcomes of tourism, it is important to clarify what is meant by ‘cultural change’. Wood (1993: 66) criticizes early methodological approaches for using the image of a billiard game ‘in which a moving object (tourism) acted upon an inert one (the local culture)’. As Wood (1993: 67–68) points out, ‘tourism’s impact is always played out in an already dynamic and changing cultural context’. Wall and Long (1996) list a number of factors that should be considered: 1 Residents of the destination area are not just passive recipients of tourism, they may variously encourage, resist or participate in the development process. 2 The distinction between residents or ‘insiders’ and those from other areas or ‘outsiders’ are often blurred. 3 The destination area is not static at the time of impact.

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Issues and methods

Wall and Long (1996: 27–28) conclude that: A simple perspective upon the impacts of tourism as resulting from the introduction of a new activity modifying a static society may be usefully replaced by a more complex dialectical formulation in which tourism initiatives and a complex recipient society interact, each influencing, responding to and being molded by the other. While these are important corrections, they fail to address the problems related to defining, and using, the term ‘culture’ itself. In recent anthropological literature, the concept of ‘culture’ has been challenged in a number of different ways. The criticism includes the role of the anthropologist or ethnologist in constructing ‘culture’ and defining the ‘ethnic group’, and the way that the anthropologist helps produce, and maintain, difference and makes it seem self-evident. It has also been pointed out that anthropological talk about ‘culture’ has passed into the cultural nationalist discourse of Third World elites, who think of ‘culture’ as ‘shared cultural traits’ that ‘belong’ to a particular group of people. Meanwhile, anthropologists have described this way of thinking as ‘essentialist’ and ‘reifying’, and recognized ‘culture’ as an important political tool. Following this anthropological critique, the ‘cultural’ is understood here as a field of competing claims about identity and rights, which are often also key arguments of ethnic politics. To question the term ‘culture’ is particularly relevant in the present study, because it highlights how people who are visited by tourists may thereby become aware of the significance of culture (or even learn the concept), and begin to see ‘their own culture’ with new eyes as ‘it’ is marketed for tourists. In other words, this study is about the promotion of ‘Tibetan culture’ by tourism developers, and the consequences of this promotion for indigenous self-reflection. As such, it does not take culture to be a set of characteristic traits that may or may not be changed by tourism. On the other hand, it does understand culture and other aspects of ethnic difference as marketable by the tourism industry. In the sense that ethnic difference is the object of ethnic tourism, such difference is invariably commodified.

Negotiating ethnic tourism In the study of ethnic tourism, the role of the tourist is often seen as a crucial determinant, with the harshest critics describing the ‘host–guest’ relationship as a form of cultural imperialism (Turner and Ash 1975; Nash 1989). Much less attention has been given to the active role of host communities in the process of marketing indigenous cultural resources (Butler and Hinch 1996; Hitchcock and Teague 2000). The focus of the present study is on the dialogue between the ‘natives’ and the ‘tourists’, with an emphasis on how representations of the ‘natives’ are mediated by culture brokers.1 In Shangrila, tourism culture brokers can be found in government offices as

Issues and methods 29 well as private enterprises, and can also be tour guides or entrepreneurs engaged in developing souvenirs and other products for tourist consumption. As we saw in the previous chapter, Tibetan ‘returnees’ from India are among the culture brokers that market Shangrila for English-speaking audiences. Tibetan officials and other cadres play a key role in facilitating the development of tourism, and promoting Shangrila for the domestic market. Local government officials were also the principal actors behind the identification of Zhongdian as Shangrila, and lobbied intensely for the name change. The ‘tourist gaze’, as defined by Urry (1990: 1–2), varies by society, social group and historical period, and is constructed through difference, ‘in relationship to its opposite, to non-tourist forms of social experience and consciousness’. Although there is no single tourist gaze, the particular gaze of ethnic tourism is definable in that it takes ethnic difference as its object. The gaze of ethnic tourism, though it also varies across time and space, reflects the social experience of the majority encountering itself while consuming images of the ethnic. MacCannell (1992: 170) argues that ‘ethnic tourism is the mirror image of racism’. Ethnic or racial difference is certainly the object of ethnic tourism, and is consequently the object of commodification and consumption in various forms. While difference itself is reified through these processes, the nature and characteristics of a particular ethnic or racial difference is not merely reified, it is also made negotiable. Even in seemingly extreme cases of ethnic commodification, representations of ethnicity are multi-faceted. Indigenous self-representations reflect more than the ‘tourist gaze’, and this is partly because tourists are not the only people looking. The ‘natives’ themselves also ‘gaze’, as do neighboring communities, migrant workers, investors, researchers, NGO representatives, agents of the state, local bureaucrats and other stakeholders in the business and politics of tourism. The present study thus understands representations of cultural and ethnic identity in the context of Shangrila tourism as products of continuous interaction between tourists, the visited, culture brokers and numerous other stakeholders in tourism development. Ethnic tourism should hence be seen as an evolving project, fuelled by tourist demands, state policies and the various agendas of tourism entrepreneurs and visited peoples. These agendas may encompass political as well as economic gains, such as state recognition of ethnic identity (in the Chinese context, writing on the Gezu or Gejia, see Cheung 1996), the redefinition of particular ethnic markers or the reinterpretation of ethnic difference as such. Ethnic tourism is a stage for negotiating ethnic identity, where different stakeholders each have their own preconceptions of the ‘ethnic minorities’ in question, the ‘essence’ of their cultures, and the wants and needs of tourists. Ethnic stereotypes are inevitably reworked in the complex interaction between visitors, the visited and the mediators (whether state authorities or private entrepreneurs), as representations of ethnicity and

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Issues and methods

‘ethnic culture’ aimed at tourists are subject to continuous (re)interpretation and negotiation. Ethnic tourism is thus not merely a reproduction (or mirror) of ethnic stereotypes.

Key issues: cultural commodification and authenticity As introduced in the previous chapter, a key question in the study of impacts of tourism has been whether tourism is a culturally destructive force that causes the collapse of ‘cultural meanings’ (Greenwood 1989; Selwyn 1996), or rather a means to aid ‘cultural survival’ (Swain 1989; Boissevain 1996; Cheung 1996). A related issue is the potentially ‘secularizing’ or ‘de-sacralizing’ effects of tourism, provoked by tensions between tourism and religious practice (Boissevain 1996; Murray and Graham 1997; Digance 2003; see also Robinson and Boniface 1999; Shackley 1999).2 One of the strongest criticisms is again provided by Greenwood, describing the transformation of the Basque Alarde festival by the tourism industry from a ‘vital and exciting ritual’ into a commodity that was ‘meaningless to the people who once believed in it’ (Greenwood 1989: 178, 173). Discussing the case of Bali, McKean (1989: 128) similarly asks: [W]ill temple ceremonies, religious observances, their attendant music, dances, and offerings become a kind of ‘floor show’ for the guests as well as the Balinese? Could they ultimately become a hypocritical ‘fake culture’, created by the secularizing tendencies of tourism, converting homo religiosus into homo economicus? McKean (ibid.) counters his own suggestions, stating that this will not happen ‘as long as Balinese are bound to other Balinese by ties of ritual, cosmic orientation, and ancestral loyalty’. He further claims that the maintenance of self-respect through ‘presentation of culture’ may be one of the primary factors in continued Balinese existence as a unique cultural entity. A related argument is made by Boissevain (1996), who maintains that by marketing their culture, people (re)discover their own history and traditions and begin to realize their own worth (see also Hitchcock and Teague 2000). Writing on impacts of tourism on mountain pilgrimage in eastern Tibet, Peng (1998: 185) describes both positive and negative outcomes: On the one hand [tourism] may offer a space for Tibetans to reaffirm their cultural differences from the dominant group, thus reconstructing their ethnic identity. On the other hand, it can lead to an erosion of some traditional values, introducing new strains and conflicts into local Tibetan communities. Peng suggests that the pilgrimage he studied, to Mount Rdza-dkar, played a focal role in the religious revival of the early 1980s, but when pilgrimage

Issues and methods 31 later became a regular practice, this changed. As the tourism economy grew in the local community and personal mobility increased, pilgrimage practices diversified to other pilgrimage sites in more faraway places. In addition to his own interpretation, Peng also gives voice to local views of the impacts of tourism. The abbot of the local monastery complains that the influx of tourists is accelerating the erosion of Tibetan traditional values, while government officials argue that tourism has helped the locals develop a ‘clear sense of market economy’. As this illustrates, the cultural impact of tourism is not just debated by researchers, but is often also a vital issue of debate among culture brokers and local stakeholders in general. Even more of the complexity is brought out when Peng (ibid.: 195) describes the perspectives of the tourists: A tourist’s experience in Jiuzhaigou can be fruitfully viewed as that of a tourist-pilgrim. The tourist-pilgrim goes on a journey in search of a place isolated in time and space. The journey to the area is a journey back in time, a return to Nature. Unlike the detachment of tourists from modernity, however, local Tibetans regarded their participation in tourism as a means in their striving to be modern. In a similar vein Oakes (1998: 63) points out how the tourism industry has represented Miao tourist villages as anachronistic remnants of a ‘purer age’ of pre-modern authenticity, whereas for the visited Miao villagers, touristic performances were ‘a staging of modernity’. As noted by Peng (1998), the dilemma the ‘natives’ thus face is that, on the one hand the penetration of tourism has reshaped their outlook and local way of life, while on the other hand they have to live up to the tourist imagination that their ‘primitive’ traditions have not been ‘spoiled’ by the forces of modernity, including tourism. This highlights how the demands of tourists for the ‘authentically pre-modern’ may pose a challenge to Tibetans (and other ‘natives’) who have become objects of the gaze of ethnic tourism. Researchers of tourism have persistently debated the issue of ‘authenticity’, usually from the perspective of the tourists. While some have described tourists as searching for ‘authentic’ experiences (e.g. MacCannell 1976, 1992), others have seen tourists as drawn towards inauthentic ‘pseudoevents’ (Boorstin 1964), or raised doubts about the assumed tourist preoccupation with the distinction between the ‘fake’ and the ‘real’ (see, for instance, Pedersen and Viken 1996, writing on Sami tourism). Turner (1994: 185) argues that tourism is a quest for ‘authentic local cultures’, but that the tourism industry, by creating the illusion of authenticity, paradoxically reinforces the experience of social and cultural simulation. Turner concludes that the very existence of tourism rules out the possibility of an ‘authentic cultural experience’. Oakes (2006: 250) draws a similar conclusion, albeit from a rather different line of argument: ‘The paradox of authenticity is that it vaporizes only when you look for it’ and ‘to the extent that this need leads

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Issues and methods

one on a journey, a quest for something or somewhere “authentic”, it will always recede and disappear from view, inexpressible in a modern language of binaries’. Authenticity, for Oakes (2006: 247–50), is therefore an ‘abyss’, but it is also (and this is what I see as the key point) a role played by villagers to satisfy tourists. MacCannell (1976) maintains that the touristic quest for authenticity is a modern version of the universal human concern with the sacred. A number of researchers have similarly sought to understand tourism as a form of ‘sacred journey’, recognizing the roots of tourism in pilgrimage, and exploring resemblances (as well as differences) between tourism and pilgrimage (Cohen 1988, 2002; Graburn 1989; Nash 1989; Shields 1990; Urry 1990; Bauman 1994; Sharpley 1994; Brown 1996; Jurkowich and Gesler 1997).3 Urry (1990: 10) describes the relationship between pilgrimage and tourism in spatial terms, as follows: Like the pilgrim the tourist moves from a familiar place to a far place and then returns to a familiar place. At the far place both the pilgrim and the tourist engage in ‘worship’ of shrines which are sacred, albeit in different ways, and as a result gain some uplifting experience. In addition to such analytical approaches to tourism as pilgrimage, there are also numerous case studies of tourists self-consciously identifying with pilgrims, or more precisely, of travelers who frame their journeys as pilgrimage rather than touring. I will return to this topic in the following chapters. The authenticity of spatial representations involved in the construction of tourist destinations is another significant issue. The tourist perspective, i. e. the senses of authenticity produced for the visitor, and tourism as an aspect of ‘modern subjectivity’, has tended to dominate the academic debate, while the concerns of the visited have (again) received far less attention. Among the attempts to represent the voices of the visited is MacCannell (1992), who takes issue with the development of tourism in Locke, a Californian town originally inhabited by Chinese workers on the large farms of the Central Valley. As always true to his critical agenda, MacCannell (1992: 176) describes this development as the making of ‘pseudo-communities’: What one witnesses in villages that are transformed for tourists, is a reification of the simple social virtues, or the ideal of ‘village life’, into ‘something to see’. The village is not destroyed, but the primary function of the village shifts from being the base of human relationships to a detail in the recreational experiences of a tourist from out of town. Ironically, the tourist is often seeking to experience a place where human relationships still seem to exist.

Issues and methods 33 Does tourism produce ‘pseudo-communities’ as seen from the perspective of the visited? Is the tourist village an ‘empty meeting ground’ (MacCannell 1992), and are tourist sites essentially ‘dreamscapes’ of visual consumption (Zukin 1992)? And if it is true, as Urry (1995: 21) claims, that identity has ‘historically been founded on place, where people come from and have moved to’, does the creation of such ‘dreamscapes’ pose significant problems for the identity of the ‘natives’? Can a community that has been ‘developed’ for tourism still provide a sense of identity to the people inhabiting it, and what does tourism do to their notions of place, especially when, as in Shangrila, a place name is reinvented in the process? In responding to such questions, we need to turn our attention to the literature on ‘place and space’, and especially to issues such as the ‘authenticity’ of place, and of place-making as ‘making real’.

Authenticity and places in the making Researchers inspired by the hermeneutical tradition (e.g. Bender 1993a; Lovell 1998), as well as those drawing on phenomenology (Relph 1970, 1976; Seamon and Mugerauer 1985; Tilley 1994; Feld and Basso 1996), have the recovery of people’s ‘sense of place’ as a key concern. Bender (1993b) serves as a good example of this approach, understanding landscapes as created by people ‘through their experience and engagement with the world around them’. Bender (1993b: 1) describes these landscapes as ‘closegrained, worked-upon, lived-in places’, or ‘distant and half-fantasised’. Bender’s perspective here is the individual’s viewpoint, and her interest is in the way people ‘understand and engage with their worlds’ (ibid.: 2), whether conscious (as a way of laying claims and legitimizing ‘a particular place in the world’) or almost unconscious (as a part of ‘the routine of everyday existence’).4 In cultural geography, attention to the experiential aspect of landscapes inspired a ‘lineage of inquiry into place and lived experiences, particularly experiences of rootedness, uprootedness or transrootedness’ (Feld and Basso 1996: 1; e.g. Tuan 1977; Cosgrove 1984). As the terminology reveals, this inquiry has been guided by ideas of ‘dwelling’ drawn from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Readings of Heidegger’s philosophy by ‘phenomenologist geographers’ often imply that those senses of place that are understood as ‘rooted’ in everyday experiences are privileged, thus providing authenticity to ‘everyday’ places, and even to the very nature of things. For instance, Dovey (1985: 44–47) draws on Heidegger’s distinction between ‘readiness-to-hand’ and ‘presence-at-hand’ when she understands ‘authenticity’ as ‘rooted in indigenous process’ (‘indigenous’ in the sense of ‘produced or born within’), and as ‘a condition of connectedness in the relationship between people and their world’, suggesting that: ‘authentic places and things are born from

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Issues and methods

authentic dwelling practices in everyday life’. Everyday experience is evidently seen to provide certain spatial understandings with a ring of ‘truth’. Such a use of the notion of ‘experience’ is obviously questionable, and has indeed been criticized.5 According to Pickles (1985), protagonists of this trend such as Relph (1970) and Tuan (1971, 1977) actually misinterpreted Heidegger’s ideas, leading to a privileging in humanistic geography of ‘meanings’ or ‘senses’ of place gained in the context of everyday use.6 Likewise, a body of literature on place and identity (anthropological as well as geographical) has privileged senses of ‘rootedness’, ‘belonging’ or ‘dwelling’ (e.g. Richardson 1984; Entrikin 1991; Buttimer 1993; Jackson 1994). In defining the term ‘landscape’, Ingold (2000: 192) similarly maintains that the significance of place is derived from a specific type of ‘engagement with the world’: A place owes its character to the experiences it affords to those who spend time there – to the sights, sounds and indeed smells that constitute its specific ambience. And these, in turn, depend on the kinds of activities in which its inhabitants engage. It is from this relational context of people’s engagement with the world, in the business of dwelling, that each place draws its unique significance. In studying place-making in the context of Shangrila tourism, to privilege ‘dwelling’ or everyday ‘lived experience’ would mean to establish a priority of experiences of different actors, in effect to claim that the ‘close-grained’ experiences of villagers in Gyalthang working their farmland ranks higher in terms of authenticity than the ‘experiential distance’ of recent immigrants, and of agents of the state apparatus reinterpreting the ‘place’ of Zhongdian as a territory of the People’s Republic. The ‘tourist gaze’, and the seemingly ‘inauthentic’ place of ‘Shangrila’, would then represent the ‘least rooted’, ‘most distant’ experience. Such an approach would make this a study of the ‘inauthenticity’ of the tourist experience and the ‘authenticity’ of Tibetan ‘sacralized’ space. Since presumably all experiences are ‘lived’, the important questions would then be what exactly makes certain experiences ‘near’ and others ‘distant’, and conversely what constitutes a ‘disengaged place’ or ‘placeless landscape’? As described by writers such as Relph (1976), ‘authentic’ landscapes are landscapes that are tied to the social contexts and natural environments in which they were developed, while ‘inauthentic’ or ‘placeless’ landscapes are modern landscapes of the suburb, mall and shopping strip that lack context (see also Augé 1995). In investigating this distinction I turn to one such ‘placeless’ landscape, as described by Zukin (1991, 1992): Disney’s ‘Main Street USA’. Zukin’s reading of the Disney landscape has been dismissed for its singularity, as well as its tendency toward ‘economic reductionism’ (Keith and Pile 1993: 7–8). However, the issue I focus on here is Zukin’s emphasis on attachment and detachment to place as important sources of

Issues and methods 35 socio-spatial identity. A basic distinction for Zukin is between ‘markets’ as economic forces that detach people from established social institutions, and ‘place’ as spatial forms that anchor them to the social world, providing the basis for a stable identity (Zukin 1992: 223). This description resonates closely with the issue of ‘authenticity’ and ‘inauthenticity’ as debated in a number of phenomenologically oriented geographical works. Zukin (1991, 1992) takes Walt Disney’s landscape of ‘Main Street USA’ as an example of how a ‘desire for security’ can be abstracted from the ‘vernacular’ of the power-less and incorporated into ‘a coherent landscape of corporate power’, which parallels the creation of a mass consumption society (1991: 221–32). Zukin (1991: 222) describes Disney’s ‘Main Street USA’ as a ‘mock-up’ that idealizes the vernacular architecture of early twentieth century Marceline, Missouri (presumably the ‘real’ Main Street) which Disney remembered from his unhappy childhood. According to Zukin (ibid.), Disneyland succeeded on the basis of a ‘totalitarian imagemaking’, concluding that in Disney’s landscape, our socio-spatial identity is derived from what we consume (Zukin 1992: 243). Keith and Pile (1993) take issue with this interpretation, challenging the ‘coherence’ and ‘totality’ that is read into Zukin’s landscape of power. They further suggest that Zukin’s analysis implies, or even demands, the recovery of ‘good landscapes which contrast to the Mickey Mouse worlds of capital’. Whereas Zukin (at least in Keith and Pile’s reading) is critical to Disneyland because of its deception, and thus the inauthenticity of its landscape, Keith and Pile (1993) have a different view. In their critique of Zukin’s account, they conclude that ‘spatialities draw on a relationship between the real, the imaginary and the symbolic that is not beyond truth and falsity, but is different from it’ (1993: 10). Disneyland has indeed inspired several writers to address this relationship. For Eco (1987), Disneyland provides a perfect example of the ‘hyper-real’; the replica that appears more ‘real’ than the original. What is falsified, according to Eco (1987: 43) is ‘our will to buy, which we take as real, and in this sense Disneyland is really the quintessence of consumer ideology’. Baudrillard (1994: 12–13) presents an even more engaging proposition in his reading of Disneyland. He argues that: ‘Disneyland is neither true nor false, it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate the fiction of the real in the opposite camp’ (i.e. the rest of America): Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the ‘real’ country, all of ‘real’ America that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, its banal omnipresence, that is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representa-

36

Issues and methods tion of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus saving the reality principle.

Is Shangrila, with its unmistakably inauthentic name, also placeless? Is it real, or is it perhaps, like Baudrillard’s Disneyland, a ‘deterrence machine’? Interesting as these questions might be, it is more important in this study to ask how Shangrila is made real, by different actors, employing different discursive strategies, drawing on different contexts and references. Baudrillard does not provide answers to such questions, but makes the important suggestion that not only authenticity, but reality itself is constituted through discourse. The ‘phenomenological’ project as developed by human geographers can be understood as an attempt to address the identity crisis that it associates with the ‘placelessness’ of the modern subject, and in many ways appears as a romantic critique of modernity (e.g. Relph 1976). In engaging in this project, humanistic geographers inspired by Heidegger’s concept of ‘dwelling’ and preoccupied with issues of ‘belonging’ or ‘rootedness’ have ignored the political role of claims to a privileged connection to particular places, and have failed to discuss how ‘belonging’ and ‘rootedness’ are powerful discursive tools within certain political debates (see also Durman 2000). For researchers of ethnicity and indigenous movements it should be obvious that claims of ‘belonging’ are politically charged. As Lefebvre (1991: 30) points out, once the social production of space is recognized, the first implication is that (physical) natural space disappears. This suggests that the illusion of the ‘naturalness’ of any spatial representations (including those of the physical sciences) vanishes as soon as their social construction is exposed. Lefebvre further makes the important propositions that (social) space is a (social) product, and that ‘every society – and hence every mode of production with its subvariants [. . .] produces a space, its own space’. Moreover, Lefebvre (ibid.: 33) maintains that ‘representations of space [. . .] are tied to the relations of production and to the “order” which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to “frontal” relations’. The spatial as a field of contestation is at the core of ‘materialist’ approaches to the study of ‘space and place’, which draw on post-Marxist cultural critique, poststructuralist discourse analysis and postmodernism to interrogate issues such as representation, gender and political action (Feld and Basso 1996: 2; e.g. Soja 1989; Harvey 1993; Keith and Pile 1993; Massey 1993; but see also Bender 1993c, 2001). In these writings an important concern has been to examine place-making as a form of power struggle (e.g. Gupta and Ferguson 1997b). This sense of space as intrinsically political arises from a recognition by critical geographers of the ‘socio-spatial dialectic’: that space is a social construct, constituted through social relations and material social practices, while conversely, the social is spatially constructed (Massey 1993: 145–46). Soja (1989: 129–30) develops this recog-

Issues and methods 37 nition into a ‘materialist interpretation of spatiality’, arguing that the duality of produced space as both outcome or product, and medium or producer of social activity gives rise to contradictions, making concrete spatiality a ‘competitive arena for struggles over social production and reproduction’. Such ‘materialist’ or ‘poststructuralist’ approaches have inspired the present study. As described by Jones (2001: 123), poststructuralists have ‘put the very terms “world” and “self” under genealogical and deconstructive analysis’, and in so doing introduced a series of significant questions: What exclusionary processes produce the meanings of our worldly constituents, such as nature, community, and nations, as well as our selfbased ones, such as culture, ‘race’, gender and sexuality? And, from a geographic perspective, how does space, ‘real’, represented and imagined, work in these constructions and stabilizations, and to whose benefit? In order to begin answering such questions, place-making and struggles for power must be seen as inextricably linked. Foucault (1980) states just this when he argues that: ‘A whole history remains to be written of spaces – which would at the same time be the history of powers (both of these terms in the plural) – from the great strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of the habitat.’ Others have suggested that the quintessential sign of power is the ability to ‘impose one’s fictions on the world’ (Anagnost 1997: 52). It should be added that the imposition of spatial fictions is crucial to this ability, since these are not only fictions imposed ‘on the world’, but at the same time fictions ‘of the world’, or fictions that constitute the ‘world’ as such.

4

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination

The area now known as Shangrila has been imagined, or ‘made up’, in very different terms over the past decades, as China has gone through radical transformations. Struggles for power have driven violent social upheavals, but have also permeated more subtle processes of change. This chapter outlines a local history of these struggles, highlighting the crucial links between place-making and concomitant struggles over spatial representation, and the enforcement of social order and associated power struggles. In so doing, this chapter also identifies several different and in many respects competing place-making strategies and discourses, which will be detailed further in the following chapters. The different place-making discourses are described here in relation to each other, because it is precisely in reference to a history of conflicting social and spatial relations that contemporary place-making is made meaningful.1

Mountain cults and monasticism Buddhism gained hold in the Tibetan region over a period of several centuries during which the Buddhist clergy gradually increased their political influence, often to the detriment of followers of pre-Buddhist cults. With the rise of the Gelugpa order in Central Tibet during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, monasteries became increasingly important as centers of administration, especially on the frontiers of the Tibetan realm; the outposts of what had once been the Tibetan empire. The larger Gelugpa monasteries were not only important as centers of learning and religious life, but also provided crucial links between Lhasa and the areas on the margins of the Tibetan Plateau, via exchanges between clerics. At its peak, the reach of Tibetan Buddhist monasticism defined the polity of Tibet. The largest Gelugpa monasteries in present-day Diqing, Songtseling and Dhondrupling, were both founded in the seventeenth century. Formally established in 1679, Gedan Songtseling received its name from the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, who is famous for cementing the political role of the Dalai Lama lineage and the religio-political power of the Gelugpa order. With the establishment of these Gelugpa monasteries, the Dalai Lama’s

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 39 religio-political system of governance (Tibetan: chos srid gnyis ldan) was extended to the local administration. Until the year 1724, when Zhongdian was established as a county (or magistrate) of the Qing Empire, the heads of the local government were chosen from among the managers of Songtseling (Ming 2001). Although from then on, provincial authorities appointed these officials, the monastery continued to play a very important role in the local administration. While the county governor (Chinese: xian guan) was an official dispatched to the area by the provincial government, wealthy local families controlled all other administrative positions. An elderly man in his seventies detailed this: The officials were provided with food from the province government, but no salary. The titles to these positions were practically hereditary, held by the wealthiest families. To keep the positions the wealthy families would buy power [mai chuanli] from the head official [xian guan]. When one of the local leaders died, his son would pay the head official some money in order to secure the same position as his father had held. Under this system the farmers were obliged to pay taxes or dues, either to the monastery, landlords or the government. Herders would supply government officials with milk and butter during the summer, as much as they made in one day. Farmers were required to pay a government land tax, and those who were tenant farmers (Chinese: dian nu) paid tax to their landlord. As labor duty to the monastery, 300 households worked on the fields of the reincarnated lamas of Songtseling, and 70 households worked on the fields of the monastery itself. Each village (local Tibetan: shuka, Tibetan: tsho khag) had a village leader (Tibetan: rgan pa), usually the eldest male. Several villages shared a council of village leaders. There were five districts (rdzong) in the county, and each of them was divided into two to five areas. Each district and area had a leader, and altogether there were 16 local leaders. At the top of the hierarchy there were two local officials (Chinese: yin guan, local Tibetan: dewa) and finally the county governor appointed by the provincial authorities (Chinese: xian guan or xian zhang, local Tibetan: abataye or yamentaye). In addition to this civilian hierarchy there was a monastic parallel ‘administration’ that was comprised of representatives of the eight monastic colleges (Tibetan: khams tshan) of Songtseling, each designated an area corresponding to the ‘home area’ of their college.2 Even today, monastic colleges are strictly geographically organized, so that villagers send their sons to become monks in the college associated with their home area, and visit the temple of this college to make donations during religious festivals and other auspicious events. The prominent role of the clergy, in political as well as religious affairs, was mirrored in spatial terms in the practices that made up what I will call a

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geography of sacred sites (Tibetan: gnas). The performance of rituals for mountain deities (ri bdag) and other deities and spirits of the land have a long history in the Tibetan region. Often described as ‘mountain cults’, they pre-date the introduction of Buddhism. I argue here that place-making in Gyalthang implicated two different but intertwined traditions: mountain cults associated with deities and spirits ‘inhabiting’ the landscape (especially the ri bdag or ‘mountain owners’) and later ‘Buddhist’ practices associated with monasticism and pilgrimage, including mountain pilgrimage sites (gnas ri). Mountain pilgrimage and pre-Buddhist mountain cults have coexisted for centuries, although at times in an uneasy relationship. As rendered by the Buddhist clergy, rituals for the ri bdag are remnants of the Bön religion, associated with pre-Buddhist beliefs in which animal sacrifice played an important role, whereas mountain pilgrimage is true to the Buddhist doctrine.3 This tension is also evident in the Tibetan Buddhist literature, which contains numerous descriptions of how Indian Buddhist masters, particularly Padmasambhava (Pema Chungnye), subjugated territorial gods and mountain deities (Tibetan: yul lha, ri bdag) as Buddhism was introduced in Tibet. The oral history of Khawa Karpo, an important mountain pilgrimage site in the Gyalthang area, repeats this theme. As explained by a local Tibetan scholar: When Padmasambhava [Pema Chungnye] arrived from India, he meditated in a cave on Khawa Karpo. The deity of the valley [rong brtsan] who inhabited Khawa Karpo was then converted and became a Buddhist deity. The palace inhabited by this deity became a ‘palace of Buddhism’ [chos kyi pho brang]. The term ‘Buddhicisation’ is used by Buffetrille (1998) to refer to a process where mountains considered to be territorial gods (Tibetan: yul lha) were gradually turned into mountain holy places (gnas ri) for Buddhist pilgrimage. Pilgrimage guidebooks, written by the Buddhist clergy and passed on orally to illiterate pilgrims, played an important role in conveying this new understanding of sacred space.4 According to Buffetrille (1998: 23), these accounts reveal that the Buddhist authorities could neither accept the territorial deities nor could they suppress them completely. The solution was one of ‘Buddhicisation’, that is to incorporate the yul lha into the Buddhist universe and transform them into ‘protector deities’. In the process the yul lha mountain was recast as a gnas ri, or pilgrimage mountain, and worship by local communities on the slope of the mountain was replaced, or at least overlaid, by the practice of circumambulation by Buddhist pilgrims.5 At the same time, Buffetrille argues, the communities that worshipped these territorial deities were symbolically incorporated into the Buddhist land of Tibet.

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 41 Although Buffetrille (1998) describes the ‘recasting’ of territorial deities in very convincing terms, it is not quite clear just how ‘Buddhicisation’ may have contributed to a national incorporation of local communities. Huber (1999) similarly describes processes of political integration linked to pilgrimage, but in quite different terms. Huber (1999: 24) notes that Tibet’s major mountain pilgrimage sites before 1959 (Tise or Kailash, Tsari, Khawa Karpo, Kongpo Bönri and Labchi) were all located in border areas, and most of them ‘within zones of contact with a variety of non-Tibetan cultures’, some of which were for long periods regularly aggressive towards Tibetans. Ritual practices at sites on the borders of the Tibetan Plateau involved visits by large numbers of Tibetans at regular intervals, and Huber maintains that this aspect of pilgrimage was especially significant for political integration in the border areas (see also Kapstein 1998). In casting Khawa Karpo as a mountain pilgrimage site, the clergy contested the meaning of this particular mountain cult by reinterpreting in Buddhist terms the deity inhabiting the mountain. By reconceptualizing earlier ritual traditions, and in many cases attempting to subjugate territorial deities, I suggest that the clergy in effect negotiated the authority to bestow the blessings and privileges that were previously granted by the chthonic lords of the land. This negotiation was ‘successful’ in that it brought people to the monasteries, and particularly to reincarnate lamas (Tibetan: sprul sku) to secure blessings of all kinds, auspicious names and dates, divinations, cures, lucky charms and holy water. However, the clergy were not able to monopolize this authority completely, but had to share their power with the deities and spirits of the land, inhabiting especially mountains, but also springs, trees, rock formations, caves and other ‘abodes’. The person-centered sacredness of scholastic Buddhism could thus never take complete charge over the place-centered sacredness of the pre-Buddhist cults, and these two notions of sacredness eventually grew into inseparable strands of Tibetan Buddhism (on shamanic and clerical Buddhism, see Samuel 1993). The difference between performing rituals for the ri bdag and the Khawa Karpo deity was described by my informants in rather pragmatic terms; rituals for the ri bdag are ‘for protection and prosperity’, whereas a visit to Khawa Karpo is ‘for a good rebirth and to purify your spirit’. Despite ‘Buddhicisation’, both forms of ritual continue today, in close proximity. This is because a pilgrimage to a Buddhist holy mountain is a very different practice than the rituals performed for the ri bdag, directed towards different goals and in the present context also linked to different expressions of identity. I suggest that ‘quasi-territorial’ spaces were first created through the exchange flows of mountain pilgrimage and the related processes of redefining local ritual sites in Buddhist terms. However, this does not mean that ‘state integration’ was a conscious concern of pilgrims. As noted by Huber

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(1999: 12): ‘Tibetan pilgrimages can encompass mundane material concerns, complex social agendas, and both proximate and ultimate soteriological orientations and goals’. Both material and socio-political concerns were also addressed by the ritual activities associated with mountain cults. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) inaugurated itself in 1949, and the People’s Liberation Army subsequently ‘liberated’ the Gyalthang area. In order to establish its authority and reorganize the production system, a key challenge for the Communist state was to do away with the ‘feudal past’, and its religio-political social and spatial order. In Gyalthang, representatives of the new regime began by taking direct control over the local administration, and introducing a new administrative setup. In the process, many of the old administrative divisions were redrawn. ‘Diqing’ was the name given to the prefecture when it was officially established as a ‘Tibetan Autonomous’ area. The name is Tibetan and means ‘great fortune’ (Tibetan: bde chen). The same name was also given to the northern of the prefecture’s three counties, although spelled in Chinese with different characters (Deqin in pinyin). This name has its own story, which illustrates that the Communist regime sought to avoid confrontations with local elites, at least during the first half of the 1950s. One of the strategies was to co-opt religious figures in the process of administrative and political reorganization. As a result, when the Preparatory Committee for the founding of the prefecture was established in 1954, a prominent reincarnate lama called Sangmu was offered to chair the committee. Sangmu Lama (‘Samo Huofo’ in Chinese) was also made responsible for the highly significant task of giving the prefecture its name. In 1955 a nationwide policy was announced, to ‘adjust land ownership, renegotiate rent and liberate the serfs’ (Duan 1997: 302). One of the prerequisites for carrying out such a policy was to determine who belonged to the different ‘classes’, and especially to identify those who were ‘land owners’ and those who were ‘serfs’. Local leaders and officials were ordered to collect the necessary information for categorizing all households in the area, and later they were also given the difficult task of determining the ‘class’ of each and every household. In Zhongdian, as in other parts of eastern Tibet, Tibetan society was far less strictly divided than in Central Tibet. Unlike the Lhasa area, there were no aristocratic families, and there were no outcast families of ‘unclean’ (Tibetan: drib) such as blacksmiths and corpse cutters. However, the notion of drib was not unfamiliar, and there were wealthy landowners, some of whom held hereditary servants, known locally as shenyog (Tibetan: bran gyog). These servants were slaves in the sense that they could in principle be bought and sold.6 After work teams had collected information on every family, each household in Zhongdian was assigned to one of the ‘class’ categories: ‘chieftains’ (Chinese: tusi),7 ‘slave owners’ (nuli zhu), ‘serf owners’ (nongnu zhu), ‘land

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 43 owners’ (dizhu), ‘wealthy farmers’ (fu nong), ‘middle farmers’ (zhong nong), ‘poor farmers’ (pin nong), ‘serfs’ (nongnu) or ‘slaves’ (nuli).8 In the ‘peaceful negotiation of land reform’ (December 1956–August 1958), land that belonged to chieftains, owners of slaves or serfs, landowners and wealthy farmers was confiscated or in some cases given up ‘voluntarily’ (Duan 1997: 302–6). The confiscation of land soon led to violence and disorder, and an armed conflict broke out between the army and those who resisted the ‘reforms’. The resistance consisted mainly of wealthy farmers and land owners, as well as some of the monks. They fought from camps in the mountainous areas, such as the hills around Bita Lake. However, large sections of the population, especially the ‘poor farmers’, did not join in the fighting. According to an elderly Tibetan who belonged to a family of ‘poor farmers’: Some of the monks and wealthy farmers fought with the government soldiers. Poor people didn’t fight. We just worked together on the land and ate our meals together in a big house. The monks asked people to fight, and then they ran away into the mountains to join the fighting from there. The Land Reforms campaign paved the way for setting up communes. Eight or nine communes were established in Zhongdian County, replacing the five districts. The areas formerly known as shuka were turned into townships. Each village became a ‘production team’ (Chinese: xiaodui). At Songtseling the monastic community was ordered to become selfsupporting. The monks were no longer allowed to rely on the work of others, and were given directions to break new land to provide their own food, and do all the work in the fields themselves. An elderly nun explained why many of the monks and nuns had to return to their homes after Land Reforms were initiated: At that time the government told the village leaders to ask the farmers to attack the monasteries, to go together to the monasteries and destroy them. Many of the monks left, and those who stayed had a very difficult time. They couldn’t stay for very long. It was very difficult for the monks and nuns. People told us to use our old name, and not our monk’s or nun’s name. We had to wear ordinary clothes and let our hair grow. We had to live with our families from then on. In the villages, every household was assigned to a production team organized in a commune. All the farmland was made collective, and apart from a cow and a pig allowed for each household, all the farm animals were ‘collectivized’ and herded together. Food was distributed according to the number of people in each household and the number of ‘workers’. An elderly woman described the problems of this system:

44

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination During that time many people would eat together, and all we had to eat was potatoes. Some people were very lazy and did nothing, because they would be fed anyway. So the harvests were not good, and then we didn’t have much to eat. Only when the leaders came to look, then everybody would work hard. The commune would give us food, but we couldn’t do anything to make an income for ourselves. We were allowed to have just one or two cows and pigs of our own.

Similar to the villagers’ production teams, townspeople were organized in work units (Chinese: danwei). Workers in the danwei were given different types of work, according to their skills, although many were employed with construction work. Food supplies, including rice, flour, meat, butter and cooking oil, were only available against ration cards. The commune period had serious consequences for the ritual life of the villagers. With the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, all religious practice was completely prohibited, and mountain cults as well as monasticism discontinued. The few monks and nuns who remained in the monasteries were driven out, and the monastery buildings were looted and destroyed. According to a Tibetan who witnessed these events: Before the Cultural Revolution, people were divided into different classes. The higher they were ranked, the more difficulties they experienced. The lower classes were held in high regard by the leaders, and due to propaganda they started to think that the monks were bad. Finally, when their leaders ordered them to attack the monasteries and destroy the buildings, they did so. The poor people were truly angry with the landlords, with good reason. Some of the landlords had really treated people badly. And because of all the propaganda these people came to understand the monks as oppressors of the people. But those who had been workers on the monastic fields before Land Reforms, they didn’t do any damage to the monastery. The people who went to destroy the monasteries carried home some objects, such as wooden boards with writing on them, and other things that they kept in their homes. Soon some of these people started falling ill, and some even died. Then the others, who also kept such things in their homes, started secretly to carry them back to the monastery. They thought that these objects were very powerful, and now they became afraid to keep these things any longer, because they started to think that they might be punished for what they had done wrong. The consequences of ‘class’ identity were significant during Land Reforms and after the communes were set up, but ‘class’ became even more serious when the Cultural Revolution began. Those who belonged to the wrong ‘class’ were at risk of persecution, especially if they were not doing manual work. All types of religious activities were banned during these years, and

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 45 other ‘minority customs’ were also restricted, whereas Han (Chinese) customs such as the celebration of Tomb Sweeping Day could be observed freely. The ‘Mao era’ eventually gave way to the ‘Deng era’ in the late 1970s. The new political climate brought far-reaching economic reforms, including the return of landholdings to households, as well as new policies on ‘minority nationalities’ and religious practice. After the introduction of Reform and Opening Up, the commune system was put to an end and farmland was distributed to individual households under the policy known as the ‘household responsibility system’. Land, animals and farming equipment was divided between the households, according to the number of people in each household. The reform era also reinstated the principle of religious freedom, or as article 36 of the revised constitution specifies, the freedom to believe or not to believe in religion. In Zhongdian, as in other Tibetan areas, results of the new policy were the reconstruction of monasteries and revival of monastic life. Pilgrimage and the worship of mountain deities were among the practices that were revived, and nearly all the monasteries in Diqing were gradually rebuilt. When the late tenth Panchen Lama visited Diqing in the mid-1980s, this was a major encouragement for the revival of religious practice. One of the places the Panchen Lama appeared in public was the offering site overlooking Khawa Karpo, where he performed rituals in front of a large gathering of local Tibetans. According to Tibetan friends who attended the event, the weather that day was very cloudy, and it was impossible to see the mountain. But after many hours of recitations and rituals, suddenly the clouds lifted, ‘like a curtain’, and the peak of the mountain became visible. This very moment was caught in a photograph that has since become a very popular portrait of the Panchen Lama. According to one explanation of this ‘magical moment’, only the Panchen Lama could make the peak ‘show itself’, since he and the mountain were ‘like brothers’. In order to appreciate the significance of such narratives, and how they implicitly connect Khawa Karpo with the present reaffirmation of Tibetanness, it is necessary to understand what the Panchen Lama’s visits meant to Tibetans in Diqing. This came at a time when there was still a great deal of uncertainty about the reform policies. This was before the monasteries had been revived, and before the building of a Tibetan Middle School where students could learn Tibetan. In this situation the Panchen Lama’s visit, and his message to Tibetans, made a deep impression: When the Panchen Lama came to visit us he asked the Tibetan teachers if they knew how to read Tibetan, and if they spoke Tibetan every day. They said no. When he asked people their name, they would sometimes tell him their Chinese name. He was disappointed and angry, and asked why they used Chinese rather than Tibetan names. He spent a whole day outside, in the square, just touching people on the head. The

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Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination Panchen Lama is the Buddha of Wisdom. When he was here he told everybody: ‘Look at me, I know Marxism and I know Tibetan Buddhism. We must all learn what we can from other traditions, but without losing our own tradition. We must learn to read and write Tibetan, and we must speak Tibetan. We must keep our language alive, but at the same time we must learn what we can from others.’

The picture of the Panchen Lama in front of Khawa Karpo has a very special significance to local Tibetans, as a reminder of his call for the reassertion of Tibetan-ness, linked explicitly to the revitalization of Buddhist traditions, as well as the use of Tibetan language. When religious traditions were subsequently revived, they had gained a whole new significance. After more than a decade of persecution, these traditions were no longer takenfor-granted ritual repetitions. They had become self-conscious expressions, acquiring a very new significance as they were contrasted with the atheist ideology of the Communist state, and its technocratic vision of the world.

Landmarks of Communism After defeating the Nationalists (Guomindang) and establishing the PRC in 1949, the Communists faced the daunting task of setting up a functioning government and consolidating the territory of the new state, especially the ‘frontiers’ of this state, inhabited by Tibetans, Mongolians and Uighurs. While engineers and technocrats surveyed and mapped the terrain, other state agents, led by social scientists, set about classifying the people according to their ethnicity or ‘nationality’ (Chinese: minzu). This effort became known as the state ‘ethnic identification project’ (minzu shibie).9 It was the first comprehensive ‘ethnicizing’ project in China, and followed the Soviet model, as well as Joseph Stalin’s definition of ‘nationality’.10 The project was initiated in the early 1950s, when ‘the people’ were invited to submit applications for the status of minzu, resulting in a total of more than 400 applications. By 1965, when researchers had completed their fieldwork, a total of 54 ‘minority nationalities’ were officially recognized, including the Tibetans (Chinese: zangzu). As in the Soviet model, one of the primary reasons for identifying the ‘nationalities’ was that areas inhabited by ‘minorities’ were to be accorded ‘autonomous’ status, in which specific ‘minority policies’ could be introduced. Areas designated as ‘Tibetan Autonomous’ were subsequently set up in five different regions and provinces. Apart from the ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’ itself, ‘Tibetan Autonomous’ prefectures and counties were established in Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. In Yunnan, ‘Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’ is the only such area. When representatives of the PRC created ‘Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’, drew up its boundaries and categorized its inhabitants, they also exercised the power of the Chinese state to construct its own interpre-

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 47 tation of the meaning of ‘place’, according to the ideology of the new regime. If we understand ‘place’ as ‘space inscribed with meaning and agency’, some would argue that the territorial space of the Chinese state is in fact ‘placeless’ and that the state has actually been engaged in an ‘antiplace’ practice, or in the ‘displacing’ of indigenous constructions of place. However, it is more accurate to say that when boundaries were redrawn and new administrative units were created by the state, this was not merely a question of ‘displacing’ indigenous constructions, but of ‘replacing’ them with state constructions. First, the new regime propagated the message that the PRC was a ‘multiethnic’ state where each ethnic group or ‘nationality’ was to be accorded ‘autonomy’ within the boundaries of their own territory. Second, when religious expressions and ‘old culture’ were attacked, ‘land reforms’ introduced and communes established, this represented an attempt by the regime to transform its territory into the ‘New China’, which meant erasing anything that might remind people of the ‘old society’. This is reflected in the invention of new place names. For instance, many of the new administrative units, particularly the administrative villages, were named with popular Communist Party slogans such as ‘peace’ and ‘unite’, and some were simply named ‘village number one’, ‘village number two’, and so forth, in Chinese. These are just a few examples of how the Communist state sought to remake ‘place’ on its own terms, by employing place names to commemorate its history and ‘site’ its ideology. The creation of Diqing as a ‘Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture’ was founded on an entirely new kind of spatial representation, which radically re-envisioned previous conceptions of ‘sacred space’. This, I would argue, was a crucial aspect of the reinvention, or even the ‘making’ of the prefecture, and of Zhongdian County, its villages and ‘production teams’, as places that were part and parcel of ‘New China’. The communes and production brigades of the Cultural Revolution period were, one might argue, ‘placeless’ repetitions of a single theme. For instance, countless production units all over China were named ‘Red Flag’ or similar Communist catchphrases. Strategies of naming such as this might be understood as a spatial ‘mass production’ that erased the meaning of place altogether. However, there is a more intriguing interpretation: that the very lack of uniqueness, the ‘replaceable’ character of every unit of production represented just what the Chinese leaders were striving for: a New China that held a place among the industrialized nations of the world. In giving proper ‘Communist’ names for the new communes and production brigades, cadres may have hoped to ‘stamp’ Communism onto the landscape by erasing traces of the feudal past. But even the New China needed a past to commemorate and, as all histories, this was similarly ‘emplaced’. The year 1936 thus marks one of the well-known events in the history of Zhongdian, as the year of the Long March (Chinese: Chang Zhen), when the Second and Sixth Red Army divisions marched through the county. As an important landmark in the history of the Communist Party, the Long

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March is commemorated by local authorities in publications and exhibits, and also at some of the sites associated with the event. The main street of Zhongxin Town has been named Long March Road, and the event is also observed at sites on the army divisions’ routes. For instance, on their way out of present-day Diqing, the Red Army crossed the river into Derong County (now in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province) by a bridge in the village of Gangyo. At the time of my fieldwork a signpost was fixed to the bridge, proclaiming that this was where the Red Army crossed the river. Next to it there was another sign, with the inscription ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’. According to villagers in Gangyo, prayer flags on a hill near the village were renewed annually to commemorate the Red Army soldiers that had died in the village from disease and exhaustion. According to the Zhongdian County History (Duan 1997: 14–15), one of the reincarnate lamas of Songtseling monastery came to see the army leader, General He Long, after the army had raised the red flag from the roof of Zanggong Hall (Chinese: Zanggong Tang), the administrative headquarters of Zhongdian. The general gave the monastery a letter, which stated that ‘religious freedom would be protected, the army would respect the monks and let them keep their property, and would not take anything from the monastery’. At Songtseling a sign has been put up to commemorate General He Long’s visit to the monastery. The sign can be found above the door of the oldest temple, the Dukhang (Tibetan: ⬘du khang), and announces that the general visited this temple during the Long March. Zanggong Hall, the former town hall of Zhongdian, is now a state-level cultural site and houses an historical museum that takes the Long March as its starting point. Posted on the wall is a large map that shows the routes of the two Red Army divisions, giving the names of places that the Red Army ‘conquered’, as well as the places where they fought and were defeated. The exhibit also includes photos of ‘five great Red Army leaders’ who led the soldiers through Zhongdian, of villagers ‘greeting the Red Army’, of a house in Jinxiang Village District where the Communists subsequently set up their ‘People’s Government of Zhongdian County’, and finally a portrait of the leader of this government. A caption underneath explains that ‘the Communist government stayed in this village until the Peaceful Liberation [Chinese: Heping Jiefang] of Zhongdian in 1950’. In addition to the Long March exhibit, the museum displays photos from the Peaceful Liberation itself, and also a series of portraits of men and women who ‘sacrificed their lives for the Revolution’, mainly local youth who joined the Red Army or fought with the PLA. Captions underneath each portrait give their names, their age at death and their place of birth. As with the Long March, the Peaceful Liberation has also been ‘mapped onto’ the local terrain and is indeed commemorated in the very landscape. One example of this is the Memorial Park at the top of the main street of Zhongxin Town. The park contains the tombs of PLA soldiers who were

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 49 killed during the ‘liberation’. A stele with a statue of a PLA soldier and inscriptions observing the event stands just at the entrance gate. Every year on Tomb Sweeping Day (Chinese: Qing Ming Jie), teachers bring their pupils to the Memorial Park cemetery to ‘sweep the tombs’ of the soldiers, to pay respect for the sacrifice that PLA soldiers made for the ‘liberation’ of Diqing. The Peaceful Liberation is known to all school children from their textbooks, in which events that were (and still are) important to the history of the PRC are continuously played up. Schooling not only involves the study of Chinese history, but the commemoration of this history through the celebration of public holidays such as Tomb Sweeping Day, Workers Day and October 1st, China’s national holiday, which is followed by a weeklong holiday and involves numerous public events organized by schools and government units. As observed in schools, these nationwide public holidays are occasions to teach children to love their country and respect the ‘heroes of the revolution’, as well as their teachers and other superiors.11 According to the official periodization of PRC history, the Great Cultural Revolution (Chinese: Wenhua Da Geming) broke out in 1966 and continued until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. As with the Long March and the Peaceful Liberation, the Cultural Revolution also left its marks on the landscape itself, at least until after Mao had died and the Gang of Four was ousted. An old photograph of workers trenching the Naizi River revealed to me that the well-known Chinese characters of ‘Long Live Chairman Mao’ were once inscribed with white pebbles in the hillside facing our house. What amazed me even more was that the characters had been written on the exact place where villagers had recently spelled out the words ‘Om mani padme hum’ (in Tibetan script), ‘Xianggelila’ (in Chinese) and ‘Shangrila’ (in Roman letters). What did the reinvention of place in Communist terms mean to the villagers of Zhongdian? After Land Reforms, most of the physical structures associated with religious sites were destroyed, and many were completely eradicated. Some of the villagers took part in this destruction, while others watched in fear. The ritual practices associated with religious sites were banned and most were completely discontinued. Despite the restrictions, local Tibetans did not forget their ritual practices, nor did they forget the ‘religious geography’ made up by these rituals. However, they learned, and started to use, the new place names. As public schooling was introduced, school children learned to understand their place in the context of the ‘New China’. And when land was ‘redistributed’, and communes and production units were set up, the socio-economic relations among villagers were profoundly altered. These experiences were deeply significant to villagers, at least to those who were old enough to remember, when they later reinterpreted the meanings of place and identity in the context of tourism.

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Locating Shangrila on the map of tourism The promotion of tourism in China’s minority areas has closely reflected changing policy decisions made by the central authorities in Beijing. A major policy shift became evident in 1990, when then director of cultural affairs Li Zuihuan delivered a speech to a national meeting of artists encouraging people to attend minority cultural performances and participate in ethnic minority festivals, suggesting in addition that ‘the nationalities should try to find ways to make money from their heritage’ (Sofield and Li 1998: 373, citing Li 1990). In implementing this new policy the government initiated a number of ethnic tourism development projects. By 1992 six different ethnic minority tours were promoted by the China National Tourism Administration to overseas tourists, among them the ‘Silk Road Tour’ and the ‘Sherpa Trail’. The policy shift was not just a matter of profit-making but also the result of a deliberate decision to showcase the diversity of Chinese culture and demonstrate to the world how well integrated the minorities were (Sofield and Li 1998: 373–75). The ‘flourishing of minority cultures’ in China was also highlighted through the construction of theme parks such as the ‘China Folk Culture Villages’ in Shenzhen (near the border to Hong Kong) and similar parks in Beijing and many other cities, including Kunming, the capital of Yunnan.12 When the ‘nationalities identification project’ defined the ethnic groups of China, this implied distinguishing the various ‘nationalities’ according to specific ethnic markers, such as typical livelihoods, architecture, festivals, religious practices, arts and crafts, and dress. With the introduction of tourism, these ethnic markers have been commodified through the making of ethnic arts and handicraft products for tourists, the creation of staged ethnic tourism performances and other tourist products. In this way tourism has served to reinforce hegemonic representations of ‘minority nationalities’ and the places they inhabit. However, I suggest that by (re)constructing ethnic difference, ethnic tourism has created as well a new space to negotiate ethnic identity and the meaning of ‘minority areas’. The Chinese school curriculum has taught for decades that Tibet was a slave state ruled by a despotic ‘lamaist’ clergy prior to its ‘liberation’. In school textbooks as well as the media, the ‘backwardness’ of Tibetans and other minorities has been contrasted to the ‘modernity’ of the Han Chinese. In fact, one of the basic tenets of Chinese Marxist social science was the idea of stages of social forms, where the ‘minority nationalities’ represented less ‘advanced’, more ‘primitive’, stages in the evolutionary system. The ‘primitivity’ of the minorities was typically contrasted to the ‘modernity’ of the Han Chinese majority. As a consequence, members of the more ‘advanced’ and ‘civilized’ Han nationality were considered responsible for helping their less fortunate compatriots to ‘develop’ (see Gladney 2004). With the increasing economic importance of tourism, particularly since the late 1990s, religious sites such as Khawa Karpo and Songtseling have

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 51 become important tourist destinations. Han Chinese as well as Western tourists show an enormous interest in the area for its ‘spirituality’, and virtually congregate to monasteries and sacred sites. Within this new context, the contrast between ‘primitive’ and ‘advanced’ has taken on new meanings, as urban Chinese have started to search for the place of their dreams in the unspoiled nature, religiosity and simple lifestyles of ‘minority areas’ such as Diqing. Tourism developers have taken advantage of this trend, and represent Diqing as an exotic ‘Shangrila’, a place where people live in harmony with nature. Though its purpose is largely commercial, the mythologizing game played by bureaucrats and entrepreneurs has consequences for how Diqing is understood as a ‘minority’ area, and a ‘Tibetan’ area in particular. Chinese authorities may have ‘opened up’ ethnic minority areas to tourism, but as the demand for experiences of ethnic minority culture took hold in the tourism market, global as well as domestic market forces began to shape the development of ethnic tourism. The deregulation of travel and privatization of tourism-related enterprises such as hotels and travel agencies made the importance of market forces even more evident, but the financial decentralization that paralleled economic liberalization encouraged even local governments to become ‘business-minded’. The overtly business-oriented rationale behind the name change to Shangrila has been criticized by a number of foreign correspondents in China, who have visited Diqing to report on the growth of tourism. One of these journalists critically describes the name change as ‘a moneymaking ploy to profit from the fame and exoticism’ of the novel (Pomfret 2000). The economic rationale is also emphasized by another recent visitor, who claims that when ‘the tourism people’ realized they could make money from Hilton’s book, ‘they reinvented an ancient myth about paradise on Earth’ (Woods 2001).13 According to government officials I interviewed, it is no secret that the name change has represented an enormous economic benefit for local governments. The head of the Diqing Prefecture Tourism Department also revealed an acute awareness of tourist demands: Tourists like the exotic, to return to nature. They don’t like modernization. Foreign tourists will make up the majority of tourists who visit this area in the future. Other areas are too developed, and this area will attract them. The officials were in fact very clear about the attractions Diqing had to offer tourists. They knew that identifying Diqing as Shangrila was an important way to ‘package’ their place for tourist consumption and draw the attention of potential visitors. And, of course, their ‘ploy’ worked just as they had planned. As another journalist commented, however, it is difficult to see how the Communist Party could have recognized pre-occupation Tibetan society as ‘the earthly Utopia that inspired Hilton’s 1933 novel’ (Korski 1997). And

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yet, even the China Daily, an official mouthpiece of the CCP, agreed that Diqing really is a ‘paradise-on-earth’: On this peaceful and fertile land, unadorned people worship their gods in splendid lamaseries. There is complete harmony between man and nature, and man and man. More than 60 years ago, three English pilots caught glimpses of this utopia, and Hilton painted a sketch of it. Soon the world can see with their own eyes what this world is like. Shangri-La shall nonetheless [. . .] continue to symbolize the longing of human beings for a perfect and peaceful world. (Liu and Li 1997) The creation of myths about tourist destinations is a well-known topic in the literature on tourism. Researchers have described, for instance, how Lapland has been featured as the ‘Last Wilderness of Europe’ (Pedersen and Viken 1996), while various islands in the Pacific are marketed as ‘Paradise’ (Burns 1999). Writing on tourism to Nepal, Selwyn (1996: 3) argues that tourist perceptions are shaped in this case by a preoccupation with harmonious social relations and ideas about community. In a similar vein, Graburn (1990, 1995) claims that Japanese tourism to rural areas such as spas and heritage sites represents a search for nostalgic rejuvenation in the face of the increasing problems of living in a modern, urbanized society. I would argue that these factors can as well explain what attracts urban Chinese tourists to Shangrila. Xuan Ke, a Naxi musician from Lijiang who is cited in several reports as the first person to ‘identify’ Diqing as Shangrila, hints at the same: ‘This is not for tourists,’ Mr Xuan scoffs. ‘It’s for real people looking for a real place where there is harmony. If Shangri-La is only for tourism and three-star hotels, I say no. There are blue skies, not like Beijing,’ he adds. ‘People are searching for a new world. No money, no power, no politics. This is the place people have dreamed of, from the book and the movie.’ (Korski 1997) Like many other rural tourist sites, Shangrila is a space of dreams of harmony for the urban tourist. What makes the case of Diqing different is that the image of Shangrila represents such a stark contrast to the way that Tibetan society has been portrayed by the Communist state. What was depicted until recently as a ‘primitive’ and ‘backward’ society is suddenly represented not only as exotic, but as a utopia.

Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 53

Reinventing a place In Chinese tourism, ethnicity has been themed and the tourist gaze directed towards scenic spots that are marked and interpreted so well that they leave little room for the imagination (see Nyíri 2006). This reflects the efficiency with which PRC authorities subdue any attempt, whether by Tibetans or other inhabitants of China, to question the political and ethnographic order of things as represented by the state. The meanings of place, however, can be reworked by more abstruse means. One way of doing this is to appropriate tradition and revoke ‘ancient’ ways of representing place, no less contested in the past, as in the revival of pilgrimage and mountain cults. When tourists follow in the paths of pilgrims, tourism may in fact boost ‘traditional’ representations of place. Tourism invariably creates tensions, especially between the use of sites as tourist destinations and the maintenance of ‘sacralized’ notions of place, and some monasteries may find themselves ‘invaded’ by increasing numbers of tourists. Songtseling, for instance, receives a large number of tour groups every year, and the sale of tickets to tourists is currently a key income source for the monastery, as well as a source of revenue for the county government. This has led to a situation where tour groups and their guides are admitted to the monastery throughout the day, regardless of any rituals being performed. It is obvious that the presence of tour groups and their guides wandering around the premises may be disturbing. On the other hand, many tourists are eager to obey the rules of the monastery, and some also frame their journey as a pilgrimage, making sacred sites their primary travel destinations. The notion of Shangrila as a ‘place of pilgrimage’ is also actively conveyed in promotion materials for tourists. Another way of reworking the meanings of ‘place’, and of subverting hegemonic interpretations, has been accomplished by the renaming of Zhongdian County to Shangrila. Ever since the 1950s, ‘feudal’ and ‘slave society’ have been key terms used by Chinese social scientists to describe the traditional Tibetan society. The Marxist conception of evolutionary stages of social forms, and the alleged ‘backwardness’ and ‘primitivity’ of ‘minority nationalities’, have also been emphatically propagated to the general public. In school textbooks and the mass media, derogatory expressions such as ‘backward’ and ‘superstitious’ have been used to describe Tibetans and other ethnic minorities. In sharp contrast to these unfavorable representations of Tibetan-ness, a Tibetan area is currently represented as an exotic Shangrila. The change of names has even been approved by the Central Government, which means that the re-interpretation of this particular place is endorsed by the authorities. Economic gain was no doubt a major motivation for many stakeholders involved in the renaming of Zhongdian to Shangrila. Nevertheless, the name change has other implications in that it opens up numerous possibilities for re-envisioning the area.

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For urban Chinese tourists, much of the attraction lies in the image of Shangrila as a place where people live ‘in harmony with each other and the environment’. This is something that local people have become aware of, and that has further affected the meanings they attach to the place where they live.

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Hallowed ground

As described by Lefebvre (1991), every society produces its own space, and relations of production are tied to the representation of this space. I will argue in this chapter that Gyalthang villagers engage in place-making through ritual practices and narratives that reiterate vital links or continuities between persons and places. The important tasks of safe-guarding the household and reaffirming community require the performance of rituals to maintain harmonious relations between the people who live from cultivating the land and powerful deities and spirits who also ‘inhabit’ the land, some of them as its ‘owners’, others as ‘protectors of Buddhism’. Annual communal and household rituals are directed towards protecting the community at large and the members of each household; by enhancing good fortune and prosperity, controlling the weather and safeguarding crops, protecting against accidents and misfortune, and even making work in the fields more bearable. Ritual practices and subsistence activities are interdependent and, as argued here, both are closely connected with the making of place. Certain rituals are also linked to claims to territory and rights to the use of land and resources in specific areas. Disputes regarding such rights are not uncommon, as will be described. Ritual practices such as burning bsang, lighting twigs of pine or juniper, are performed at numerous occasions and for a number of different purposes. Villagers usually burn bsang every morning in the yard of their house, and bsang fires are also lit during weddings, during New Year celebrations on hilltops overlooking the village, as well as on visits to Khawa Karpo and other sacred sites (gnas). Among the sacred sites Gyalthang people visit, each site is connected with very specific goals and concerns, reflected in specific ritual practices. For instance, a woman might visit a cave known as Pamanai if her child were unable to speak well or if she had experienced difficulties in becoming pregnant. If somebody had a skin disease afflicting the hands, they might visit a certain rock near the hot springs, and rub their hands against the rock. And after a death in the family, the relatives of the deceased might go to a temple known as Ringa, or even to Khawa Karpo, to release a sheep, or to Lhakhu temple or Zhalaju (at

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Songtseling) to release a chicken, in order to help the deceased obtain a better rebirth. As they follow the pilgrimage route, villagers routinely circumambulate temples, burn bsang in offering furnaces outside, spin prayer wheels, and light incense sticks and butter lamps on the altars. Small donations of money are distributed in every temple, and offerings of grain and butter are made as well. At Khawa Karpo, small caves are visited along the route, and holy water (local Tibetan: naicha) is drawn from certain sources. At one particular site on the route, groups of women get together to sing and dance, stamping their feet on the ground of what is known as the ‘dance floor of the deities’. Visits to sacred sites are occasions that people like to talk about, and there is an evident social dimension to them. On such visits people like to dress up in their best festive clothes and travel together with their friends or relatives. Even on shorter trips, they often take the time to include a picnic along the way. Visits to sacred sites are thus ‘popular’ in every sense of the word. The ritual practices that are carried out at these sites are also critical to everyday concerns through their close association with subsistence activities.

Power places and sacred sites I translate the Tibetan term gnas (local Tibetan: nai) as ‘sacred site’, although it literally means ‘inhabited place’ or ‘abode’.1 In the term sa gnas, which means ‘place’, gnas is combined with sa, ‘earth’. In the term rab gnas, ‘consecration’ (Tibetan: rab tu gnas ba, literally ‘make [the] abode better’), gnas may refer to a dwelling, a temple or an image of a deity that is consecrated or ‘made better’. The sacred (local Tibetan: gong⬘dreng) can either be connected with representations of the Buddha (trui) or with a sacred site. Likewise holy water, thought to be beneficial for the body and used as a cure for numerous ailments, can be received from the monastery or found at a sacred site, and is identified accordingly as truicha (literally ‘Buddha water’) or naicha. The gnas is often seen to draw its power from an association with an accomplished religious practitioner who once stayed at the site. For instance, near the hot springs at Tianshengqiao there is a cave called Pema Drogpo, where Pema Chungnye (the Indian guru Padmasambhava) is said to have practiced. One of the temples on the slope of Khawa Karpo is known as Nainu, meaning ‘important sacred site’, and also as Ugyen Gönba. The name Ugyen is another name for Pema Chungnye. Similar references to visits by Pema Chungnye can be found in Tibetan literary and oral accounts from the entire Tibetan region. Pema Chungnye is known to have converted mountain deities and other regional deities all over the Tibetan Plateau to Buddhism. He is often referred to as the founder of the earliest school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingmapa school. In contemporary Gyalthang, three pilgrimage sites are held in especially

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high regard: Lhasa, Khawa Karpo and Rawashüka (Chinese: Jizu Shan). The latter is a mountain pilgrimage site in contemporary Binchuan County, northeast of the town of Dali. The name of this mountain (in both Tibetan and Chinese) literally means ‘Chicken Foot Mountain’. Whereas it is most beneficial to visit Khawa Karpo during the Year of the Sheep, Jizu Shan should be visited during the Year of the Chicken, following the 12-year cycle of the Tibetan calendar.2 These three pilgrimage sites are further interlinked, together with local sites, through the specific routes pilgrims must take in order to be ‘spiritually qualified’. This is known as obtaining a ‘key’ at a particular site, before visiting other, more important sites. For instance, before going on a pilgrimage to Rawashüka, one must visit the local Ringa Temple, to get the ‘key’. Similarly, before going on a pilgrimage to Lhasa, one also needs to get the ‘key’ at Ringa. To visit Khawa Karpo one must get the ‘key’ at Chörten Shego (Mirror Stupa), and pour whitewash on a number of small ‘pillars’, so covered with chalk that it is impossible to see what is underneath. If a pilgrim fails to go first to Chörten Shego, the visit to Khawa Karpo will be of no avail. The significance of ‘obtaining the key’ at certain sites before traveling to other, more distant sites, links these sites in important ways, which might well be described as mapping out a religious geography. The mountain Khawa Karpo is known as a gnas chen, a ‘great sacred site’, and is widely acknowledged as one of eight major mountain pilgrimage destinations (Tibetan: gnas ri) on the Tibetan Plateau. According to local monks, Khawa Karpo is a palace for the Buddhist deity Düncho (bdun mchog), a deity in the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon for whom offerings are performed during the Kalacakra ceremony. The association of Khawa Karpo with such a prominent deity testifies to its significance ‘to all Tibetans’. Although Tibetans from Diqing and neighboring regions of eastern Tibet make up the majority of visitors, Khawa Karpo also receives pilgrims from Lhasa and other parts of Tibet. Most pilgrims to Khawa Karpo visit temples on the slope of the mountain, but many circumambulate the mountain as well. The shortest route takes four or five days, and the longest takes at least two weeks. In addition to the sacred sites described above, identified explicitly as gnas, villagers perform rituals at sites associated with local deities or spirits of several kinds, including klu (spirits of the underworld), brtsan (mountain spirits) and ri bdag (deities known literally as ‘mountain owners’). Rituals performed annually at specific dates in the lunar calendar for the klu, brtsan and ri bdag are basically meant to ensure prosperity and prevent misfortune for those who participate and their families. The rituals for the ri bdag are more specifically ‘for the good luck of everyone in the village’. When performing rituals for the ri bdag, the men in each household go together to the ridge or slope of their local mountain to plant ritual arrows (rtse sheng, also known as mda⬘rgod) in a cairn (rtse phung), light juniper or pine twigs for ritual purification (bsang), and throw barley wine (a rag) and

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roasted barley flour into the air. Several affiliated households cooperate in maintaining a cairn. There may be a number of cairns on a single mountain, one on each of its peaks or ridges, but there is only one ri bdag inhabiting a particular mountain. This is the ‘owner’ of the land where the village is located, hence the name ri bdag, meaning ‘mountain owner’. The role of the ri bdag as original owners of the land was expressed by a local Tibetan with the following account: The ri bdag were the first to arrive in the area, before any people settled here. They are therefore the owners of the land. When people arrived, the ri bdag welcomed them to the area politely, as if saying ‘sit down, sit down’. In this way they told all the people where they could settle. In the end, there was nowhere for themselves to ‘sit down’, so they had to make do with the mountains. Near the town center, overlooking the racecourse, there is a temple in honor of the ri bdag of the town itself, the ‘township god’ (Tibetan: rdzong lha). The temple contains images of the deity, named gzhi bdag nag rdog (literally ‘black owner of the ground’), seated on a black horse. Just next to the temple there is a cairn holding ritual arrows. Villagers climb the slope of the mountain to perform rituals and plant arrows at this temple during the summer horse race festival. Rituals for the ri bdag serve to confirm and strengthen communal affiliations, and as such they also have an aspect of territorial demarcation. They are conducted almost exclusively by men.3 While women may theoretically attend, they may under no circumstances handle the ritual arrows. This constitutes a key gender boundary in the ri bdag rite. Karmay (1994) describes the ‘mountain cult’ rituals he observed in Sharkhog (Sichuan Province) in 1985, in which only men were allowed to participate, and gives the following explanation: The arrow is man’s symbol and the ritual gesture of planting it in the cairn places each man who does so under the mountain divinity’s protection; in the same way, by ritually scattering the ‘wind-horse’ – itself a symbol of fortune – into the air, each man calls upon the mountain divinity to increase his fortune, since it is the divinity who is regarded as the giver of glory, honour, fame, prosperity, power and progeny. Participation in such a ritual therefore implies total integration into the community: this in turn implies social and political obligation, moral and individual responsibility, and an affirmation of communal and national solidarity in the face of external aggression. (Karmay 1994: 117–19) Karmay (1994) centers his description on the arrow, suggesting that the ritual places ‘each man’ under the divinity’s protection. However, in

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Gyalthang the men who participate in rituals for the ri bdag may in several respects be seen as ‘representing’ the family or household as a whole. The men of a single household may in fact participate in rituals for the ri bdag at several different sites. If a man has married into the household of his wife, he may return to his natal household to attend rituals for the ri bdag together with his father and brothers. A son may attend rituals at the rtse phung maintained by his maternal as well as his paternal relatives, and a husband may attend rituals together with the relatives of his wife as well as his own relatives. In this way matrilineal as well as patrilineal kinship ties are maintained through the participation of men in rituals for the ri bdag. At the same time, the exclusion of women during the performance of rituals at the rtse phung also has implications for the maintenance of gender boundaries within the community, by highlighting the distinct roles and responsibilities of men and women in safeguarding and upholding the community.4 The maintenance of ritual sites is not only important for ties within communities, but also for disputes between communities, especially over rights to land. Ritual sites in effect mark the territory of a community and the performance of rituals thus establishes rights to land used for subsistence activities such as grazing and tree felling, and sometimes even tourism. For instance, when villagers argued over rights to an area used by tourists for horseback riding and trekking, they justified their claims by referring to the rituals they conducted in this area. As explained by one of the villagers: ‘This is our holy mountain, and we have always gone to this mountain to light bsang. But now other villagers are coming to burn bsang there too, claiming that this is their mountain’. In another dispute over rights to land, villagers actually used explosives to blow up a stone cairn that was used by neighboring villagers to make offerings to their village klu. Villagers from both sides of the conflict argued that the cairn was located on their land, and both sides herded cattle on the contested land. Mountains associated with a ri bdag, peaks inhabited by a brtsan and trees inhabited by a klu all have a special significance, and it is important to show these deities and spirits respect by observing certain rules of conduct in or near the places they inhabit. These are powerful and sometimes quite dangerous deities and spirits, and the sites associated with them are therefore distinguished by restrictions on behavior. For instance, people say that if you walk counterclockwise around a mountain inhabited by a ri bdag, you will meet many gods (Tibetan: lha). This is because, just like humans (or at least Tibetan Buddhists), gods also circumambulate the mountain clockwise.5 Meeting the gods like this can be detrimental, since they may be offended. Another offence is to dig into the sides of a ri bdag mountain for construction materials, or cut wood on its slopes. Disregarding such restrictions might have serious consequences. As evidence of this I was told that a young girl once went deep into the hills of a ri bdag mountain to collect firewood, and when she returned she had become insane. Her condition was

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explained by the ‘fact’ that she had offended the mountain deity by cutting wood on its slopes. Stories are told about the ‘lives’ of the mountain deities, which illustrates the point that each mountain deity is ‘like a person who may marry, have children and so forth’. For instance, one mountain is known as Gyara, meaning ‘one hundred mountain’. As the story goes, this mountain used to be located in the Lhasa area, and of a total of 100 mountains, this was the worst. Its ri bdag brought disease to all the families living near it, and consequently the ri bdag of the other 99 mountains told him to move to a place ‘in between a white river and a black river’. So the mountain flew to where it is presently located, where the Nagchu (Black River) flows on one side and the Omachu (Milky River) on the other side. Although it no longer brings disease, this is still a potentially dangerous mountain. The klu are regarded as very important for the well-being of the family, and every year the members of the household make offerings by burning bsang and performing special recitations in front of the inhabited tree. Children are never allowed to climb in these trees, and if the tree is damaged people believe that this may result in accidents or disease. For instance, a woman was said to have become crippled after somebody had damaged the tree inhabited by the family klu. According to another story, an entire household was affected after one of its members had cut down the klu of their neighbors. A household klu inhabits a tree, which must be maintained through offerings at certain times of the year, and protected against damage, and will then continue to grow. Other ritual sites rely on continuous efforts for their recreation. Temples may stand for a long time without maintenance, but cairns (Tibetan: rtse phung) and piles of stones inscribed with mantras (local Tibetan: domu) will soon disintegrate if they are left unattended. If a road goes out of use, a row of domu that once stood in the roadside is left to the forces of nature, and after a few years it is covered by grass and turf. Conversely, new structures such as stupas (Tibetan: mchod rten) and domu are often built in places that have become accessible after the building of a new road or pathway. A recent invention is to build stupas and domu in the middle of highway roundabouts, rather than along the side of the road. Since such monuments should always be encircled clockwise, local drivers (including members of the police force) commonly defied the rules of traffic when driving through these roundabouts. Local Tibetans engaged in ‘sacralizing’ practices may be acting on one or more of a number of different concerns, more or less explicitly acknowledged by the individual in question. Many are personal concerns, such as overcoming financial difficulties, curing disease, becoming pregnant, passing an exam or preventing accidents and calamities on forthcoming travels. Others are concerns related more directly to ‘spiritual’ matters, such as gaining merit to obtain a good rebirth, and ultimately to escape karmic rebirth, purifying the spirit, heart and mind. Some of the concerns have a

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social or political dimension, such as maintaining and strengthening ties between members of extended families and local communities, helping to achieve a good rebirth for a recently deceased relative, or confirming ties to a monastic community. Some Tibetans also regard the explicit aim of pilgrimage and other ritual practices as revitalizing Tibetan culture and reaffirming a Tibetan identity. The multiplicity of concerns brought into the performance of rituals contributes to making them deeply meaningful.

The household: subsistence and ritual As noted by Huber (1999: 13), the common concepts and vocabulary of efficacy that Tibetan pilgrims associate with their own ritual acts and objects imply a set of assumed categories and qualities of place and/or space, substance and person. Huber identifies the terms drib (‘contamination’, ‘defilement’ or ‘pollution’) and chinlab (‘sacred energy’ or ‘empowerment’) as important concepts in this vocabulary, arguing that the imperative of much ritual action on pilgrimages is ‘all about constructing certain types of relationships between persons and né’ (Tibetan: gnas): Underlying this ritual logic is the important and common Tibetan assumption that persons and places are involved in various degrees of mutually determinate relationships. This assumption about né resonates strongly with other ancient and popular ways of thinking about the ritual relationship between persons and aspects of the physical world that are, apparently, external to and discrete from them [. . .] In general the great variety of beliefs and practices in Tibetan folk culture (concerning illness and cures, purification, agriculture, building, childbirth, magical practices, weather-making, fertility, good and bad fortune, and so on) assume a complex ontological continuity between persons, places, substances, and non-human beings. (Huber 1999: 14) The following pages illustrate some of these ontological continuities, and describe how the farming economy is interlinked with religious practice, and how the agricultural cycle is reflected in some of the events of the religious calendar. In Gyalthang the household may well be described as the basic unit of production. It is a corporate unit within which rights to land and produce are shared, and work and other responsibilities are allocated. The house itself is vital to the household and a significant site of spatial representation and spatializing practices. As Corlin (1980: 91) points out, the Gyalthang house is not just a shelter, but a ‘cosmologically meaningful structure designed to maintain an efficient relationship with the powers of the outside world’. Rituals connected with the house thus reflect and represent the importance of the household.

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Three generations commonly live under one roof, and men as often as women move into a new household at marriage. After the dismantling of the commune system in the early 1980s, each household has been allocated a piece of farmland under the policy known as the ‘household responsibility system’. During the first years after the initial distribution of farmland, the local government reallocated fields continuously, according to the number of people in each household.6 After about 10 years, in the early 1990s, a new regulation prescribed that farmland was to be reallocated only every 30 years. The principal crop in Gyalthang is highland barley (Tibetan: nas, Chinese: qingke), but villagers also grow potatoes, rapeseed and turnips, and keep cattle (mainly crossbreeds of yak and cow),7 sheep and goats, pigs and chickens, as well as guard dogs. Most households prefer to keep a pair of mdzo as oxen, and ba as milking cows. In some areas villagers also keep horses or ponies, although many households now have a tractor or truck as their main means of transportation. Barley is used for making tsampa, which is an important staple in the local diet. Fermented barley is also used for barley wine and beer (Tibetan: chang).8 To make tsampa, the villagers bring sacks of barley grain to shops in town, where it is roasted and ground. Wheat flour is ground in the same machines. Villagers bring their crops of rapeseed to similar shops in town, for making rapeseed oil. In addition to barley flour and cooking oil, several types of dairy products are used daily, especially butter and sourcream cheese (local Tibetan: ti). Every household has a stake in communal rights to pasturage for their herds of cattle and sheep, rights to uncultivated land where they cut grass (for hay), as well as forested land where they cut firewood and timber for house construction. Most households have a cabin for herding in the summer (local Tibetan: ba⬘trong for cattle; shi⬘trong for yak) in a grazing area that may be shared by the households of a single village or the township as a whole. The ba⬘trong includes the cabin itself as well as fenced compounds for the animals, each with a roofed shelter where the animals are kept at night. This type of herding usually takes place between April and October; from the time the crops start to grow until the harvest is finished. The fields are regarded as ‘shared’ by all members of the household. When the farmland is passed on to the next generation it is thought of as ‘shared’ among all the brothers and sisters, despite that the eldest sibling is the ‘owner’, known as sa bdag (literally ‘land owner’).9 The household land is never divided, and younger brothers and sisters of the sa bdag who stay in the household are normally unmarried. A younger brother or sister who gets married and moves out of the household or gets a job in a work unit loses his or her share of the farmland. If a younger brother or sister marries and stays in the household together with his or her new spouse, and eventually also their children, they will have to live from the produce of the few

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fields that are their share of the common household farmland. This is not regarded as a favorable option, since the household farmland is usually insufficient to support the added number of people. It is not uncommon for parents to send one or two of their sons to the monastery to become a monk. As for girls who become nuns, this was commonly understood as ‘a matter of their own choice’, rather than a decision made by parents. An elderly nun explained that parents usually don’t approve of a daughter becoming a nun, and that most prefer to have their daughter stay at home and work, even if she decides to become a nun. There is a small nuns’ retreat in Deqin, but no nunneries. Monks, however, can receive a monastic education where the basic four-stage program lasts seven to nine years. Some monks conduct higher studies, following the lam rim study program. Several elderly monks act as teachers, and Songtseling also has several reincarnate lamas (Tibetan: gu ru or sprul sku). These and other members of the monastic leadership play a prominent role in religious affairs. When a member of the household has died, monks are usually invited to the home on two occasions. The first is 49 days after death, and this is called Denchi. The second is after one year, and is known as Gechi. Before the monks arrive the women of the household will prepare a special ‘cake’ made of roasted barley flour, called tso. During their visit the monks will bless the tso, and after this it is considered beneficial to eat. Monks may also be invited to the home to recite for the general well-being of the household, usually once a year during the winter. On such occasions auspicious signs are drawn up with chalk at the entrance to the house. The monks who are invited are often relatives of the family, and they receive food and a small payment for their efforts. When a younger brother or sister marries and moves out of the household, he or she is provided with an ‘inheritance’ or ‘dowry’ in cash or kind, such as a tractor, a truck or cattle. At marriage the new bride or bridegroom will also receive a share of the farmland of his or her new household. Weddings are important events where all the relatives of the bride and groom get together to celebrate the marriage. When the parents of the young couple first visit each other, they bring tea and ceremonial scarves (Tibetan: kha btags) as gifts. The wedding itself is celebrated both in the household of the bride and bridegroom. In the household who is about to ‘lose’ a member, all the relatives gather to share food, sing and perform rituals. One of the key wedding songs is a song of advice and good wishes, to wish the bridegroom or bride good luck in his or her new home. The mother, followed by the men in the household, proceed to walk three times around the central pillar (local Tibetan: biga) of the house, carrying trays with butter lamps, bowls of barley wine and a ritual basket of barley grain (demo), brought out from the storage room of the house. When it is stored, the ‘demo’ basket has a small ‘arrow’ (dardi) stuck in the middle. The ‘arrow’ is made of wood and decorated with strips of cloth in various colors. After the ritual procession around the central

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pillar, a senior member of the household leads the way out of the house, carrying a covered thangka painting (image of a deity on silk cloth) that represents the bride or groom’s personal deity (Tibetan: yidam). The party then makes its way to the new household, where they are received with songs of welcome, presentations of barley wine and the burning of bsang. After entering the house, the feasting continues. The house is a site of daily rituals to protect the household from forces that might threaten it. Before breakfast a member of the household tends to the altar above the fireplace, filling water in seven brass bowls and lighting an incense-burner (local Tibetan: benka, Tibetan: spos ka). When the benka is lit in the mornings it is also time to go outside the house to burn bsang. This is done at an offering furnace (Tibetan: bsang thab) in the yard. When the morning butter tea is being prepared, black tea is poured into a small beaker, which is also put on the altar. In the evenings the water bowls and beaker of tea are emptied and the benka is lit again. The house has two floors and an attic for storage. The ground floor is usually occupied by domestic animals and the first floor by human inhabitants. The main entrance to the house is via a balcony. The front gates and the balcony face east, to let the morning sun into the yard and balcony. Near the house, each household, or several households together, have a walled compound called a yira, where they do the threshing and keep large racks for drying barley (local Tibetan: rangsheng) and for hay and other crops (sheche). The walls of the house are made of pounded earth, and the frame (pillars and beams), floors, wall panels and roof are made of wood. The roof tiles are made of panels of wood, held down by rocks. The pillars (local Tibetan: gedong), and especially the central pillar in the main room (biga), are significant not only during weddings but also in other ritual and festive activities that take place inside the house, and especially during communal events associated with the construction of a new house. There are two such events: Gedong⬘hong or ‘putting up the pillars’,10 and the ‘new house party’ celebrated after the house is completed. Gedong⬘hong is an occasion for all the relatives, neighbors and friends of the household to help with the work of putting up the pillars and beams in the new house. This is done after the wooden framework (stands and beams) on the ground floor is finished, and the earthen walls are completed. The event lasts an entire day, during which the men do the heavy work of putting up the corner supports and four main pillars (including the biga) on the first floor of the house, as well as the beams supporting the roof. About 10 men are needed just to carry the biga up the gangway to the first floor. To push the pillars into an upright position, using ropes and poles, requires an even larger workforce. While the men do the heavy work, the women cook and serve food throughout the day. The food is provided by the ‘hosts’, and each of the ‘guests’ will bring a gift, typically an oblong basket of rice with a couple of scoops of brown sugar on top.

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A variety of ritual practices may be performed during the Gedong⬘hong. Pieces of cloth in red, green, white, yellow and blue (local Tibetan: ditsün), together with ceremonial scarves, are hung in the slots at the top of each of the pillars in the main room, before the beams are put in place, and a mixture of different grains (gedro) is put under the biga. Other rituals include the lighting of benka, butter lamps and bsang, and the offering of tea, milk and fermented barley and milk (drong) in brass bowls. After the household has moved into the new house, it is time for a ‘new house’ celebration. This is no small event, and the household may well invite as many guests as they would for a wedding. The guests bring gifts in cash or kind, while the hosts provide plenty of food. As the guests leave, they are often provided with even more food to bring home. Many households only send one ‘representative’ to such a party, and the food is for the guests to share with the rest of their household. Relatives of the hosts make an account of the gifts received, listing the names of all the guests’ households and the gift received from each of them. A party such as this is not the only type of ‘new house celebration’. A ritual known as ‘a thousand butter lamps’ (local Tibetan: dongtruipi) may also be performed on the completion of a new house, to serve as a ‘blessing’ of the house. At the event I was invited to, the hosts had asked about a dozen monks from Songtseling to perform the ritual. As the name suggests, 1,000 butter lamps are lit for this ritual. Most of the butter lamps were in the main room, where the monks performed recitations, and some lamps were lit in the altar room (Tibetan: lha khang). In the main room, the fireplace was covered by a large table, carrying a smaller table, supporting a covered image. All this made up the shape of a pyramid, where each level contained butter lamps and numerous other offerings, including rows of water bowls and of pointed figures called chiba (also known as torma) made of butter and roasted barley dough. On entering the main room, all the guests prostrated three times towards the ‘pyramid’ of butter lamps and three times towards the monks. They continued by circumambulating the structure three times and, after completing this, everybody passed to the left side (the western side) of the biga on their way out of the room. Outside in the yard the guests were served food, seated on the usual low benches and tables. The food was cooked over an outdoor fire in the yard. An important aspect of ensuring the well-being of the household is to invite monks to ‘bless’ or ‘consecrate’ the house (Tibetan: rab tu gnas ba, literally ‘make [the] abode better’). Images in temples are similarly consecrated or ‘made sacred’ by rituals called rab tu gnas ba (rab gnas for short). The rituals involved in consecrating the house can be performed with or without the lighting of ‘a thousand butter lamps’, but they require the presence of monks as ritual experts. The term for ‘consecration’ is indeed linked with a common term for becoming a monk; rab tu byung ba, literally ‘make [the] person better’. The ‘making better’ referred to by the term rab tu thus

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carries a very special meaning of ‘better’, which might be translated as more ‘spiritual’ or ‘sacred’. The biga pillar has great ritual importance for the household. As expressed by one of my Tibetan friends, the biga is important, not just for the luck of the household, but for the very ‘survival of the family’. Its importance is illustrated by the numerous rituals connected with it, as well as the significance of ‘putting up the pillars’. The Gedong⬘hong also illustrates the dependency of the household on support from the community, including relatives and friends (often from other villages), neighbors and co-villagers. Without this support the house could not be built and the household could not survive. As interpreted here, the crucial role of the household for subsistence is reflected in elaborate rituals connected with the ‘reproduction’ of the household, and especially in rituals associated with the house. The underlying assumption, I suggest, is that the persons in the household and the house itself are closely related. As such, the house is a key site of personal identity. The difficulty of moving out of the house at marriage is indeed stressed during wedding ceremonies in the home. To safeguard the person moving out, the personal protector deity must accompany him or her, and his or her good fortune must be ensured by close relatives through the act of circumambulating the biga pillar with offerings. During this occasion, as in the Gedong⬘hong, the biga is the ‘ritual center’ of the house. I suggest that on this occasion at least, the biga stands as a symbol of the support that each household depends on from the larger community. Another significant ‘ritual center’ in the house is the yos khang, an altar on a shelf above the fireplace, where daily offerings are performed in order to secure the wellbeing of the household itself, its domestic animals and crops.

Ritual and agricultural cycles In Gyalthang, as in the entire Tibetan region, monasteries and temples are important sites of communal ritual activity. Three religious sites (Chinese: zongjiao jilie) are officially listed as ‘monasteries’ by the county authorities: Songtseling, Yönden and Hapi. The latter belongs to the Kagyupa school of Tibetan Buddhism, and houses only five monks, while the other two belong to the Gelugpa school. Songtseling is by far the largest of the three, with more than 700 resident monks. Several temples belong to Songtseling, or one of its eight monastic colleges (Tibetan: khams tshan), and some of these also have a few resident monks. Lhakhu is one such temple, located on a hill just above the Old Town. Another is Ringa, located in a forested area several kilometers east of the town. Several of the recurring ritual events that take place at these monasteries and temples are related to critical stages in the agricultural cycle, before the start of the planting season, during the first days of the Chinese and Tibetan New Year, at Mönlam Chenmo (Tibetan: smon lam chen mo; the fifteenth

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day of the first Tibetan month) when taking out the ‘future Buddha’ (Shambagönma Dendrong), and when circumambulating the temple Ringa (Chita Ringa Khora), as well as when visiting Lhakhu before starting to earth up the barley fields. The villagers use three different calendars. The Gregorian (Western) calendar is the official calendar of the People’s Republic and is used for public holidays such as Workers Day (May 1st), China’s National Holiday (October 1st) and Children’s Day (June 1st), as well as for birthdays, which have become popular among the younger generation. The Chinese lunar calendar is used to celebrate the Spring Festival (Chinese: Chun Jie) and Tomb Sweeping Day (Qing Ming Jie, observed on the fourth day of the third month) as well as local popular festivals, especially the May Fifth Festival (Duan Wu Jie). The Tibetan lunar calendar is used for celebrating Tibetan New Year (Tibetan: lo gsar) and for monastic events such as Mönlam Chenmo (smon lam chen mo). The sowing of barley, which is the staple crop, starts in mid-March (according to the Western calendar). Immediately after the barley is sown, villagers plant potatoes and rapeseed, and finally turnips for late harvesting in the beginning of May. The crops are rotated, and as much as two-thirds of the farmland is used for barley, while about one-third is used for other crops. In May villagers start to earth up the barley (local Tibetan: lewa le) for the first time. The earth around each bunch of seedlings is lifted with sharply pointed hatchets. Altogether, it is necessary to earth up the other crops twice and the barley as much as three times. This is very laborious work, and also very time-consuming. Since it is an advantage to have many workers and the work does not start simultaneously in every village, relatives in different villages often help each other. Just before the work of lewa le starts, many villagers, especially women, make a visit to Lhakhu.11 This is also a popular place to free chickens, and a place often visited on the first day of New Year. A visit to Lkakhu starts by lighting bsang in the furnaces outside, and circumambulating, preferably three times, around the temple walls. If someone is ill, they may place thorn twigs along the khora path, held down by rocks and pointing away from the temple. By doing this their illness or misfortune is ‘captured’ under the rocks and will leave them. After visiting the temple itself, people usually venture into the dark passageways under the floor of the temple. One must bend down to enter, and inside there is total darkness. Moving through the passages clockwise, the only way to know the direction is by touching the left-hand wall. There is absolutely no light inside, and it makes a deep impression to reach back to the entrance and see the sunlight outside. When the crops have just started to grow, they are vulnerable to draught. If the villagers decide that the crops need some rain, they get together to chant invocations. The chanting of invocations, or reciting of ‘mantras’, is called yidröla, but the ritual of chanting for rain is called Chilom, which

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literally means ‘rain road’, or ‘[making a] road [for] rain’.12 For performing Chilom in the villages near Zhongxin Town, one person from each household is required to meet at the village klu. One of the men in the village is responsible for organizing the ritual, and he goes to see a reincarnate lama first, to receive his endorsement or blessing. On the fifth day of the fifth Chinese lunar month, villagers celebrate a big horse race festival, known in Chinese as ‘Duan Wu Jie’ or ‘May Fifth Festival’. The festival takes place at the racecourse just outside Zhongxin Town, at the foot of Wufengshan, the mountain inhabited by the ri bdag of the township, or ‘township god’. Many villagers use this occasion to visit the temple of this deity on the slope above the racecourse to light bsang. The races are no doubt the main attraction, especially those where the competitors try to pick up ceremonial scarves from the ground.13 In between the rounds of races, the spectators enjoy themselves with picnics. Traveling salesmen set up their stalls on the grounds around the racecourse, selling anything from Buddha images to kitchen choppers, as well as snacks and balloons. On the festival grounds there are also a number of tents, since people like to camp out and party all night. On summer evenings, especially the evening of May 5th, people organize bonfire parties around the town. Young villagers get together at these parties to dance around the fire, drink alcohol and have fun. The fifth month in the Tibetan calendar is known as Sakadawa, and commemorates the Buddha Sakyamuni. A few of the villagers may pay a visit to the local monastery on the first day of this month, but the ceremonies are mainly attended by monks. However, on the fifteenth day of the fifth Tibetan month, some of the elderly villagers get together for communal recitations (yidröla) on an occasion called Gyunedi. Each household in the village takes turns at hosting the event. The elderly people in the village stay at this house for four days, to do prostrations and recite. For one day and one night, they are required to concentrate on their recitations, and neither eat nor converse. By early September, the drying racks for hay (local Tibetan: sheche) are filled, and the barley is ready for harvesting. After the barley is cut, bundles are made, loaded onto a tractor, and hung to dry on another type of drying rack, known as rangsheng. As soon as the barley harvest is finished, it is time for harvesting the turnips, rapeseed and, in late September, potatoes. In early October, the threshing starts. The rapeseed and barley husks are beaten with wooden sticks over a tarpaulin. Then the grain is separated from the chaff by throwing it into the air, using a flat bamboo basket. The heavy work is usually done with a tractor, by driving in circles over the tarpaulin. By October, work in the fields is usually more or less finished. During this time domestic animals are left to graze in the empty fields, and before the winter sets in some of the young animals are slaughtered. A household will usually keep a pair of oxen and several milking cows, a flock of sheep

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and some pigs. The sheep are kept for their wool, or sold to butchers at the market, but villagers do not slaughter them for meat. The first day of October is China’s national day, and the following week is the time of the annual cattle and horse market, where various crossbreeds of cattle, horses and sheep can be bought and sold. There is also a week-long market for all kinds of manufactured goods, such as toys, clothes and kitchen utensils. During the relatively long winter season (October to March) fields are prepared for the next year’s crops. For harrowing, a spiky barrel or drum is run through the fields, drawn either by a two-wheel tractor or a pair of oxen. Later, women do manual tilling by pounding the earth with wooden tools, and fertilize the fields with dung from the animal pens. Winter is the least busy time of year, and villagers often take the opportunity to do carpentry work, mend fences and make other repairs. Weddings are commonly celebrated during winter, and so are the major monastic festivals. Starting on the fifteenth day of the ninth Tibetan month, monks at Songtseling perform nine days of recitations and rituals (Tibetan: ⬘jigs byed gdams ngag). During these days the monks wear colorful capes covering their ordinary robes, and black hats adorned with a golden ‘crown’. Another annual event at Songtseling is the performance of masked ritual dances (⬘bag ⬘cham). This takes place on the twenty-sixth and twenty-ninth days of the eleventh Tibetan month, during the popular celebration of Godün (dgu ston). In mid-winter or early spring, it is time for the celebration of lunar New Year; both the Chinese Spring Festival and the Tibetan New Year. Chinese and Tibetan New Year are celebrated in much the same way, and in conversations it is often difficult to distinguish the two events. During both New Year celebrations villagers get together, often at the village community house, to play games and prepare communal meals. Each village may have a number of semiformal ‘teams’ of men or women; for instance, a team of men who have married into the village and a team of women who are ‘land owners’ (sa bdag). In popular games played during New Year, such as tugof-war, these teams compete against each other. Teams may also agree to prepare the food at a party, go together on trips to sacred sites or for a bath in a hot spring. On the first day of New Year, villagers like to start the day by eating sour cream cheese (local Tibetan: ti). This is because, as a young Tibetan friend explained, ti is white and ‘Tibetans think that white is a very good, very lucky color’. A basket of grain called demo, with a ritual arrow (dardi) stuck in the middle, is taken out from the storage room (b⬘yang), where it is usually kept. This is the same grain basket that is carried around the biga pillar during a wedding. On New Year’s Day the arrow is drawn out from the grain basket and put on the altar above the fireplace (Tibetan: yos khang), to be kept there throughout the celebrations. Another important task is to replace the old prayer flags on the rooftop flagpoles (local Tibetan: gyantsen bugye) with new ones. On the first, third

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and fifth days of New Year, the men in each household also put up prayer flags (bugye) fastened to bamboo poles (ritual arrows; Tibetan: rtse sheng). These are planted in a hilltop cairn (rtse phung), in honor of the mountain deity (ri bdag). After the rituals for the ri bdag are completed, bsang is also lighted and other rituals performed at the cairn of the village klu (spirit of the underworld). On the first morning of the New Year, many villagers visit a local monastery or temple, particularly Songtseling or Lhakhu. Some circumambulate Songtseling every day of the New Year celebrations, but the most popular days are the first, third and fifth days of the month. At the stupa, the villagers stop to do full-length prostrations three times and then circumambulate a number of times, spinning the prayer wheels. As always when doing circumambulations, odd numbers are preferable. Their next stop is usually the temple called Zhalaju in Tibetan, also known as the rtse khang (rtse meaning peak, as in rtse sheng and rtse phung). During New Year, villagers visit the bsang thab outside the yard of this temple to put branches of pine or juniper into the furnace. Some also bring a rtse sheng to the monastery, where it is handed over to monks at the furnace, or at the monastic ‘college’ (khams tshan), which is home to the monks of their village. At the entrance to the temple of each khams tshan, chalk patterns are drawn on the ground, featuring the eight auspicious symbols. Inside the temple, monks chant for several hours, while visitors walk clockwise around the interior of the temple, leaving small donations on the altars. The largest building in Songtseling is known as the Dratsang. This is the main temple, housing the common prayer hall as well as shrine rooms on three floors. A newer building next to it contains a giant statue of the Buddha Sakyamuni. Villagers consider a visit to the nearby Dukhang even more important. This is the oldest building in the monastery, and contains the original prayer hall. During Tibetan New Year, the Dratsang and other temple halls are decorated with elaborate and colorful butter sculptures, displayed in front of the altars. The sculptures are left there until the fifteenth day of the first Tibetan month, when they are broken into pieces and distributed. Villagers may later use the small pieces of colored butter to cure wounds. On the fifth day of the first Tibetan month, and again on the eighth day of the second month, villagers make bsang offerings to the household klu. The klu is a deity of the underworld, and the place where offerings are made to the klu is usually a tree near the fields, often adorned with a ceremonial scarf. Men may attend these rituals, but the women of the household are usually in charge. The lighting of bsang is accompanied by incantations, and participation in the ritual by several generations in the household ensures the transmission of ritual knowledge from one generation to the next, especially from mother to daughter. It is essential to know the invocations by heart to perform the ritual well. On the tenth day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, many

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14

villagers visit a temple known as Panchen Gyalwa Ringa, to take part in an event called Chita Ringa Khora (‘circumambulating Ringa’). On this occasion villagers get together at the temple to burn bsang in the offering furnace, make rounds of the circumambulation route (Tibetan: khora) and perform prostrations in front of the altars inside. Along the khora path, villagers attach strings of prayer flags to the trees, and leave colorful strings on the bushes and piles of mani stones for the ‘protection’ of those who put them up. People also come to Ringa to set free chickens or goats. The temple has a few resident monks, and is affiliated with Songtseling monastery. The main building houses the prayer hall, which contains four images of the female deity Drolma, in four different colors. As explained by a Tibetan driver who acted as our volunteer guide, one of the images arrived there mysteriously, from Lhasa. ‘Even Lhasa people visit this place’, he said, ‘since Gyalwa Ringa is well known in Lhasa’. He took this as evidence that Ringa is a ‘very important place’. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the Tibetan calendar, Mönlam Chenmo is celebrated at Songtseling by displaying a giant silk thangka (image of a deity) on the wall of the main temple, and taking out a statue of the ‘future Buddha’ (local Tibetan: Shambagönma), usually kept in a shrine on the top floor of the temple, to parade it around the monastery. This event is called Shambagönma Dendrong (‘taking out Shambagönma’). The event starts with the unfolding of the giant thangka in the main square. Offerings of flowers and a container of holy water (truicha) are placed in front of the thangka. Villagers help themselves to the water, which is considered to have curative powers. Many thus bring some of the water home in a bottle as well as drinking on the spot. Butter sculptures made by the monks are also brought out for viewing. The statue of the ‘future Buddha’, seated on a throne and wrapped in ceremonial scarves, is displayed on a platform in the middle of the square. When the procession starts, the throne is carried by volunteers among the male villagers. Women may help carry a long red banner. Monks in yellow hats lead the way, blowing horns, playing cymbals and carrying ceremonial objects, followed by more monks carrying banners. A cow and a horse, heavily decorated with scarves, are also paraded around the monastery. As the villagers follow the procession, many try to get close to the throne to throw their scarves onto it. A couple of monks are seated on the throne next to the image, to collect all the scarves. When the procession returns to the square, the statue is immediately carried back into the main temple, where it is kept until the next year’s ceremonies.

Tourism as an agent of ‘de-sacralization’ The concept of ‘de-sacralization’ or ‘secularization’ has been used by a number of researchers of tourism to describe tourism’s impact on ‘native’ communities. As I have argued, place-making in Gyalthang draws much of

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its significance from ritual practices at sacred sites (Tibetan: gnas) and sites associated with deities and spirits ‘inhabiting’ the landscape, including ‘mountain owners’ (ri bdag). A discussion of how tourism might be influencing the ‘sacredness’ of these religious sites is therefore highly relevant. Such a discussion, however, requires a careful consideration, not just of how sites are ‘sacralized’, and what this means for ‘emic’ notions of place, but also how tourists view the sacred sites they visit, and how ‘the sacred’ is featured in the promotion of tourism. For quite a few Chinese tourists, ‘Shangrila’ as a destination seems to represent a ‘landscape of nostalgia’, where ethnic minorities are cast as inhabitants of an imagined past. For others, it may rather exemplify what is missing in contemporary Chinese society, and even serve as a prospective model for a more ‘spiritual’ and ‘harmonious’ future China. This is perhaps what Petersen (1995) refers to as a strong sense of ‘cultural pilgrimage’ in much of Chinese domestic tourism. An obvious link between pilgrimage and tourism in Shangrila is that some of the tourists visiting monasteries, mountain pilgrimage destinations and other sacred sites identify themselves explicitly as ‘pilgrims’. This reframing of tourism as pilgrimage is well illustrated in the popular travelogue Pilgrimage to Meili Snow Mountain (Huang 2002), which has become a best-seller on the local book market. The book presents the story of a female Han Chinese traveler ‘on pilgrimage’ to Khawa Karpo. With its focus on the act of pilgrimage, the book reconceptualizes the very purpose of traveling as a spiritual rather than recreational venture. The writer seems to have reached her spiritual goal when she photographs the peak of Khawa Karpo at sunset, and discovers that the peak is crowned by a perfectly clear Tibetan ‘sun and moon’ image. For Tibetan Buddhists, this is a deeply significant religious symbol.15 The photo is used to illustrate the book cover, and is featured in several of the book’s illustrations. The narrative also revolves around the photo in a circular, selfreferential manner. The book describes how the author returns to Diqing to show the photo to local Tibetan villagers and monks, who are portrayed as impressed, even reverent. She is further featured as she presents a large framed copy of the photo to monastic leaders of Songtseling monastery. The copy of the photo granted by the author to Songtseling was displayed at the time of my fieldwork on the altar of the shrine room on the top floor of the main temple. This is a very prominent shrine, which also houses the image of the Future Buddha (local Tibetan: Shambagönma). In addition to the copy kept at Songtseling, another print was displayed on the altar of the Lotus Temple near the foot of Khawa Karpo. This is another site that receives numerous Chinese tourists, some of whom would have read the book or at least known the story of the photo. Posters of the photo advertising the book were displayed in many tourist hotels and outside bookstores in Zhongdian at the time of my fieldwork. Taken together, this was no small advertising achievement. In fact, the photo has become such a

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familiar imagery that it has been reproduced (once again) to market ‘pilgrimage to Meili Snow Mountain’ in another sense, this time as a tourist event. In the beginning of 2003, local government departments produced a promotion poster to advertise the Year of the Water Sheep (Chinese: shui yang nian), recurring only once in 60 years, as an extraordinarily auspicious year for ‘pilgrimage and tourism’ to Khawa Karpo Mountain.16 In the poster, the familiar image of the ‘sun and moon’ symbol above the peak of the mountain was recreated, although this time by electronic means. The point of reference of the image used in the poster was evidently the photo featured in the book Pilgrimage to Meili Snow Mountain. In Shangrila, tourism there seems to be a growing focus on pilgrimage as a key feature of the tourist experience. This is reflected in the promotion of Shangrila tourism, which is rife with references to pilgrimage, spirituality and everything religious. For instance, a series of postcards (featuring a group of monks on the cover) were sold under the title ‘Shangri La, the Heavenly Land’, and enterprises catering to tourists were given names such as ‘Holy Palace Hotel’, ‘Holy Land Travel Agency’ (Shendi Luxinshi) and ‘Pilgrimage Cafe’ (Chaosheng Kafeiguan). In the town itself, it seemed that every new business was adorned with religious symbols, such as ‘Boudhi eyes’ watching from the wall of a hotel, and and the Kalachakra monogram (Tibetan: rnam bcu dbang ldan) decorating the new supermarket. Religious artwork was also recreated in interior decoration, such as a mandala ceiling in the lobby of Paradise Hotel. Owners of hotels and guesthouses were virtually competing to build stupas on their premises. The owners of a ‘Cultural Center’ and museum on the road to Bita Lake even built a temple for the benefit of their visitors. It was described as non-sectarian (Tibetan: ris med), and it therefore contained images of deities and masters from all the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Monks from monasteries of different schools were involved in rituals to consecrate (rab gnas) the images in the temple. The road between Zhongxin and Deqin, the route taken by most visitors to Khawa Karpo Mountain, is flanked by a number of signs set up for the benefit of tourists. These signs primarily introduce natural features visible from the road, such as geological formations and types of forest cover. On arriving at the foot of the mountain, the route taken by tourists is the pilgrimage trail that leads to a pair of temples on the slope of the mountain, just next to the Minyong Glacier. Along the path there are signs in English and Chinese but, contrary to the road signs, these focus almost exclusively on the religious significance of the sights to be seen, narrating their stories and explaining the beliefs connected with them. Promotional materials, whether produced by government agencies or private entrepreneurs, frequently draw on stories ascribed to popular beliefs. For instance, the following story appeared on a promotional pamphlet for the Tianshengqiao hot springs:

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As these examples illustrate, tourist destinations are promoted by drawing on the mythical past and the notion of ‘sacredness’. This is a frame of reference that sets Shangrila distinctly apart from the ‘scientific’ territorial space, devoid of superstition, that is the domain of the Chinese state. Such spatial reframing may thus be understood as a ‘remapping’ of place in ‘nonscientific’ terms.

Tensions between tourism and religious practice Tibetan monasteries have always received pilgrims, and the more popular monasteries received the greater number of visitors. When tourists fill up the halls of Songtseling during public holidays, this is not all that different from the crowds of villagers that gather for religious festivals at other times of the year. It is also worth reminding that tourists are required to pay an entrance fee, and this provides an important additional income to the monastery. It is a clear sign of appreciation when people travel long distances to visit a monastery and admire its buildings and images. This does not mean that the experiences or actions of tourists are similar to those of Tibetan villagers, who may have very different ideas and motivations for visiting the monastery. A case could certainly be made that the tourists are primarily ‘consumers’ of experiences of spirituality in which the local worshippers play an important role, whether they are aware of it or not. But it may perhaps be prejudiced to maintain that the motivations of the tourists are therefore less ‘worthy’ than those of the villagers, as long as the tourists are left with few other options than to ‘consume’ spirituality by paying an entrance fee and a guide. In a study of Labrang Monastery, a major Tibetan monastery in the Amdo region, Makley (1994) describes how tourism there served as an arena for ‘subverting state control’, by reshaping gender boundaries within the Tibetan community. Makley situates ethnic tourism in the much broader setting of ethnic relations along the borders of China and Tibet, where tourism has added a new dimension to state intervention in Tibetan society. State-sponsored tourism is seen by Makley as a charged arena that has brought the profane, such as the free mingling of female tourists and male monk guides, onto the monastic grounds. In this way traditional monastic boundaries between inside/sacred and outside/profane are redrawn, and the

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sacred is threatened because the rituals and practices that ‘hedge in’ the sacred are being dispensed with in the interest of providing access for tourists. How do Tibetans react? According to Makley (1994: 82–83): Despite state injunctions or encouragement to do otherwise, Tibetan women’s practical allegiance to Tibetan gender distinctions plays a vital role in the maintenance of a Tibetan ‘inner sanctum’ – by upholding traditional ritual restrictions, they retain threatened boundaries and thus keep monastic space sacred in the face of ongoing state (as well as Chinese and Western tourists’) breaches of those boundaries. The case of Songtseling in 2002–3 differs in several respects from that of Labrang a decade earlier.17 First, monks did not act as guides at Songtseling, and there was thus not much free mingling between tourists and monks. Second, providing access to tourists was not prioritized over ‘hedging in’ the sacred. At Songtseling, female tourists were strictly forbidden to enter a building that was only accessible to males. There was a sign over the door making this clear, and there was also a guard at the doorway. Quite a few tourists I observed at Songtseling adhered to the basic rules of appropriate behavior for pilgrims, such as taking off headwear and speaking quietly inside a temple, making sure to walk in a clockwise direction. Many tourists also left donations on the altars and lit incense sticks, and some prostrated in front of the images, while others tourists broke the rules of respectful behavior. Cases I observed included Western tourists who took photographs inside temples despite being advised not to do so, and a young Chinese couple kissing in a monastery, just in front of the entrance to a temple. Tibetans consider this to be very disgraceful behavior in a monastery. In fact, monks I talked with stated plainly that the tourists disturbed them when they performed recitations in the prayer hall. In an attempt to alleviate some of the disturbance, signs in Chinese had been put up, advising visitors ‘not to speak loudly, to perform prostrations inside the temple, and not to take photos’. It is more difficult to interpret the reactions of villagers to tourism at pilgrimage sites such as Khawa Karpo. One Tibetan friend complained about tourists leaving rubbish at Khawa Karpo, arguing that ‘tourists don’t understand what this place means, the holiness of the place [difang de shen sheng xing]’. When I tried to discuss this further, however, she replied that ‘it’s not a big problem, and besides, tourism is very important for the economy here’. Another Tibetan expressed mixed feelings when he told me about the Japanese mountain climbers who were killed on Khawa Karpo in 1991. He remembered when the relatives of the mountain climbers had visited after the accident ‘to see the mountain where their loved ones were killed’, and explained that ‘people felt really sorry for them, but deep in their hearts, they still hope that the mountain will never be conquered,

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because if it is, the mountain will lose some of its power’. As for the tourists visiting as ‘pilgrims’ to Khawa Karpo, he explained: This area is different from central Tibet, where people might object to tourists visiting holy mountains [shan sheng]. Here, we are used to different people visiting our place, and whoever wants to come to a holy mountain is welcome, no matter what their beliefs. On the other hand, if the visitors behave badly and disturb people, then they are not that welcome. Tourists were not alone in being accused of bad behavior. Similar charges were made against monks who took advantage of tourists by overcharging them for offering scarves to put on the altars. Another objection was against charging entrance fees to monasteries: ‘If this were a museum or a park, it would be all right, but a monastery is a place of worship, and should be open to everybody’. According to this commentator, donation boxes were acceptable in monasteries, but charging an entrance fee was ‘not right’. Complaints about the behavior of monks were not limited to their encounters with tourists. I often heard comments that monks failed to pay attention to their studies, and preferred going to town to sit around in cafes. At a monastic festival in Deqin County, with no tourists present, the host monastery had even allowed gambling and loud disco music as a part of the entertainment. We stayed at a dormitory that belonged to the monastery during the event. Just outside we could see (and hear) monks as well as lay participants in the festival gambling on lottery, cards and ‘three in a row’ until late at night. On another occasion, monks and nuns served beer as well as meals in a restaurant inside the monastic complex. Although only lay customers were drinking, it is unusual to see alcohol served in such a setting. As these examples indicate, what is seen as permissible differs from one monastery to another, and is not necessarily related to the presence of tourists. Tourism may be one cause of ‘secularization’ in Diqing monasteries, but there are many others, including some that have always existed and some that are more recent. Among the latter, schools now offer alternative paths to education, and young monks sometimes leave the monastery (usually before taking vows) to follow their own educational goals rather than those preferred by their parents. Judging by the large numbers of paying visitors to Songtseling, it is obvious that the monastery has become a very popular tourist site, whether it is appreciated for its architecture and artwork, as an expression of Tibetan cultural and religious life, or for the experience of an atmosphere of ‘spirituality’. As visits to monasteries and pilgrimage sites have become an increasingly significant part of the touring experience of urban Chinese visitors to Shangrila, tourism is providing a new frame of reference for locals of Shangrila to understand, and explain, sacred sites. This is partly linked to the evident appreciation of tourists for sacred sites, and partly to the new

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incentives to represent ‘Tibetan culture’ provided by tourism. Representations of the characteristics of the ‘local’ and its ‘Tibetan-ness’ often draw on the significance of sacred sites, especially pilgrimage sites and monasteries. In an important sense, tourism has not ‘de-sacralized’ these sites as much as ‘re-sacralized’ them, or ‘sacralized’ them in new ways. As will be described in the following chapter, nor has tourism ‘de-politicized’ ethnicity, but has rather reinforced identities in ways that further ‘politicize’ them.

6

Imagining the nation

Mapping is a key method of state place-making, and an effective political tool, not the least when it poses as a ‘scientific’ technique that faithfully reproduces the ‘objective’ or ‘natural’ world. As described in Chapter 4, the introduction of new place names and the physical marking of the landscape with the history of Chinese Communism were important to the integration of Diqing into the People’s Republic. By reconstructing local geographies to emplace a mythical history of the Communist regime, agents of the state sought to point the ‘frontier’ areas in a new direction: towards the ‘New China’ (Chinese: Xinhua). Once communes took over production, indigenous land ownership and power structures were completely refigured. This revolution also involved a radical reinterpretation of the meaning of place, and a spatial redrawing that erased any signs of the sacred, whether on the body, built structures or the landscape itself. Even after communes had been dismantled and land redistributed, place names, monuments, signs and exhibits served as constant reminders of the Communist map of Diqing. Whereas the ‘sacralization’ of place evokes time in cycles (mainly yearly and 12-year intervals), the place-making of the PRC relies on notions of progressive, historical time, linked to the Communist movement and its campaigns. The significance of progress is also made clear in the doctrine of history distinguishing successive ‘stages of societies’, originally borrowed from Marxism and historical evolutionism.1 This history is also mapped out, with the ethnic minorities cast as representatives of ‘lower’ stages of society (evolving from primitive to feudal social forms), whereas the Han Chinese represent the ‘highest’ stage – Socialist society. A key point of rupture in this history is the break between the ‘old’ society, steeped in feudalism and superstition, and the ‘new’ Socialist society. The advent of the Communist state brought far-reaching consequences for the political organization and economy of the ‘frontiers’ of China, which came to be known as ‘autonomous areas’ for ‘minority nationalities’ (Chinese: shaoshu minzu). The establishment of the PRC thus ushered in a new ideological era that also reconceived the territory of the state itself. Smith (1994: 51) writes that the Nationalities Policy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had as its primary goal the integration of minority

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nationality areas into the country’s administrative structure in preparation for their ‘socialist transformation’. This is essentially correct, but it is important to note that the ‘minority nationality areas’ as such did not exist until the PRC authorities had created them. Before these areas could be ‘integrated’, ‘transformed’ or anything else, they had to be mapped out, and the ‘minority nationalities’ had to be identified. The territories and peoples of the ‘People’s Republic’ were not just ‘there to be integrated’, they were, in an important sense, constructed by agents of the new state apparatus. The identification of the ‘nationalities’ of the PRC was a key aspect of the construction of the Chinese ‘nation’. This ‘constructed ethnicity’ of the state is important to account for if we want to analyze the ‘reconstructed ethnicity’ of tourism (MacCannell 1992). Today every citizen of the PRC is assigned an ethnic identity among one of China’s 57 recognized ‘nationalities’ or ethnic groups (Chinese: minzu). Every census assembles detailed information on ethnicity, and personal identity cards (shenfen zheng) note each individual’s ethnic affiliation. School children learn about the special characteristics of each minzu, based on distinct cultural traits or markers. In special schools for minority minzu children, the ideals of patriotism and the ‘unity of the nationalities’ (minzu tuanjie) are among the most explicit ideological messages conveyed by the curriculum. The implicit message is powerful. It establishes a hegemonic view of the way people are to be categorized and territories delimited in the People’s Republic. In the PRC, Marxist evolutionism has served as an important ideological basis for legitimizing a range of policies directed towards ‘civilizing’ the minorities (Harrell 1995; Stockman 2000). In recent years, Marxist evolutionism has been coupled with yet another ideology of ‘civilization’ in the ‘modernizing project’. Contemporary discourses on the need for minority minzu to advance may still be based to some extent on narratives of evolution through social stages towards the ‘Socialist paradise’, but at the same time new narratives have been added. These new narratives are rooted not so much in Marxism as in the ideology of ‘modernity’, focused on the goals of ‘economic progress’ and ‘development’. For instance, Han Chinese migrant workers in Shangrila would argue that the local minorities needed their help to ‘develop’ (Chinese: yao fazhan, xiandai hua) the area, rather than to ‘make it more civilized’. The view that religion and ‘backward’ cultural traditions are obstacles to economic development is widespread, and was also expressed by some of my Diqing informants. As explained by one of the officials I interviewed, the ‘development’ of minority culture and religion are necessary prerequisites for economic development. When I asked this official, a Tibetan cadre in the Department of Nationalities and Religious Affairs, what the ‘development’ of religion implied, he said: If the religion of the nationalities [minzu] is developed, this place can develop economically too. Our job is to guide [yindao] the people on

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As noted by Anagnost (1994: 224–25), the category of ‘civilization’ (Chinese: wenming) can be oppositionally paired with the category of ‘feudal superstition’ (fengjian mixin) in Chinese discourses of modernity. ‘Superstition’ is often described as a phenomenon that occurs at ‘lower’ stages of human society, when ‘levels of production’ are low. It is believed that ‘superstition’ will vanish as productivity is raised, with the establishment of a ‘high-level’ socialist society, and especially with the improvement of education, science and technology. According to Anagnost (1994: 239), ‘superstition’ figures into a semiotic chain of signifiers that mark the divide between those interior regions of China that are ‘backward’, ‘isolated’, ‘uncivilized’ and ‘poor’, and those coastal areas that are ‘advanced’, ‘developed’, ‘wealthy’ and ‘civilized’: In this play of oppositions, superstition is the ‘other’ of civilization, the essence of backwardness, and therefore an active sign in the discursive construction of the radical reterritorialization of the national economy in its opening out to a global economic system. As suggested here, Chinese discourses of modernity do not simply repeat the narratives of Marxist evolutionism, but give a new twist to the old story, in which the minorities again play the role of the opposite ‘other’, but this time as the ‘undeveloped’. The idea of classifying people according to ‘nationality’ is virtually unquestioned in contemporary China, and the ideological premises that such classification is based on is often referred to as ‘scientific’. However, the ethnic identities that have been officially recognized by the state are subject to continuous negotiation and contestation, especially in China’s ‘minority areas’. A number of studies have revealed how disagreements about ethnic classification are in fact widespread in China, and that ethnic difference is frequently disputed (see, for instance, Harrell 1995; Brown 1996; Safran 1998; Wellens 1998). The present chapter discusses the negotiation of ethnic difference in Shangrila, and describes emerging views of the ethnic minorities in contemporary China, as reflected in the media, and in the promotion of Shangrila tourism.

Ethnic identity in contemporary Shangrila The state ‘ethnic identification project’ may have provided the terms of reference for recognizing ethnic identity, but the interpretation of these terms relies on local negotiation. People relate in numerous different ways to minzu labels. They sometimes adjust to or accommodate state-sanctioned representations, but more often they actively renegotiate their meanings.

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As the commercial and administrative center of Diqing, Zhongxin Town is a meeting place for all the prefecture’s ‘nationalities’. In recent years the town has also become a new home to an increasing number of migrants seeking to profit from the business opportunities created by tourism. Within the town setting in particular, ethnic or ‘nationality’ identity provides an important framework for understanding difference. In their everyday encounters, people interpret ethnic difference by drawing variously on ethnic stereotypes disseminated through the media and in school textbooks, and on popular perceptions of ethnic ‘otherness’. For a local observer, differences in dress, especially among women and the elder generations, serve as the most immediately visible signs of ethnic identity. In the case of the Yi, the female attire with long colorful skirts and huge black headdresses makes them readily identifiable. Female Bai migrant workers wear another characteristic headdress, along with white and blue garments. This costume is used mainly for selling jewelry to tourists, strategically attracting their attention as they guard the gates of the long-distance bus station. Local Naxi villagers are more easily identifiable when they dress for festive occasions in their typical goatskin vest, but also in the gray and blue tones they prefer for daily wear. Tibetan men are known for their chuba, although Pumi men wear a similar robe. Tibetan women are immediately recognizable thanks to their colorful headdresses (local Tibetan: shua), decorated with bright pink or purple, and their blue or white aprons, worn over a pair of trousers. Tibetan women from areas outside the county are distinguishable to locals because they wear other types of headdress, and aprons in different colors. Whereas the ethnic identity of women is most easily recognizable by their clothing, men are more often identified by their spoken language, or accent if they speak Mandarin Chinese (putonghua). When starting up a conversation with a stranger, people do not hesitate to ask about his or her ethnic identity. However, in casual conversations with people who are unfamiliar with local linguistic and other differences, people do not always tell the ‘truth’ about their identity (that is, if the ‘truth’ is what their identity card says). For instance, a young woman who first claimed that she was a ‘Tibetan’ later revealed that her father was actually a Han and her mother a Naxi, and that she herself preferred to be a Naxi because ‘nobody likes Han people, not even the Han themselves’. There may be various reasons for people to ‘misrepresent’ their ethnic identity like this, an issue to which I will return later in the chapter. As Wellens (1998: 17) points out, being a member of a minority ‘nationality’ in China one both has to relate to the nationality label as the official sanctioning of one’s local identity, and as the emblem of an external definition of this identity. Through its ‘ethnic identification project’ the Chinese state sanctioned certain local categories of difference, but in the process it also defined and objectified the characteristics of the ‘ethnic’ categories it created. There is a complex relationship between local expressions of ethnic difference and the ‘taxonomic space’ (Ardener 1989) of state classifications.

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On the one hand, the Communist state classified its ‘nationalities’ by drawing on various forms of local identities, with differing degrees of cooperation of the people involved (Wellens 1998: 20). On the other hand, local expressions of identity have become highly dependent on state-sanctioned categories, and this is why official classification is so frequently disputed. As mentioned, in encounters with strangers, ethnicity is often the object of ‘games’ played with ethnic categories, sometimes involving the deliberate misrepresentation of a person’s own ethnic identity. As an example of a more or less deliberate ‘play’ with ethnic and other identities, people enjoy dressing up in ethnic costumes for snapshots. In parks as well as at scenic sites, photographers operate stalls that are supplied with a variety of such costumes. At the stall in the memorial park of Zhongxin Town, these costumes included ‘Imperial Manchu’ garments, ‘Tibetan’, ‘Yi’ and ‘Lisu’ costumes, as well as military outfits (complete with replica machineguns, popular with boys). At tourist sites, Chinese tourists often engage in such photo opportunities and, in the town, so do villagers, townspeople and migrant workers. Official ethnic categories are reproduced locally in popular anecdotes focusing on ethnic difference. As a Naxi friend explained, all the minorities are associated with particular traits, and the only ‘normal’ people are the Han. As examples, she mentioned Bai people, who are known as cheaters, and ‘will eat bones that even the dogs do not touch’. Tibetans are considered ‘wealthy but aggressive’ and as for Naxi people, they are known as ‘inhospitable’. Anecdotes such as these help maintain common stereotypes of ‘ethnic otherness’, often in the guise of jokes. As this example illustrates, ethnic minorities are often portrayed in less than flattering terms. The Han majority, by contrast, is perceived as the norm; the ‘positive’ backdrop against which the ‘negative’ characteristics of the minorities emerge. In Diqing, the state effort to objectify ethnic difference provides a key frame of reference for debates about ethnicity, even when official categories are contested. Some argue, for instance, that the Naxi are ‘really Tibetans’, and claim that their ‘Dongba religion’ is none other than the branch of Bön religion known as ‘Mixed Color Bön’.2 Others argue that the Tibetans who inhabit the Tiger Leaping Gorge area are ‘not really Tibetans at all’. Such disagreements often reveal implicit assumptions about what it means to be a ‘Tibetan’. For example, some would say that Tibetans do not eat fish, or imply that it is a sign of being ‘less Tibetan’ if they eat fish. I also heard people say that Shangrila was ‘not so Tibetan’ as, for instance, the Ganzi area, since Tibetans ‘speak more Chinese here’ and ‘eat Chinese food’. In debates on ‘Tibetan’ identity, a recurring topic is the distinction between ‘Tibetans’ (Tibetan: bod pa or bod rigs) and ‘Chinese’ (rgya mi). Regional identities, on the other hand, are rarely debated. Historically, Tibetans have distinguished between three major regions of Tibet: Ü-Tsang (central and western parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region), Amdo (Tibetan areas of Qinghai and Gansu, and Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

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in Sichuan) and Kham (Diqing, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, and the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region). For some Tibetans, these regional identities are still understood as mutually exclusive categories, similar to ethnic categories. I heard, for instance, a Lhasa resident identify a visitor from eastern Tibet as ‘a Khampa, not a Tibetan’. In the Kham region, efforts have been made to revive the significance of the Khampa identity in recent years, most noticeably with the introduction of the Khampa Arts Festival, hosted by Diqing in 1997. However, this ‘new’ (or renewed) Khampa identity is not understood as an ethnic (Chinese: minzu) identity, but rather as a regional identity that bridges current provincial borders. The revived Khampa identity serves mainly to forge ties between Tibetans in Sichuan, Yunnan and eastern Tibet Autonomous Region. It has not been promoted nor sanctioned by the state as an ethnic identity, but is rather an expression of the revival of economic and political cooperation among Tibetans across the current provincial boundaries. Whereas distinctions between the various ethnic categories are important to local reinterpretations, in official discourse the general term ‘ethnic minorities’ (Chinese: shaoshu minzu) makes a crucial distinction between the Han Chinese and the country’s interior ‘others’. The term shaoshu minzu, often shortened to minzu, plays an especially important role in rhetoric on the need to ‘develop’ minority areas. In government documents, public speeches and formal meetings, government officials and other cadres often complain about the ‘lack of human resources’ in the minority areas, the need to raise the cultural level (Chinese: wenhua chengdu) of the local villagers, and similar ‘obstacles to development’. Han Chinese migrant workers sometimes reiterate official discourses such as these and link them to their own perceptions about the superiority of the Han people, to argue that their role is to ‘help the minorities develop’. In school, most Tibetan children learn to become fluent in Mandarin Chinese, especially in middle school or other boarding school settings where students of several nationalities are mixed. In such schools minority students rarely speak their native language in the classroom, and most of the students choose to wear ‘modern’ dress. Tibetan students may still like to demonstrate their ethnic identity, for instance by wearing a red knotted string, which has been blessed by a lama (often worn for ‘protection’), or as some ‘trendsetters’ did, creatively decorating their jeans with patches of Tibetan apron cloth. Weddings are occasions for dressing up, and also for displays of ethnicity. Before the wedding, the young couple makes an appointment with a photographer in town to take wedding photos. A Tibetan couple will usually want to have two photo sessions, one ‘Tibetan’ and one ‘Western’ style. The clothes worn for the photos are normally rented or borrowed. The ‘Western’ photo features the stereotypical ‘white wedding’, which is also trendy in urban China. In the ‘Tibetan’ photo, the bride and groom both wear ‘Tibetan’ garments with fur linings. The fashionable contemporary ‘Tibetan’

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wedding dress is an adaptation of the dress and ornaments used in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, and not the local wedding dress that was used in the area earlier. The bridegroom thus wears a large fox skin hat and has a big dagger stuck in his belt, whereas the bride wears a brightly colored chuba, a heavily decorated belt and striped apron. Both are also abundantly laden with jewellery, including a large ornament hung around the neck (local Tibetan: ge). Both ‘Western’ and ‘Tibetan’ wedding photos are later displayed in the homes of the couple and their close relatives. In ‘mixed marriages’ (marriages across ethnic boundaries), weddings are normally celebrated without any ‘ethnic’ display.3 The children of such ‘mixed marriages’ can choose the ethnic identity of either of their parents at the age of 18, but shortly after the child is born the parents already need to decide on an ethnic identity for their child when applying for a permit of residence (Chinese: hukou). This ‘temporary’ identity stays with the child until he or she turns 18, and, if confirmed, throughout life. Decisions about ethnic identity are not always easy, especially when the choice is taken to imply ‘who is the most important’, the father or the mother. I was told that Han people prefer passing on the identity of the father, since he is usually seen as ‘the most important’. Cases where this principle was not followed usually involved a Tibetan mother and Han father. In several such cases I heard of, the parents had decided to give the child a Tibetan identity. As one of my friends explained: ‘I don’t really think there is any difference whether I’m registered as a Tibetan or a Han, but my mother and father thought it might be an advantage for me to be a Tibetan since we were living here in Zhongdian, in a Tibetan area’. In the streets of Zhongxin Town, many vehicles have telling decorations in their front window, which might include a portrait of Mao, a picture of a reincarnate lama or a knotted khatag scarf received as a blessing from a lama. In this way people openly display their beliefs and values as well as their ethnic identities, although they would probably tell you that whatever is hanging from their rear-view mirror is ‘for luck’. Many of the minzu identities have their ‘counterparts’ in a particular religious faith, especially Hui identity and Islam, but also Tibetan identity and Tibetan Buddhism (Chinese: zang chuan fojiao), and Naxi identity and Dongba religion, and sometimes Han identity and Han (Chinese) Buddhism (han chuan fojiao). When people declare that they adhere to a particular religious belief, this is sometimes a way to underscore their ethnic identity. For instance, after questioning me about my beliefs, a new student in my informal weekend English class declared ‘I am a Tibetan, so I believe in Tibetan Buddhism’. The other student added: ‘And I am a Naxi and believe in Dongba religion’. When I asked her to tell me about Dongba religion, she clarified: ‘a long time ago, Naxi people believed in Dongba religion, but not any more. Now it’s a part of our culture’. In a later conversation she elabo-

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rated on this, saying: ‘these days many people are interested in Dongba culture, which is our cultural history and the history of the Naxi people, but at the same time we all believe in science’. Despite that the Han Chinese are presented in most official discourse as representatives of ‘modernity’, and consequently as ‘non-believers’, quite a few local Han people regularly visit temples and monasteries for religious practice. In a few shrines, these worshipers have put up their own images, such as painted clay sculptures, which are easily differentiated from the Tibetan Buddhist images. The caretaker of one such shrine, located in the Old Town, explained that these images represented ‘Han gods’. Local Han Chinese also use the temple for the mountain deity at Wufengshan as a site for performing offering rituals for deceased relatives, as I happened to witness during my first visit to the temple. Practices such as these are not easily defined, but would probably be included in what is known locally as ‘Han Buddhism’. According to one of my friends, a Han woman who identified herself as a ‘Tibetan Buddhist’, the difference between Tibetan Buddhism and Han Buddhism is that ‘Han Buddhism is for oneself, whereas Tibetan Buddhism is for everyone’. This remark also explained why she regarded Tibetan Buddhism as better. In addition to some of the local Han people, there are also quite a few Naxi people who identify themselves as Tibetan Buddhists. One of the ‘monastic colleges’ (Tibetan: khams tshan) of Songtseling Monastery is known as a ‘Naxi’ college. This is the college that recruits monks from Sanba Naxi Autonomous Township, which is home to the majority of Naxi people in Shangrila. The name of the college is ‘Drong’, and according to historical sources its temple was built by a chieftain of the Mu clan (Chinese: mu tusi), the ‘king’ of Lijiang. This suggests that there have been Naxi adherents of Tibetan Buddhism in the area for centuries. Contemporary ethnic typology identifies the ‘Naxi nationality’ with ‘Dongba religion’, and Naxi scholars I talked with denied any similarities between Dongba religion and Tibetan Buddhism, or even Bön religion. Despite this, I met local Naxi people who maintained that ‘the Naxi are Tibetan Buddhists’, while others described Dongba religion as ‘a kind of Bön religion’. In support of this claim, one argument was that the mythical founder of the Bön religion, Tönba Shenrab (Tibetan: ston pa gshen rab), is identical with the central figure in Dongba religion known by the same name. An annual ‘Naxi festival’ at Baishuitai (White Water Terraces), held on the eighth day of the second month of the Chinese lunar calendar, has become an important venue for expressing Naxi identity as well as performing rituals associated with the Dongba religion. The ritual activity conducted by participants at the ‘Naxi festival’ starts with the lighting of ‘smoke offerings’ of juniper or pine twigs (known in Tibetan as bsang). The head of each household then slaughters a chicken and lets the blood fall onto the rocks of the offering place. Afterwards the chicken is taken back to

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camp, where members of the household cook and eat it. The rites are centered at a pool that is the source of the water running down the terraces. Into this pool, which is surrounded by several old trees, villagers throw uncooked white rice cakes, and drink the water. Branches from blooming apricot trees are stuck in the ground around the pool. People throw flour into the offering fires surrounding the pool, and light incense sticks in the fires. Except for the slaughtering of chickens, many of these activities are reminiscent of rituals performed by Tibetans. Despite that the festival is widely known as a ‘Naxi festival’, it is in fact frequented by villagers of many ethnic affiliations other than Naxi (such as Yi, Pumi, Lisu and Tibetan). At the festival I attended, these villagers participated actively in the dancing and other festivities, but only Naxi villagers made the sacrificial offerings, described by an accompanying Naxi friend as the ‘most important’ activity. A Naxi scholar I met at Baishuitai maintained that this was the original holy site (Chinese: chuang sheng di) of the Dongba religion; the site from which Dongba culture originated. He claimed that there were as many as 100 Dongbas (religious specialists or ‘shamans’ of the Dongba religion) in Sanba Township, and another 30 in the rest of Zhongdian, whereas there were only seven or eight in Lijiang, which has a much larger Naxi population. Baishuitai, he said, was the residence of the two most important deities of the Dongba religion, the supreme god and goddess couple. According to this scholar, Dongba religion is a ‘primordial religion’ (yuanshi jiao), in which every rock, tree, spring and every living being has a spirit. He also made it clear that the Dongba religion is without organizations, temples or institutions. Dongba teachings are passed on within the family, usually from father to son. The Dongba is asked to recite from the scriptures, written in the pictographic Dongba script, at birth, old age, sickness and death in the family. Naxi people do not believe in reincarnation, the scholar explained, they believe in heaven.4 Whereas most Naxi ‘cultural experts’ would take pains to distinguish Dongba religion from anything ‘Tibetan’, in Diqing I heard several accounts connecting the Dongba religion explicitly to Tibet. As explained by a young Naxi caretaker at Baishuitai, in ‘ancient times’ a reincarnate lama (Chinese: huofo)5 named Ami came to the area from Tibet, bringing ‘knowledge about what later became the Dongba religion’: Ami lived as a hermit in a cave called Ami Mountain Cave [Ami Shandong]. The villagers could hear him drumming in his cave. Once there was a serious drought in the Lijiang area, and a famous master in Lijiang was unable to bring rain. So Ami went to Lijiang, crossing the Jinsha River by swimming over with all his belongings on his head. When he reached Lijiang he recited prayers for rain and performed rituals for four days, and as soon as he finished the rain came pouring down. This made Ami famous.

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According to this Naxi cultural expert, Ami was not only a master of rainmaking rituals, but also the inventor of the Dongba script, used primarily by Dongba ‘shamans’ for ritual purposes. As Dongba religion has come to define the Naxi, religion is a key to the identity of other ethnic groups as well. The Hui nationality or ‘Huizu’ are defined as Chinese-speaking ‘ethnic Han’ distinguished by their adherence to Islam. Like the Dongba ‘shamans’, the Hui also have their religious specialists, known as ahong. A village ahong is an ordinary farmer who has studied the Arabic script. Arabic is not taught in the village, but in the town of Sanba there is a mosque where the ahong teaches Arabic. During annual religious celebrations, villagers invite the village ahong to their homes to read from the scriptures and conduct rituals for the deceased. Ritual money (Chinese: jin qiang) is offered on these occasions, to be ‘spent’ by the deceased. The village ahong is more of a ritual specialist than a teacher of religion, but Hui parents tell their own stories to teach their children moral lessons. One example is a story related to me as an explanation of ‘why we shouldn’t eat pork’: A long time ago the Han people and the Hui people fought each other, and in the end there was only one Hui man left, and many Han. The Hui man ran, but the Han followed him. After a while a pig started to follow the Hui man, and then the Han couldn’t find his footprints. The pig helped him, and that’s why we don’t eat pork. Some people say that pork is dirty, but that’s not true. The reason for not eating pork is that the pig helped us. Narratives such as this are important in maintaining the boundaries of the Hui as a group, especially in relation to the Han, which seems to be the most significant ‘other’. If a person who belongs to a different minzu marries into a Hui family, that person is usually required to become an adherent of Islam. However, this does not involve a change in ethnic identity, which means that although the Hui as a people are Muslims, some Muslims are not Hui. In Sanba there is a village with a mixed Hui and Tibetan population, where people speak both Chinese and Tibetan, but where most people adhere to Islam. An elderly Tibetan woman who lived most of her life in this village told me that her mother was a Hui who had married into a Tibetan family, and so she herself had been raised as a Tibetan Buddhist. At the age of 21 she was married to a Hui Muslim, and moved to his village. She then converted to Islam, since: ‘people said that if I didn’t become a Muslim, there might be something wrong with my children when they were born, and my children might not be like other children’. She eventually had five children, and as she explained:

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As this account illustrates, faith does not always follow the rules, much less obey logic. Especially in the town setting, where there is less social control, religious boundaries are easily transgressed. In Shangrila, the Hui as a group are identified closely with Islam. A person whose parents are both Hui is, so to speak, Muslim by birth. However, to be a Muslim is not just a question of belief, but also a question of practice. To be a Muslim means not to eat pork, and conversely, a person who eats pork is in a sense no longer a Muslim. People still talk about the situation that occurred in the late 1950s, when many Muslims started to eat pork because there was no other meat available. As one woman explained: In my village there were both Hui people and Tibetans. But in 1957 and 1958 some of the Hui people started to eat pork. They were hungry and pork was the only meat they could get, so they became Han. But afterwards when life became easier some of them became Hui again. In this account we see that Hui people who eat pork are perceived as Han, but if they stop eating pork, they may return to their previous identity as Hui. Similarly, a Tibetan (i.e. a person who was born in a ‘Tibetan’ household) does not become a Hui simply by converting to Islam. Here we can see how a religious identity is linked to an ethnic group identity, whereas individual identities may draw on other markers of difference. One of the main markers is thought to be family background. This raises the question of how ‘families’, or more precisely ‘households’ are identified, particularly in ‘mixed marriages’. Whereas individuals in the same household may have different ethnic identities, the household as such appears to be attributed a single identity, depending largely on where the couple settles. For instance, a couple where the husband was a Han and the wife was a Tibetan settled in a house adjacent to the wife’s parents. This household was identified as a ‘Tibetan household’ (Chinese: zangzu jiafang). Only individuals have a registered ethnic identity, but households and villages are also commonly identified in terms of ethnicity. Administrative units beginning at the level of the township (xiang; the lowest level of administration) are also ethnically defined. There are thus significant conti-

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nuities between the ethnic identification of individuals, households, villages and administrative territories. As with individuals, the way people perceive the ‘ethnicity’ of households and villages may change over time. During fieldwork I heard accounts of several cases where villages or families that were previously Han had ‘become Tibetan’. For instance, I was told by a friend that the tombs on a hillside near Songtseling Monastery belonged to ‘Tibetan families’. On Tomb Sweeping Day we were watching from a distance as a number of cars drove up to these tombs, and soon after we could hear the sound of firecrackers from the hillside. My friend explained that every year on Tomb Sweeping Day, these families would visit their tombs to ‘put out food for the dead people and have a picnic’. I asked her again if these people were Tibetans, and she said that ‘now they are Tibetans, but the ancestors of these families were Han, so they have to keep up the tradition of earth burial and of celebrating Tomb Sweeping Day’. Apart from the fact that they had ‘family land’ for burying their dead, the only difference between these and other Tibetan families was that these families had Chinese surnames and, since they wanted to ‘keep the family name’, inherited from the father, farmland was also inherited through the male line. Therefore, as long as there was a male heir, daughters in these families could not inherit the family farm. In addition to the use of spoken Chinese in the village setting, the use of Chinese surnames and the custom of ‘earth burial’ in family tombs have a long history as markers of Han identity. In the past Tibetans only exceptionally used family names or surnames.6 Most Tibetans today have two given names, which are often chosen by a lama and can sometimes be changed.7 In addition to their original ‘native’ names, Chinese surnames are increasingly used by local Tibetans and other minorities. Tibetan children who go to middle school outside the village often choose a Chinese ‘given name’ along with their father’s Chinese surname when they register, or make up a completely new name if their father does not have a surname.8 Tibetans are not only adopting the use of Chinese surnames, but also the tradition of passing their surnames on to their children through the male line. Ethnic identity has become increasingly relevant in Diqing with the rising economic importance of ethnic tourism, where ‘ethnicity’ is marketed in many different ways. In this new context, ‘Tibetan’ identity can sometimes be a valuable asset. This became evident in several cases I witnessed, where people who were not Tibetans, and did not know a single word of Tibetan, were dressed up in ‘Tibetan’ costumes for the purpose of selling souvenirs and other ‘Tibetan’ goods to tourists. As one Tibetan friend commented: ‘being a Tibetan is very good for business’. In a few cases, people I thought I knew well also tried to ‘claim’ a Tibetan identity that was later revealed as ‘false’. The most astonishing to me was the case of our landlord ‘Tenzin’, who spoke the local Tibetan dialect fluently and was introduced to me by his Tibetan name. After many months

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of obvious misunderstandings, covered up by several white lies, his ‘real’ identity was disclosed in a discussion he had with my husband. ‘Tenzin’ used the expression ‘you Tibetans’ (Chinese: nimen zangren). When he was confronted with this slip of the tongue, he had to admit that he was not a Tibetan, but a Han. Later I asked a common acquaintance why ‘Tenzin’ would have lied to us in this way. He replied: ‘our friend was born here and grew up in a Tibetan village, so maybe this is his way of saying he’s a local, and knows something about Tibetan culture’. This explanation made me more conscious of the consequences of ethnic labels. My friend’s remarks highlighted how Tibetan identity meant belonging, or ‘being a local’, but also how Tibetans were assumed to be reliable sources of ‘cultural knowledge’, with privileged voices in the representation of ‘Tibetan culture’. ‘Tenzin’ may have expected that what he said as a ‘Tibetan’ would be taken more seriously. I felt uncomfortable considering whether his ‘real’ ethnic identity would have mattered, and the doubts this raised about my ‘theoretically well-informed’ lack of prejudice. This also made me recognize another advantage of a Tibetan identity in present-day Shangrila.

Commodifying the minzu Music, popular literature, video and still photography have all become channels for new representations of minority minzu in contemporary China. In addition, scholarly publications, academic as well as popularized, also convey a renewed interest and often a reassessment of the value of minority minzu culture. In the popular media, especially television, minorities receive a good deal of coverage in travel documentaries and other programs for tourists, as well as in music programs featuring the trendy genre known as ‘ethnic music’. Camera crews from local TV stations often attend popular festivals such as the Baishuitai ‘Naxi festival’ to shoot scenes for news broadcasts. There are also private movie production companies that make a profit from this kind of video material, which they sell to television channels. Some television channels, such as Yunnan TV3, spend considerable amounts of their broadcasting time on serials focusing on ethnic minorities, including travel and educational series such as ‘Yunnan Da Guan’ (Yunnan Big Tour) and ‘Minzu Wenhua’ (Ethnic Culture). In 2002 China’s Central Television (CCTV) broadcast a series on traveling in China called ‘Travel is [the] Best Idea’, which might be described as a Chinese version of ‘Lonely Planet’. In the last program in the series, the destination was a Tibetan area. The young Chinese TV hosts visited a family of herders, who tried (without much success) to teach them how to milk, churn butter and mix the butter with tea and roasted barley to make tsampa. Finally, the herders served different kinds of dishes, which they tasted with a lot of laughter, teasing and jokes directed to the viewers. Chinese advertising companies have also latched on to the current

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interest in ethnic minorities, and created television commercials for a number of products (including cars, wine and telephones) that in various ways juxtapose the urban ‘hyper-modern’ lifestyle with the lifestyle of Tibetans and other minority minzu. A similar play of contradictions is also frequently apparent in musical videos produced by enterprises that market ‘ethnic music’, in which ‘ethnic’ performers act out their roles in breathtaking natural scenery while taking care to distinguish themselves from the ‘natives’ through subtle signs of urban influence. Contradictions between the ‘ethnic’ and the ‘modern’ come into play in one such video when the band, Yi heavy rock musicians (macho men dressed in black leather), drive up winding mountain roads in an enormous black limousine, passing villagers in typical Yi dress herding their goats down the road. In many musical videos, ethnicity is signified by dress, and sometimes almost exclusively so.9 Types of landscape and natural scenery are also used as a way to characterize and typify each minzu. In the ‘Yi’ example above, the scenery is that of craggy peaks, with huge birds soaring across the blue sky above, and villages clinging to steep mountainsides below. In ‘Mongolian’ musical videos, the seemingly infinite grassland, sometimes dotted with yurts, and with herds of running horses, is the archetypal scenery. Rugged mountains and vast grassland are also featured in ‘Tibetan’ music videos, but signs of Tibetan-ness are usually added, such as prayer flags, Tibetan tents and herds of yak. Specific natural features sometimes play a prominent role in demonstrating the ‘Tibetan’, such as in Yangchen Lhamo’s popular song about Qomolungma (Mount Everest), where she addresses the mountain as ‘our dear mother’.10 In addition to scenes of the mountain itself, the video features numerous shots of elderly Tibetan women in their simple everyday dress, which appear in sharp contrast to Yangchen Lhamo herself, dressed in a glamorous ‘chuba-style’ outfit and heavily adorned with jewelry. The clothes and ornaments worn by Yangchen Lhamo and other popular Tibetan performers are worth a comment. These performers often play on stereotypes of ‘Tibetan’ dress, and make fashion a vehicle for the creation of completely new symbols of ‘Tibetan-ness’. For instance, whereas in many parts of the Tibetan Plateau villagers prefer long sleeves on the shirts or blouses worn inside their chuba (particularly when they dress up for celebrations), in musical videos the sleeves of garments worn by some of the performers nearly touch the ground. In many audio-visual productions, the elaborate braids of Amdo herding women from northern Tibet, with their coral, turquoise and amber ornaments, have become markers of Tibetan-ness. In musical videos the long braids of the performers may reach their ankles, and the ornaments are often larger-than-life. Their conspicuous hairstyles are fashioned by attaching artificial braids onto the much shorter hair of the performers. Striped aprons similar to those worn by married women in central Tibet have become another feature of the ‘typically Tibetan’ dress of performers.

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Male performers often don fox skin hats to the same effect. Similar features of ‘Tibetan’ dress and jewelry are reproduced in the clothes displayed in ‘ethnic fashion shows’, as well as in the garments worn by dancers in government-sponsored song and dance troupes and other ensembles of performers. Newly invented ‘Tibetan’ costumes are also worn by tour guides, workers in many of the ‘family guest houses’ and some of the other tourism enterprises in Shangrila. These costumes reproduce many of the features described above, although usually in a less exaggerated, more modest form.

Representing Shangrila ethnic culture The ethnic identification work sponsored by PRC authorities since the 1950s distinguished the officially recognized minorities, including the Tibetans, from each other and the Han according to specific, rather standardized, ethnic markers such as dress, arts and crafts, architecture, typical livelihoods, festivals and religious practices. These stereotypes have subsequently been commodified for the sake of tourism, through the making of ethnic arts and handicrafts for tourist consumption, the creation of staged ethnic tourism performances, as well as other tourism products marketed locally and in ethnic theme parks and ‘tourist villages’.11 In most of this ‘ethnic commodification’, it is evident that promoters of tourism reproduce state-sanctioned representations of minority minzu, and consequently ethnic tourism may be seen to re-enforce such representations. Such reinforcement of hegemonic accounts through tourism promotion has also been noted by researchers such as Gladney (1994), Oakes (1995), Schein (2000) and Nyíri (2006). Gladney (1994: 98) suggests that the Chinese state, ‘through commodifying and representing its minorities as colorful and exotic, engages in a project familiar to the representation of colonized peoples by colonial regimes’. Gladney links the commodification and objectification of minority nationalities in China to Western consumer tourism, but emphasizes that the state is simultaneously provided with not only hard currency, but also important ‘symbolic capital’. For Schein (2000: 130), the production and reproduction of ethnic difference can be described as ‘Chinese internal Orientalism’, but it ‘cannot be simplistically centered in state discourse or in the representational practices of a discrete dominant group’. Schein (2000: 130–31) argues that those who are ‘commonly objects of representation’ (i.e. the minzu themselves) also figure critically in the construction of contrastive identities, ‘even in the manufacture of hegemonic outcomes’. On the other hand, tourism also creates opportunities for defying stereotypes and redefining the meanings of minzu. Gladney (1994) writes that minorities establish their identity and right to a voice in their own affairs by allowing the objectivizing gaze of the state-sponsored media, but whenever possible they appropriate and turn the objectivizing moves to their own benefit. Walsh (2001) gives a good example of how minorities may in some

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respects turn the tables on state-sponsored representations, writing on the commodification of Mosuo culture and constructions of Mosuo society as ‘matriarchal’, characterized by an accepted form of sexual union without marriage, the so-called ‘walking marriage’. As Walsh (2001: 94) points out, ‘Mosuo identity construction is an on-going negotiation between state policies, popular representations of the Mosuo, tourists’ desires, and Mosuo notions of their own identity, which includes responses to and manipulations and internalizations of outsider representations of Mosuo-ness’. A similar negotiation of identity can be observed in Shangrila. Tibetans in Shangrila are among the tourism entrepreneurs who engage in the construction of contrastive identities as they represent their Tibetan-ness to tourists, particularly through activities offered in ‘Tibetan family houses’ (Chinese: zangmin jiafang) and in a local ethnic theme park, Yila Grasslands (Chinese: Yila Caoyuan). At the same time, provincial authorities are engaged in their own constructions through their involvement in the Nationalities Village (Minzu Cun), an ethnic theme park near the province capital of Kunming. Typically, so-called ‘ethnic song and dance’ features prominently in any type of cultural presentation for tourists. In Shangrila, performances of ‘Tibetan song and dance’ are staged all through the tourist season in ‘Tibetan family houses’. Along with these performances, groups of tourists are served ‘Tibetan’ food and drinks by waiters and waitresses in ‘traditional Tibetan costumes’, garments that were actually never worn in this part of the Tibetan Plateau. Similar performances can also be observed at the Yila Grasslands, a ‘tourist village’ where visitors can watch ‘Tibetan singing and dancing’ in a large picnic tent, ride horses or yaks, buy souvenirs, eat dinner and have a ‘traditional Tibetan massage’, all for a small fee. Villagers engage in dancing primarily for celebrations, but sometimes also at sacred sites such as the ‘Dance Floor of the Deities’ at the foot of Khawa Karpo Mountain. Dancing is also an important feature of the ‘Naxi festival’ at Baishuitai. During talks with government officials about the development of tourism, I often heard that cultural resources were still ‘underdeveloped’ in Diqing. Among the ‘cultural resources’ they referred to, folk music, songs and dances were frequently singled out as potential ‘products’ for tourist consumption. In fact, singing and dancing has long been a favorite ‘cultural activity’ sponsored by the authorities in charge of ‘cultural preservation and development’, especially the culture departments (Chinese: wenhua ju) of the local governments. When the Diqing culture department identified ‘ethnic cultural preservation areas’ (minzu wenhua baohu qu) in the prefecture, the ‘culture’ in question typically involved music and dance, local costumes, arts and crafts, festivals and ancient buildings.12 As for music and dance, the prefecture culture department is responsible for organizing festivals, including the ‘Nationalities Music Festival’ (Minzu Yinyue Yantouhui) held during the October 1st holiday in 2002. Like all other ‘Tibetan Autonomous’ areas, Diqing Prefecture has its

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own government-sponsored ‘ethnic song and dance troupe’ (Chinese: minzu gewutuan). The Diqing troupe has toured internationally, but still performs at local village festivals. During the official name-changing ceremonies in May 2002, hundreds of ordinary villagers and about 2,000 school children from all over Diqing and neighboring areas participated as amateur dancers and performers. The head of the government song and dance troupe was responsible for choreography and costume design. As a part of the performance, all the different townships were represented with dancers in characteristic costumes. Dancers wearing traditional wedding dress (local Tibetan: mubi) represented Jiantang Township. There were also costumes and dances representing other nationalities, including the Naxi, Yi and Lisu. In effect, this was a creative expression of the prefecture as a ‘multi-ethnic’ place. The troupe draws on local dance styles when developing its performances. As well as differences in musical instruments used, there are local variations in the dances performed in different areas. Several villages have their own typical styles of dancing, which villagers like to perform during celebrations in the village, or at bonfire parties in the town. ‘Tibetan’ dances in Diqing have been categorized in three main types. One is the ‘Repa’ dance, which is accompanied by drums with a strong beat, and where the dancers use a yak tail. The second is known as ‘Gezhang’ (or ‘Guozhuan’) dance, and the third is ‘Shuanzi’ or ‘string dance’, which is accompanied by stringed instruments.13 As for the local song traditions, villagers recognize two main types of songs: the ‘Yanteng’ or folk song, and the working song, with specific songs associated with the churning of butter, pounding earth for the construction of walls and harvesting crops. In addition to such ‘folk music’ and ‘folk dance’, there is the monastic tradition of masked dance (Tibetan: ⬘bag ⬘cham) performed in the monasteries during annual religious occasions. Masked dance is accompanied by cymbals, brass horns and drums, played by monks. Monks from Songtseling are regularly asked to play horns and other religious instruments at government-sponsored tourism festivals and other tourism-related events, and were also recruited to perform at the opening of the new airport.14 Attempts have even been made to organize ‘concerts’ where monks have performed ‘religious music’ for tourists, in the temple at the public hall in the Old Town. According to one local commentator, this was not a great success, due to the lack of ‘capable monks who know how to perform for tourists’. With the rise of tourism, several more commercially oriented song and dance troupes have been established in Diqing. Performances of ‘Tibetan’ singing, dancing and ‘fashion’ are staged by one such troupe in Zhongxin Town’s ‘Diqing Ethnic Song, Dance and Fashion Show Center’, every evening in the tourist season. The cultural theatre where the shows are staged can seat 300 guests, and the center employs 30 professional performers who stage ‘shows on traditional Tibetan songs and dances, fashions, religious activities and other typical folk performances’. According to their

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introduction pamphlet, this is ‘the only human cultural attraction in Shangrila’ and ‘a window of Shangri-la culture’. In their introduction (bilingual English and Chinese), their performances are described as follows: [The] audience can enjoy the shows and meanwhile taste the Tibetan delicacies sitting on the comfortable Tibetan sleeping mat beside the fireplace. Moreover, they can even take part in the shows to personally feel the Tibetan folklore, or invite Droma or Kanba (Tibetan girl or boy) in the expensive Tibetan dresses for a group photo after the show comes to an end. In addition to their nightly stage shows, performers from the ‘Song, Dance and Fashion Show Center’ have been engaged in ‘cultural festivals’, such as the Khampa Arts Festival, held in Zhongdian in 1997, and the 2002 namechanging ceremonies. When I first visited the Zhongdian Museum in 1998, one of its exhibitions featured photos from the previous year’s Khampa Arts Festival. These included a series of photos from the ‘fashion show’, with models dressed up in grossly exaggerated forms of ‘traditional Tibetan’ costumes. According to my guide, some of the costumes were so heavy that the models had difficulty walking around on the outdoor stage where the show was held. He also explained that the jewelry and other ornaments, such as the daggers worn by the male performers, were borrowed from a number of people, since ‘no single family could have owned all the ornaments’ worn by each performer. This type of elaborate dressing up can be observed at a number of popular festivals, where local participants seem to compete for attention as they pose self-consciously for photographers. It is interesting to see the close resemblance between the costumes worn at such festivals and the ‘fashions’ exhibited at the fashion show. This illustrates that the ‘fashions’ staged for tourists, although perhaps examples of ‘touristic commodification’, are also significant to local people who are engaged in their own reinvention of ‘Tibetan’ identity. Singing and dancing minorities are among the main attractions of the Nationalities Village (Chinese: Minzu Cun), an ethnic theme park located a few miles outside the provincial capital of Kunming. It is sponsored by the Yunnan Province Culture Department, together with several other government departments at the province and state levels, including the Propaganda Department. In 2002 I visited the recently constructed Tibetan Village, complete with a ‘temple’, a ‘stupa’ and two ‘dwelling houses’. One house had a flat roof, typical of Deqin, while the other had a slanting roof and a beautifully decorated porch, typical of Shangrila. Several young Tibetans worked as performers in the village. In between the morning and afternoon dance shows on the outdoor stage, they would ‘inhabit’ the Tibetan Village, walking among the houses singing folk tunes and chatting with the visitors. Ethnic minority performers also ‘inhabited’ the other villages when they were not busy with the shows. At the Bai Village, some of the young

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employees explained that they thought working in the Village was a good thing, and claimed that: ‘by working here we can help preserve our culture’. After enjoying the Elephant Show, I experienced the highlight of the day: a dance show on the large outdoor stage, at the aptly named ‘Unity Square’. All the minority minzu presented in the Village also participated with performances in the show. The ‘Tibetan’ act featured a female lead singer in a tall fox skin hat and bright costume, as well as a troupe of young dancers and singers. The show was evidently meant to entertain, and the audience seemed to be satisfied. The Nationalities Village is an enterprise sponsored mainly by the provincial government. The Tibetan Village has been set up without much active participation on the part of the local (prefecture or county) governments of the areas it is supposed to represent, and even less on the part of local villagers. Quite the opposite is the case of a ‘theme park’ located not far from Zhongxin Town, on the banks of Napa Lake. Owned by a local Tibetan, Yila Grasslands (Chinese: Yila Caoyuan) is a profitable business venture, receiving busloads of paying visitors every day, all through the summer months. It is located on what was once grazing land belonging to a village named Yira. This land was contracted out for an annual ‘rent’ to the villagers, administered by the village committee (Chinese: cun weiyuanhui). The road to the park runs through the cluster of houses that make up the village ‘center’. Most vehicles carrying tourists let their passengers off at the main road, outside the ticket booth. After purchasing their ticket, visitors must walk about 150 meters to get to the actual tourist complex, passing right by the doorsteps of the villagers. The park gates are barely visible from the main road, and I think it is fair to argue that the village of Yira is used as a facade to lure tourists into the park. Unsuspecting villagers have thereby become an important part of the tourist attraction. The park itself is surrounded by a fence and has three or four small stupas and a large tent, where music and dance performances are staged. The main building houses a souvenir shop. In the entrance to the shop, a couple of billboards posted on the wall feature the history of the ‘tea and horse trade’, with a map of the trade routes. When I first visited the park in the height of the tourist season, I arrived in the middle of a performance. Inside the tent, eight or nine young girls were dancing, while an equal number of spectators were watching the show. Seated on cushions behind low tables, the guests were served green tea and sesame seeds. The show was similar to those performed at the ‘Tibetan family house’. A sound system had been set up, and a girl with a microphone was hosting the performance. The performers were dressed in brightly colored ‘Tibetan’ costumes, and their hair was adorned with long imitation braids made of yarn, and large, obviously artificial, ornaments. As I entered the tent the dancers were busily waving their hands in the air, unlike any dance I had seen in Asia, but possibly reminiscent of ‘Saturday Night Fever’. After the dance was over, a young man dressed in a bright ‘Tibetan’ chuba

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entered the stage playing a string instrument, while the girls approached the guests, inviting them to join in the dancing. The guests looked embarrassed, but two or three actually came up to ‘dance’, or at least hold hands with the performers. The onlooker who seemed to be having the most fun was an old Tibetan villager, who was roaring with laughter. Family-owned guesthouses known as ‘Tibetan family houses’ (Chinese: zangmin jiafang) specialize in providing ‘cultural’ entertainment for tourists. At the time of my stay in Shangrila, about 20 privately owned zangmin jiafang or ‘Tibetan family houses’ offered such entertainment, most of them located near Zhongxin Town. During the first years these establishments were actually ‘family houses’, but by the late 1990s such business was no longer conducted in ordinary family homes, but in larger newly constructed ‘local-style’ houses, or old homes rebuilt especially for receiving tourists. I visited several such enterprises during my fieldwork, and although they differ in size and design they have some common architectural and decorative features. Their main buildings are usually similar to an ordinary farmhouse, but larger and more elaborately decorated with woodcarvings. The ground floor contains a huge banquet hall, with rows of benches and tables to seat a large number of guests. The hall is typically decorated with some of the furnishings of a farmhouse, such as huge copper water containers, with kitchen utensils on shelves around it, which serves as the ‘kitchen’ in a village house. In the ‘family house’, however, the food would be prepared in another room, located ‘off-stage’. In addition to tourists, usually in groups, local people may also frequent the ‘Tibetan family house’. Some think of their visit to the ‘Tibetan family house’ purely in terms of entertainment, as an alternative to karaoke or eating out in an ordinary restaurant. Others expect more, and see it as a place where guests can observe and take part in some of the essentials of local culture. As one Tibetan frequenter explained: They should be a window to show the Tibetan culture, not only the food and dance, but the history, the art, even the Tibetan literature, and also the philosophical ideas of Buddhism. I used to visit a Tibetan family house [zangmin jiafang], an old house with cows, and the whole family doing the housework, the everyday work. They had a monk living at home and he served the Tibetan beer and barley wine, and yogurt from their own cow, and people liked it very much. Foreigners like to go to that kind of place, but Chinese people from the developed areas, they don’t know much about Tibetan Buddhism and culture so they follow the idea of the tour guide. The ‘authenticity’ of the ‘Tibetan family house’ was an issue brought up by several local Tibetans I talked with. According to one of them, the ‘family house’ should present the typical characteristics of the area: ‘the real Tibetan culture, but also the other cultures that have influenced the area’.

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He suggested that visitors to a ‘family house’ should be introduced to local marriage customs and to the idea of the central column of the house (local Tibetan: biga). In addition, he said, workers in the ‘family house’ could chant from scriptures, and tell stories about Gesar. He complained that at present, all that was presented was ‘the surface of the culture, like dress, furniture and food’, adding that ‘if they can’t offer more, then they can’t attract tourists in the long run’. As realized by this and other local actors, commercial success, at least in the long term, relies on how well tourism enterprises can accommodate tourist demands. Since the majority of visitors to Shangrila are urban Han Chinese tourists on ‘package tours’, the question is primarily how to satisfy these tourists. Culture brokers were indeed keenly aware of the demands of this group of customers. As explained by a Tibetan official in the Tourism Department: Tourists from eastern China appreciate the natural scenery most of all, but also ethnic culture, as a kind of entertainment. Among the tourists who visit the Tibetan family houses the great majority are tourists from Southeast Asia and eastern China. These tourists want to take part in the cultural activities, and for them it is important to participate, for instance by dressing up in local costumes. If we judge the performances of ‘ethnic culture’ presented in local enterprises such as the ‘Tibetan family houses’ by their commercial success, they seem to meet the demands of the largely Han Chinese customers. What such performances present is not the ‘authentic’ Tibetan culture, but the ‘themed’ culture that most Chinese tourists expect (Nyíri 2006). In the ‘theming’ of the Tibetan family house, what is staged is exactly what Chinese tourists want to see: happy minorities who love to sing and dance and who can be easily identified by the colorful costumes seen on television, in books and magazines about Tibetans.

Mediating the ethnic Guides usually accompany tour groups on all the sightseeing that is included in the package tour, whether to the Tibetan family house, the monastery or scenic sites. Tour guides thus play an important role as culture brokers, in representing ‘ethnic culture’ for tourist audiences. Most of the tour guides working in Shangrila have received vocational training, and all have passed an exam organized by the Diqing Prefecture Tourism Department. Local ‘cultural experts’ teach at the courses organized for tour guides, and it is largely the accounts of ‘ethnic culture’ shaped by these experts that are later transmitted to tourists.15 Vocational courses in tourism studies are taught at the Diqing Prefecture Nationalities Vocational Middle School. Their courses include practical

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training held on locations within the prefecture, and in tourist destinations outside the prefecture such as Lijiang and Dali. The students visit different tourist sites, where they are lectured on the ‘cultural characteristics’ of the site, as well as on tourism management. For instance, at Baishuitai (White Water Terraces) students are lectured on Dongba culture by Dongba ritual experts, who also read from scriptures and explain their meaning. At Songtseling, monks similarly give lectures to the students. Whereas the practical training is mainly conducted within the prefecture and neighboring areas, the curriculum in tourism studies is nationwide, standardized by the Ministry of Tourism. The People’s Educational Publishing House in Beijing publishes most of the textbooks, while a few books are published in Yunnan. Only one of the textbooks covers Diqing alone, and this is the Guides’ Handbook (Chinese: Daoyou ci) compiled by the Diqing Prefecture Tourism Department (Lean 2000). This book plays a crucial role in shaping the perceptions of future guides, especially in identifying the sites that the tourism department considers interesting for tourists. The ‘scenic areas and sites’ (Chinese: jingqu, jingdian) covered in this book include mountains, gorges, lakes, hot springs and grasslands, temples, museums and churches (simiao guan tang), old towns and ruins (gucheng yizhi) and family houses (jia fang). The book also covers ‘Diqing specialties’ (diqing techang), ‘facts about Tibetan Buddhism’ (zang chuang fojiao xiao zhishi), Diqing’s nationalities and its tourist products. With few exceptions, ‘Tibetan culture’ has been presented by culture brokers as ‘the culture of Shangrila’, although Diqing is also held up as a place where ‘many cultures intermingle’ and ‘many ethnic groups and religions coexist peacefully’. When discussing cultural presentation for tourists, a recurrent theme expressed by Tibetan cultural specialists was that Tibetan culture had suffered neglect (if not outright derision) in the past, and should be restored and developed. Many lamented that Tibetan culture was not as well preserved in the Diqing area as in the Tibet Autonomous Region or other Tibetan areas where Tibetan culture has been the main influence, such as the neighboring Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. I heard this view expressed by reincarnate lamas, Tibetan government officials and other Tibetan ‘culture brokers’.16 The characteristics or markers of ‘Tibetan culture’, as well as the boundaries between the ‘local’ and ‘Tibetan culture’, were subject to negotiation. What constituted ‘Tibetan’ and ‘Han Chinese’ cultural characteristics, or to what extent a certain custom was drawn from a ‘Tibetan’ or a ‘Han Chinese’ cultural tradition, were among the issues of debate. When I asked a Tibetan friend why women were not allowed to perform rituals for the ri bdag, he replied that he was uncertain whether this was ‘from Tibetan culture or from Chinese culture’, suggesting that this somewhat discriminatory custom (from a female point of view, at least) might be influenced by Han Chinese traditions. According to a Han Chinese tradition, he explained: ‘after images of protector deities have been hung on each side of the gate of a

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house on New Year’s Eve, no women from outside the family are allowed to enter until next day at noon’. The ‘Tibetan culture’ envisioned by those who advocated its preservation was usually understood, and explained, as ‘Tibetan Buddhist culture’ (Chinese: zangchuan fojiao wenhua). The emphasis was mainly on Tibetan Buddhist monastic heritage, often propagated as the core of Tibetan culture. Han Chinese cadres commonly shared this view, as did tourists. On the other hand, cultural presentations aimed at Shangrila tourists also included aspects of what was described as ‘local characteristics’ (difang tese). For instance, elaborate woodcarvings perceived as typical of the Gyalthang house were presented in several exhibits.17 Another example is the use of sheche, wooden racks used by villagers for drying hay, as monuments and in the form of miniature wooden replicas, as souvenirs. For tourists, souvenirs are important as mementos, or ‘signs’ of travel (Hitchcock 2000) that play a role as markers of identity when the tourist returns home. As described by Graburn (1987: 396), many tourist arts depend for their appeal on a definable ethnicity, an expression of the perceived cultural difference between the tourist and the person living in the tourist destination. In the case of Shangrila, this is reflected in the marketing of souvenirs. Although tourists may prefer to buy other souvenirs than those marketed as such, the collections of goods sold in shops or stalls set up specifically to cater to tourists, often adjacent to major tourist sites, reflect the popular demand of tourists as well as the notions of entrepreneurs on what tourists might want to buy. The local manufacturing of souvenirs requires a process of selecting items that manufacturers see as marketable, and redesigning or ‘packaging’ them as souvenirs, often giving them an ethnic label in the process. A survey of the local production and sale of souvenirs thus provides a prospect on how culture brokers commodify cultural markers of ethnicity. Among the souvenirs that were sold in the stalls outside the main gate of Songtseling Monastery, very few were produced locally. Some of the items were imported from other ‘minority areas’, such as tie-dye cotton shawls, woven materials and embroidered purses and vests, but most were souvenir products that could be found almost anywhere in China, including jade ornaments, brass and plastic trinkets. There were also a few shops specializing in ‘Tibetan’ goods, such as prayer flags, yak skulls, knives, wooden bowls and natural remedies. A gift shop at the gate offered a good selection of colorful coffee-table books, mainly covering Shangrila and Diqing and produced within Yunnan. These books were also sold in bookshops in town, hotel lobbies and at the airport. In Zhongxin Town itself, smiths worked in their own shops making beautifully decorated knives in silver-plated sheaths, and jewelry set with turquoise, amber and coral. Tibetans and other locals would buy such wares for special occasions such as weddings or festivals, or as gifts, but the silverware and knives were also popular with tourists. Many of the smiths who

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made these items were Bai, as were some of the carpenters who were employed by Tibetan villagers to make the elaborate woodcarvings on their houses. Bai craftsmen also made some of the ‘Tibetan’ knives sold to tourists at a big knife shop set up by a Tibetan businessman in a house leased from villagers. Strategically situated along the road to Songtseling, the shop itself was on the first floor of the house. Tourists were brought there in busloads to look at the large collection of knives, including splendidly decorated daggers, miniature penknives, ‘Rambo’-style machetes and ‘Chinese Imperial’ replica swords. The ground floor had been made into an exhibition room and workshop, where craftsmen tinkered on knives and sheaths as visitors watched. A few of the backpacker cafes in town sold souvenirs, and several more were decorated with ‘Tibetan’ items such as yak skulls, prayer flags, postcards of local tourist attractions, paper lampshades, daggers and knives in silver-plated sheaths, most of which were imported from Lhasa or Kathmandu. When the owner of a new cafe gave me a tour of the place before it opened, he pointed out some glass-covered cases on the walls between the windows, which were to be used ‘for old things, as decorations, like a museum’. After the cafe had opened, I found that these ‘old things’ included wooden tools and farming equipment used by local villagers. Wooden bowls, crafted on lathes and lacquered, furnished with silver rims or painted, are products that have found a new market recently as souvenirs. They have a long history in the region, and are still used by local villagers in their homes, primarily as drinking cups and containers. Varieties of wooden bowls have been manufactured throughout the area, but as souvenirs they are often marketed as ‘Lisu’, ‘Yi’ or ‘Tibetan’ bowls, defined by particular details in their design. During fieldwork, I had the opportunity to visit a household that made a living from the manufacture of wooden bowls. The head of the household had learned the craft from his father, who had spent five or six years in Lhasa as an apprentice. The craftsman himself described the design as ‘a mixture of Lhasa style and Lijiang style’, although the bowls were marketed as ‘Tibetan’. Most tourists would probably have difficulties interpreting such differences in design, although they might be interested in purchasing something ‘Tibetan’, ‘Yi’ or ‘Lisu’. Other popular souvenirs, sold primarily to Chinese tourists, were natural remedies (or raw materials for such remedies) marketed as ‘Tibetan medicine’ (Chinese: zangyao). Such products were sold at nearly all tourist sites in Shangrila, and several more shops had been set up along the roadside, some even offering consultations by Tibetan doctors. The Tibetan Medicine Factory was set up to take advantage of the increasing demand for such medicines in the Chinese market. In addition to the Tibetan Hospital, the nearby factory was where most Tibetan medicinal products were manufactured. The factory had its own Tibetan doctors, and the affiliated outlet also sold souvenirs, including Buddha images and appliqué thangka hangings,18 made in the factory shop itself.

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During my stay in the field, several new shops were set up in Zhongxin Town to cater to the tourist demand for Buddha images, thangka paintings, and other religious items. The shopkeepers in one such shop had moved to Shangrila from Jiuzhaigou, a popular tourist destination in Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. Many Tibetans object against dealing in Buddha images, and one of my friends maintained that: ‘selling images of the Buddha is inappropriate, so people do not engage in it in their home place, but go somewhere else’. In accordance with what is considered appropriate in such circumstances, all the Buddha statues in this shop had their heads wrapped in cloth. One of the major producers of souvenirs in Shangrila was a handicraft center connected with the Tibetan Cultural Study Center in Sicun, located in a village along the road between Zhongxin Town and Bita Lake. The enterprise was originally set up by a local Tibetan as a ‘Tibetan family house’, but was later expanded to include a large handicraft workshop. About two years prior to my visit, the original owner had found a partner, a Tibetan teacher from Rebkong, which is an area well-known among Tibetans for its thangka production. Thanks to the new partner, craftsmen from Rebkong had been invited to teach the workers in the handicraft center the technique of making embroidered as well as appliqué thangka images. I was told that the art of making the embroidered thangka had been ‘almost lost’, and only one craftsman still knew the technique well. Other souvenirs manufactured in the handicraft center included mainly decorative items made of clay, horn, bone, wood and textiles. Some of these products drew on religious symbolism, such as mani stones (stones inscribed with the mantra om mani padme hum), and carvings representing the Dharma Wheel flanked by a pair of deer, an image often seen above the entrance of temples. The main building of the Tibetan Cultural Study Center was the ‘Tibetan family house’ itself, and this was where the handicraft products were displayed, along with a ‘museum of Tibetan medicine’ and other exhibits of ‘Tibetan culture’. The building also had a large restaurant with walls containing murals, featuring the great Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo, Pema Chungnye (Padmasambhava), and other important historical and religious figures. Results of an increased interest in ‘ethnic culture’ were evident in publishing as well as in souvenir production. In addition to numerous coffee table books, usually published by provincial publishing houses, several scholarly works on ethnic minorities have been published in Diqing. Some of the topics included in such books are aspects of religious belief systems, such as methods of divination, calendars, cosmology, writing systems, ritual practices and annual religious events. Local cultural specialists often spend considerable time and effort on such publications, and the quality of some of this work is remarkably high, although such books are usually not published in large print-runs. However, the significance of these publications depends not only on the number of readers, but also on the research

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and writing process itself. Research on ‘minority cultures’ has contributed to a heightened awareness of the significance of ‘ethnic culture’, as well as a reassessment of its worth. Religious professionals such as Dongba ‘shamans’ and reincarnate lamas are simultaneously provided with a new role as specialist interpreters of culture, and important sources of ‘cultural knowledge’ for researchers. For ethnic minority researchers, editors and cadres in cultural departments, most of whom have spent years in boarding schools in Chinese urban centers, participation in such work may constitute an important process of cultural discovery and ethnic re-identification. It can easily be argued that ‘hegemonic’ state representations of China’s minority minzu are reinforced by the commodification of ethnic identity for tourists. However, the reproduction of difference inherent in the process of marketing minority minzu as tourism products also creates opportunities for re-negotiating ethnic identity. Tourism entrepreneurs, regardless of their ethnic identity, have obvious reasons to emphasize more positive images of minorities, and play down negative stereotypes of minorities as ‘backward’. These actors play an important role in re-envisioning the minority minzu for the tourism market, rather than merely reproducing ethnic stereotypes. I think it is fair to conclude that tourism in Shangrila has created a new awareness of the significance of ethnic identity, and Tibetan identity in particular, among local actors. This new awareness is evident when the ‘subjects’ of ethnic tourism represent themselves in ways that challenge previously authoritative images and stereotypes of minority minzu.

7

Shangrila A space of dreams

Whereas James Hilton’s novel has played an important role in popular imagery of Tibet in the Western world, in the People’s Republic quite different images of Tibet were propagated, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Among the many novels and motion pictures that popularized these images, the movie ‘Nongnu’ (‘Serfs’), made in 1963 by the director Li Gun, left the most lasting impression on people in China. According to a Chinese documentary broadcast by China’s Central Television during my fieldwork, this movie shaped the views of a whole generation of Chinese, especially people currently above the age of 40. I discussed this documentary with a Tibetan friend who had seen the movie as a child, and he agreed: Yes, through this film people understood the slavery. Those who saw this film understood that people can have religion but the upper classes made use of it to control the people. They could also see that the slaves led a very bitter life, with no freedom. I asked my aged relatives whether Zhongdian as a Tibetan region had slaves. They said yes they had, and they could be sold like slaves, like in the United States. They even told me the names of these people, and I believed them. At that time I was still a child, and in my heart I felt that it was great that slaves could get freedom. From the film I could feel that religion was only a tool of the upper classes to control the people. I felt really sad when I saw the poster [for ‘Nongnu’] with a slave leaning down and his master stepping on his back. In Lhasa the Potala was preserved, although here the monastery was destroyed. But many slaves got freedom, and that was wonderful. In contemporary China, views about Tibet are gradually changing. The images created by movies such as ‘Nongnu’ are gradually being replaced by those associated with the name ‘Shangrila’. In fact, the novel Lost Horizon is currently easier to find in Chinese than in English, published in three different translations, in the PRC, Taiwan and Singapore. The ‘Shangrila’ image represents a significant break with the images presented in ‘Nongnu’, as Tibetans in Shangrila also recognized:

Shangrila: a space of dreams 105 Now people from the outside think that Tibetan culture is mysterious, completely different from their own culture. Shambhala and Shangrila have great reputations now, and people in the noisy city want to see Shangrila, as a unique and holy place. They have heard that man and nature can live harmoniously here, and they really want to see that. Before the liberation, the system of society was really backward, and they showed sympathy towards the slaves. But now that there are no slaves and slave owners, and people are only interested in the culture and the Tibetan nationality itself, they think it’s a good place for tourism, a good choice. They are curious about this place today. According to the most recent statistics available, in 2000 as many as 94 percent of tourist arrivals to Diqing were domestic, and only 6 percent foreign (Diqing Yearbook 2001: 439).1 Authorities in charge of tourism have so far not compiled statistics on the place of residence of domestic (Chinese) tourists visiting the area. However, officials in the Yunnan Province Tourism Department told me that domestic tourists who visited Shangrila mainly came from coastal areas of China such as Guangdong and Shanghai, from Beijing, and from the provinces neighboring Yunnan. Chinese tourists I talked with were from major cities in the provinces of Shandong (north of Shanghai), Zhejiang (south of Shanghai), Guangdong, and from the neighboring province of Sichuan, as well as from Kunming, Beijing and Hong Kong.2 What draws tourists to Shangrila, and what do they expect to find there? Clearly, there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ Shangrila tourist, and I found that the expectations of tourists varied considerably. In addition to the wish to ‘visit Tibet’, or a Tibetan area, tourists gave various other reasons for traveling to Shangrila. A group of students on a study tour told me they had enjoyed their ‘home-stay’ in a ‘traditional Tibetan house’. When I asked if they were studying something in particular, one of them replied: ‘Culture, I guess’. Other tourists also had ‘culture’ on their list of priorities. A couple from eastern China I met at a Naxi festival said they had been to Tibet many times, and had come to the festival because of their interest in the Naxi culture. Urban Chinese tourists as well as foreign tourists often express a wish to visit the homes of villagers, or to see the monasteries. Although some travelers to Shangrila are drawn to the area as Buddhists, people who do not identify with any particular faith may still be attracted by what they perceive as the ‘spirituality’ of Shangrila. According to a Chinese tour guide working in Shangrila, tourists from other parts of China have heard of this place from television and newspapers, and think of it as ‘heaven’. When I asked what he meant by ‘heaven’, he said ‘where there is peace and people are kind’. He added the comment that ‘all people love nowadays is money’. The remoteness and inaccessibility of these areas obviously attracts would-be ‘pioneers’ of travel and adventure. According to a Hong Kong travel magazine called Action Asia, for instance, the ‘timeless valleys’ of

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eastern Tibet are ‘virtually unknown, and seldom ever visited’, but ‘at last opening to travelers’: [O]nly now have the inner sanctums of this superb area begun to be explored by intrepid solo adventurers and pioneering expedition companies. The highest peaks of these mountain massifs are sacred to Tibetans, and trekking around them often means following pilgrimage routes, or khoras, mingling along the way with colourful nomadic groups and devout pilgrims on merit-gaining journeys. (Action Asia, December 2000/January 2001) For backpackers, trekking in the Tiger Leaping Gorge has become a popular activity, despite that several trekkers have been killed in accidents in the gorge since the route was opened. Mountain climbing represents an extreme case of such ‘adventurism’. Teams of mountain climbers from Britain, the United States, Japan and China have made several failed attempts to reach the summit of Khawa Karpo Mountain, adding to the image of the area’s inaccessibility. In addition to song, dance and colorful costumes, which is used to ‘market’ all the ethnic minorities in Shangrila, Tibetan culture is associated closely with Tibetan Buddhism, often presented as an important feature of ‘ancient Chinese civilization’. With its magnificent gold-roofed temples and spectacular views, Songtseling Monastery, home to more than 700 monks, is one of the most important tourist destinations in Shangrila. In much of the tourism promotion literature on Shangrila, one can also read about the ‘simple and unsophisticated’ minority peoples inhabiting the area. For obvious reasons, tourism promoters tend to downplay the more negative features of the imagined minority minzu, particularly their ‘backwardness’, when they promote Shangrila tourism. Monasteries such as Songtseling, with their splendid architecture, provide excellent examples of the more ‘civilized’ aspects of Tibetan culture. Gladney (1994) suggests that the objectified portrayal of minzu identity in a colorful, romanticized fashion has more to do with constructing a ‘majority discourse’ than it has with the construction of ‘minority’ identity as such. A description of urban Han tourist encounters with Mongol herders in Inner Mongolia (Khan 1996: 147) provides a good example of such a ‘majority discourse’: On the part of the Chinese general populace, the need for a pastoral Menggu (or, for that matter, an Other that is drastically different from Self), lies in their desire to be different in a way that ultimately suggests a superior Self. By fixing and promoting (Nei) Menggu as merely pastoral, they are in fact engaged in a process of ‘self-consolidating’. The Mongols are and should be all that they (the Han) think they once were but have long since ‘developed’ out of. The Mongols should

Shangrila: a space of dreams 107 handle animals, be dirty, and be yumei (unenlightened) – in stark contrast to the civilized and advanced Han nation. It is no accident, then, that most Chinese tourists and business visitors coming back from an empowering trip to the grassland seem to gain a sense of pride, having been assured of the value of their Han identity. Khan (1996: 148) further argues that the need for such positive construction of Han Chinese identity in relation to inferior minzu identities (‘domestic inferior Others’) has been intensified as China has opened up more and more to the world ‘to be confronted with what it calls “the world’s advanced nations”, a process that has resulted in a general self-negation and a sense of international inferiority’. Khan (1996: 149) also points out that Mongol intellectuals trying to express ethnic sentiments and assert their group identity have played a crucial role in this ‘alterity-identity, Self-Other relationship’. Writing on Sami encounters with ethnic tourism, Viken (1998: 37) perceptively points out that ‘ethnic tourism involves travel away from modernity and into the past’. Such travel ‘away from modernity’ seems to be catching on among young Chinese urban tourists who visit Shangrila. As Oakes (1997: 42) points out, tourism in China is thriving on ‘the experience of anxiety, ambivalence, and disorientation brought by modernity’. In other words, the need to ‘travel’ into the past is a response to problems related to rapid modernization, and particularly anxieties about the contradiction between modernizing and maintaining continuity with the past (see also Anagnost 1993). Minority minzu may thus have yet another role to play in the construction of a modern Chinese identity. Urban Chinese tourists may wish to assure themselves of their superiority in relation to minority minzu peoples, as suggested by Khan (1996), or they may be romantically searching for a sense of continuity with the past, or even qualities of ‘traditional’ life that have been ‘forgotten’, and which the minority minzu are thought to embody. The nostalgia of Chinese tourism can thus be understood as an expression of longing, not just for ‘traditional China’, but also for the experience of an unpolluted natural environment and the lifestyles of people who are ‘close to nature’. Such dreams are clearly reflected in the promotion of destinations such as Shangrila as places where ‘simple people live in harmony with nature’.

The Shangrila townscape Tourism in Shangrila generates many opportunities (or requirements, in some cases) to represent the local ‘culture’; in the marketing of souvenirs, in cultural performances, and in literary production. Even the town itself was turned into a showcase of Tibetan-ness when the main street of the prefecture capital was redecorated with ‘Tibetan’ designs on all the facades, described by one reporter as the remaking of Zhongxin into a ‘Tibetan toy

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town’ (McGregor 2002). As a part of this project, all buildings along the main street were required to be ‘Tibetanized’, while regulations were enforced to ensure that all signs were written in Tibetan as well as Chinese. Signs in Tibetan were previously only found on government buildings, and in fact very few local people could read or write Tibetan. When I arrived in Shangrila in the summer of 2002, teams of painters were still busy redecorating buildings along both sides of the main street. The project seemed to be very well organized, with an architect in charge of the work. Care was taken to avoid ‘mass production’ of the designs, which gave every building a unique, but distinctly ‘Tibetan’ look. In some cases monks were engaged in picking out auspicious symbols for the decorations, and giving the painters directions. Religious symbols were also used in wall decorations on the new shopping center set up by the county government, opened in early 2003. On the wall of the main entrance, facing the market, the decoration featured a huge Kalachakra monogram (Tibetan: rnam bcu dbang ldan, also known as the Tenfold Powerful One or the Kalachakra seed syllable). Inside, the ‘Xianggelila Xian’ shopping center was completely ‘modern’, with a mall featuring shops, a café and a water fountain, and a grocery store equipped with the first electronic cash registers in town. Another ‘modern’ trend was that the owners of several hotels and guesthouses had built a stupa outside their entrance, or on a hilltop near the premises. During my stay in the field, I was able to observe impressive changes to the appearance of the town center, as several new beautification projects were implemented. The old bus stands were torn down, and replaced with new, more colorful stands. The sidewalk pavement was dug up along the main street, and the concrete was replaced with cobblestone. The old streetlights were replaced with new and amply decorated ones, perfect for the ‘neo-Tibetan’ town image. Finally, the filthy waterway that ran through the southern part of town was dug up and an embankment was built on each side. No effort was made to clean up the river, which was nearly as polluted as the canal. The back streets, lined mainly with residential houses, were also completely disregarded. Many of these streets were no more than unpaved, bumpy dirt tracks with open sewers and no streetlights. Towards the end of my stay, I discovered that plans were in place to rebuild the entire town center by the year 2020, including a completely new main street. These plans were presented in a calendar distributed to government officials and village leaders in 2002. One of the most prominent buildings presented in these plans was a ‘public building’ entitled Mandala Square (Chinese: Tancheng Guangchang). The text accompanying the drafts explained that the architects had used the Tibetan Buddhist mandala as a model when they were drawing up the plans for this building. Moreover, it stated that the building was meant to ‘promote Tibetan Buddhism’. I asked a friend what she thought this building would be used for, and she said that the text was rather vague, but it might be a cultural theatre, a

Shangrila: a space of dreams 109 museum, a library, or government offices, or even shops. She commented that ‘in Beijing they have the Tiananmen Square [Tiananmen Guangchang] and this is probably meant to be something similar; a place where people will get together when some kind of public event takes place, like a town center’. Whereas the Mandala Square building can best be described as ‘futuristic’, the architectural features of several newly constructed public buildings in Zhongxin Town deserve the label ‘neo-Tibetan’.3 In fact, in an interview with an architect who had designed several such buildings, I learned that the term used by professionals is ‘Tibetan style’ (Chinese: zangzu fengge) or even ‘Tibetan traditional standard’ (zangzu chuantong biaozhun). For features such as ‘Tibetan-style’ gates, there is a ‘standard’ (biaozhun) way of drawing them, which has to do with the distance between the gatehouses, and the distance between the buildings to the right and left of the gate, and also the look of the roof of the gatehouses. The shapes, curves and proportions are all important in giving the gate a ‘Tibetan style’. As the architect explained, this is not something that is taught at colleges, where students can only study ‘modern architecture’. Rather, the ‘Tibetan style’ is learned ‘from experience, by talking to local people, and by looking at other buildings’. He also emphasized that the ‘Tibetan-style’ buildings represent a whole new kind of buildings. As he said, there were no such buildings in the past, but through contact with Tibetans from the TAR, this style had developed in Diqing too. This young architect, a Han Chinese migrant worker, was very happy to ‘have a distinct style to work in’, and would like to specialize in the ‘Tibetan style’ in the future. His dream was to start his own enterprise, with a team of architects who would focus on drawing ‘traditional Tibetan-style’ buildings in Shangrila. As for the new decorations on the main street buildings, his view was that the paintings ‘show the culture of the area’. As he said, ‘visitors can see the special characteristics of the local culture, and they can see at once what is special about Shangrila’. Other residents of Shangrila were not quite so positive. According to critics, ‘not all buildings should look like monasteries’. The street corner outside the Khampa Supermarket is the ‘heart’ of Zhongxin Town. This is the public space most often used for distributing leaflets and otherwise advertising government policies, and also for staging promotional campaigns for new products such as the latest in cosmetics and mobile telephones. Such advertising often involves musical performances, staged on the sidewalk, or preferably on the wide stairs of the supermarket. Next to the supermarket there is a small park, with a lawn flanked by several huge billboards, advertising cigarettes, Deng Xiaoping on his famous tour of southern China, and finally a local poster ‘welcoming the name change’. Not long after I arrived, a new feature was added to the park; a wooden rack for drying hay (local Tibetan: sheche), adorned with a couple of wooden pales serving as flowerpots. The public park was not the only place to view

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‘monuments’ such as this. A similar structure had previously been set up at the Shambalingka apartment complex (literally ‘Shambhala Gardens’ in Tibetan), a private housing complex on the town periphery, housing among others the offices of the Heavenly Mountains and Waters Tourism Development Company. The large compound was furnished with an innovative ‘monument’; a stupa with a hay-drying rack on each side, decorated with prayer flags hanging between them. Later another such rack appeared on the wide sidewalk outside the shop of the Tibetan Medicine Company (Chinese: Zangyao Jintuan). This was a single sheche adorned with prayer flags, with shop signs hanging on it. This shop also sold miniature wooden replicas of hay-drying racks. The transformation of the Zhongxin townscape has been a process controlled largely by government agencies, but private entrepreneurs have contributed as well. Their goals have converged in the attempt to create a ‘Tibetan’ town, and this has meant constructing new buildings in ‘neoTibetan’ architectural style, as well as redecorating older, ‘modern’ buildings using ‘Tibetan’ designs. Parallel to the ‘Tibetanization’ of the townscape, there have also been efforts to present the ‘local characteristics’ (Chinese: difang tese) of the Gyalthang area, especially focusing on the sheche as a visual symbol of this particular area.

Visions of Shangrila As Orville Schell (2000: 245) so perceptively points out, from the Western vantage point, Shangrila is a distillation of a borrowed piece of Tibetan mythology, overlaid with a Western dream of dreams; the dream of sanctuary or refuge. In short, it is: ‘the resolution of the dreams of hundreds of frustrated explorers and adventurers and millions of curious and emotionally needy ordinary people back at home in Europe and America’ (Schell 2000: 244). Although the core notion of sanctuary has followed the concept of Shangrila as it was later translated into Chinese, the Chinese interpretation has naturally drawn on Chinese rather than Western frames of reference. The idiom shiwai taoyuan (‘other-worldly peach garden’) is often used to convey the idea of Shangrila to Chinese visitors. This is a term drawn from Chinese classical literature. The famous author Tao Yuanming (AD 365– 427) wrote a work known as the Peach Blossom Source (Tao Hua Yuan), including a mixture of prose and poetry, but classified as a historical record (Chinese: chi). The prose part of the work has been recognized as one of the best-known pieces of Chinese literature, included in numerous anthologies (Fang 1980; Davis 1983). It describes the experiences of a fisherman who makes his way through a tunnel at the source of a stream, and discovers a community of people completely cut off from the rest of society. Their ancestors had fled from the troubles of the Chin period (221–208 BC) and never returned. The villagers greet the fisherman warmly, but ask him not

Shangrila: a space of dreams 111 to tell anyone from the outside world about them. After returning to his home, the fisherman can never forget his experiences. Years later he attempts to find the way back, but fails. The poem that completes the work includes a description of the Peach Blossom utopia:4 They urged one another to till the soil and seek their place of rest with the sun. Bamboo and mulberry gave generous shade, beans and millet grew in their season. In spring their silkworms gave long silk, in autumn their harvests went untaxed. Sharing secret untrodden ways, linked by the voices of roosters and dogs, their rites were those of ancient times, their dress untouched by fashion’s change. The children sang their carefree songs, the white-haired strolled to visit friends. Flowering told of warmth to come, leaf-fall warned of biting winds; they had no calendar to guide them, but still the seasons made the year. Contentment was theirs, and joy abundant: what need of learning to trouble their heads? It is interesting to note that many of Tao Yuanming’s commentators have believed he turned to history to present criticism of his own times.5 The unremitting popular interest in the Peach Blossom Source indicates that the piece continues to speak to contemporary Chinese audiences, despite its antiquity. Moreover, the frequent cross-references between this literary piece and the concept of ‘Shangrila’ suggests that there are similarities between Tao Yuanming’s ‘other-worldly peach garden’ and James Hilton’s ‘Shangri-la’, as understood by an urban Chinese readership. Yue (2005: 170) suggests that the first Chinese encounter with the term Shangrila was not through the book Lost Horizon, which was first translated into Chinese as late as 1991, but in the film by the same name, dubbed in Chinese and shown in major Chinese cities during World War II. The Chinese title of the film was ‘The Romance of the Peach Blossom Village’ (Taohuayuan yanji). In 1946 the theme song of the film ‘Oriole Flies amongst the Mortal World’ (Yingfei renjian), entitled ‘This Beautiful Shangrila’ sung by the actress and singer Ouyang Feiying, became tremendously popular in China. Originally disseminated through radio broadcasts and gramophone records, the song has since become emblematic of the preCommunist Shanghai bourgeoisie. According to Yue (2005: 170) the recent cultural nostalgia for the old Shanghai is the backdrop for the song’s comeback in a popular television drama series, ‘Like Mist, Like Rain, Like

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Wind’. Another important reference for the contemporary Chinese imagining of Shangrila is the renowned Shangri-La Hotels, a chain that was established in Singapore in the 1980s by a well-known business magnate, the Chinese-Malaysian entrepreneur Robert Kwok. How do local inhabitants of Shangrila understand the new name of their county, and how is the Tibetan translation of Shangrila, Semkyinyinda, interpreted? In the following I discuss the legend of Shambhala, and describe links in popular discourse between the names Shangrila and Shambhala. I understand the change of names in light of a history of several decades, throughout the period of the People’s Republic, of ‘sinicizing’ local place names and creating new place names that situated these places within the context of Chinese Communism. For some, the name ‘Shangrila’ represents an opportunity to reinterpret this historical context and resituate the area within new spatial and historical accounts, re-envisioning the future as well as the past. Soon after I started my fieldwork, I met a Tibetan government official who asked me the obvious questions: ‘What do you think about the name Shangrila? Have people in your country heard about Shangrila’? I politely replied that I thought most people in Norway knew the name ‘Shangrila’, and asked what people here thought about the name change? The candor of his reply surprised me: ‘the change of names was just an order from the government. The long-term plan is to develop this area into a special economic zone for tourism, and many tourists come here just for the sake of the name’. In another conversation I received an equally straightforward remark from a local Tibetan: People here don’t care much what the place is called, since the whole thing is about making money. This is just another government policy from above, and people don’t see it as something that is important to them. These are certainly frank replies, but they do not tell the full story. Tourism entrepreneurs had good reasons to be concerned about the name change, and ordinary citizens also took notice of the change, which was evident from casual exchanges. For instance, while walking down the main street one day, I overheard a mother correcting her child: ‘This isn’t called Zhongdian any more, it’s called Shangrila.’ When I later interviewed the Tibetan owner of a tourist hotel, he was almost emotional about the significance of the name change: The name of our county is drawn from the book, and this place is indeed a ‘lost horizon’. It’s a vanished land that has now been discovered. Everybody in this county should be happy about the change of name. The impression this gives is very, very good. Some tourists come here just to see ‘Shangrila’. Since the name changed we have received TV

Shangrila: a space of dreams 113 crews from NBC and six other broadcasting companies that made TV programs about ‘Shangrila’. Many guidebooks mention my hotel, including the Lonely Planet. I want to give this hotel a Tibetan look, and I want it to present minority culture. I decorated this hotel; the building, garden and restaurant, to give the guests a feeling that they are in a Tibetan place, and not a place just like any other. Villagers who had no income from tourism also expressed their appreciation for the new name. One such supporter claimed that the name Shangrila was ‘just like a protector deity’. Many locals, especially among the government-employed and professionals within the tourism industry, had taken time to read the novel Lost Horizon, and were happy to give their views on whether Zhongdian was Shangrila. A Han cadre who had a private business catering to tourists was one of them: When I hear people talk so much about ‘Shangrila’ I feel that we really are in ‘Shangrila’. Whether it’s real or not, there are many similarities between the book and this place, such as the many different minorities and religions living here. Whenever I go to a village I feel that it’s ‘Shangrila’. The people in the villages are very friendly, not like in the city. In the city you don’t get that feeling. The governor of Diqing Prefecture claimed that he had read all three available Chinese translations of the book. When I asked him what he thought about the novel, he first commented that Hilton described landscapes similar to those found in Diqing. He then explained how he understood the ‘Shangri-la’ of the novel: It was a meeting place between different cultures, especially the Tibetan, Han and Western cultures. The high lama of ‘Shangri-la’ was originally a missionary, but over the years he had been shaped by the environment, and had become just like a Tibetan lama. Through the performance of Nyingmapa practices he showed that he had accepted the Tibetan tradition and was shaped by this tradition. On the other hand, Western classical music and literature were not available to the Tibetans, so this shows that he was a product of the intermingling of different cultures. Comparisons between Shangrila and Shambhala were brought up in numerous conversations, and was a recurring theme in tourist literature. Several large billboards hovered over the road approaching the airport, and one of them had the Tibetan inscription ‘Gyalthang County, Shambhala’.6 The others read ‘Shangrila Gardens’7 and ‘May Shangrila Live Forever’.8 Shambhala was also the point of reference of several newly created names,

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such as a private housing complex called ‘Shambhalingka’ (‘Shambhala Gardens’) and the NGO ‘Shambhala Folk Environment Protection Association’, as well as the headquarters of their communal nature reserve ‘Shambhala Farm’. For display during the Shangrila name-changing ceremonies in 2002, the Tibetan Medical Academy (Chinese: Zangyao Jintuan) made ‘the world’s largest’ thangka. Giant thangka images are thought to represent the Buddha, and are thus displayed only at significant ritual events, during monastic festivals. Moreover, the image made by the Medical Academy did not have the customary image of a Buddha at its center. Rather, it featured the land of Shambhala, an imagery that furthered the idea of a connection between Shangrila and Shambhala. When I asked the governor what ‘Shangrila’ meant to him, he emphasized the same connection: Shangrila is Shambhala. It’s very tightly linked to the Tibetan Buddhist concept of Shambhala. You know, within Tibetan Buddhism we have the Nyingmapa, Kagyupa, and Gelugpa schools. Within the Nyingma tradition there’s a legend about Shambhala. Shangrila is a worldly utopia, whereas Shambhala is a spiritual utopia. Elderly villagers told me they never heard talk of ‘Shambhala’ when they were young, although in recent years they had come to know the name from popular songs. The most famous of these is called ‘Shambhala Wangkhor’. The word ‘wang’ (Tibetan: dbang) means ‘power’, and ‘khor’ is best translated as ‘realm’ in this context. As explained by a young Tibetan friend: ‘Wangkhor’ means a very good and very important place. But it’s not a place on earth, in the human realm, it’s a place you can think of, and try to make real. Some people think of it as being in the sky, where the gods live. The term khor literally means ‘circle’, and khora means ‘circumambulation’, although it can be translated as ‘pilgrimage’ by extension. The term dbang khor can be understood as a sacred realm, or it can refer to the circular shape of the mandala. In Tibetan monasteries, several different sand mandalas are made during special occasions. In Diqing these mandalas are made only by monks in the larger monasteries (Dhondrupling and Songtseling). Monks who were learning the art of making sand mandalas told me that the ‘nine-level mandala’ (local Tibetan: gyinkhor, Tibetan: dkyil ⬘khor) is a representation of ‘Shambhala’. The association of Shambhala with the mandala was only made by monks. This probably reflects the exclusive nature of the knowledge associated with the making of sand mandalas. Rituals connected with the making and destruction of sand mandalas have formed a part of the restricted knowledge of tantric practice, and have not been performed in public.

Shangrila: a space of dreams 115 Many villagers have in fact never seen a sand mandala, although they know and take active part in several other monastic events. One of the most popular is the parading of the ‘future Buddha’ (Shambagönma) during Mönlam Chenmo. Interestingly, a local Tibetan businessman associated ‘Shambhala’ with the deity ‘Shambagönma’, although reinterpreted in Socialist terms. He maintained that: ‘like the future Buddha, “Shamba lha”,9 Shambhala will come in the future, just like the Socialist paradise [shehui zhuyi tiantang]’. He continued by explaining that there are different stages of historical development, such as slave society and feudalism, and finally the ‘Socialist paradise’, concluding that ‘Shambhala is the future paradise’. His Han Chinese wife asked me: ‘What do you think it was like in the Garden of Eden?’ I replied, a little surprised by her question, that the Garden of Eden was a place where food was always available and there was no hunger, and where the lion and the lamb lived in peace. ‘In that case’, she said, ‘Shangrila is just like the Garden of Eden, without hunger, without conflict, and without suffering’. In a single conversation Christian, Chinese Communist and Tibetan Buddhist concepts were all brought together to explain the meaning of Shangrila, and with no sense of possible contradictions. The name ‘Shambhala’ is actually a Sanskrit word, introduced to Tibetans as a part of the Wheel of Time (Sanskrit: Kalacakra) tantric tradition. This tradition has become fairly well-known to Western audiences today, thanks to frequent public displays of the art of sand mandala making. Exhibitions with Tibetan monk experts have been organized in the USA and Europe, as well as in India. The first European reference to Shambhala is generally believed to have been made by the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries Joao Cabral and Estevao Cacella, who referred to ‘Xembala’ in their letters of 1627 (Lopez 1998: 267). Alexander Csoma de Körös made the first reference in English in 1833: The peculiar religious system entitled the Kála-Chakra is stated, generally, to have been derived from Shambhala, as it is called in Sanscrit (in Tibetan “bde-hbyung,” vulgó “dè-jung,” signifying “origin or source of happiness”)10 a fabulous country in the north, the capital of which was Cálapa, a very splendid city, the residence of many illustrious kings of Shambhala, situated between 45 degrees and 50 degrees north latitude, beyond the Sita or Jaxartes, where the increase of the days from the vernal equinox till the summer solstice amounted to 12 Indian hours, or 4 hours, 48 minutes, European reckoning. (Ibid., citing Csoma de Körös 1984: 21) The author, writing in the European age of discovery, was evidently interested in the exact location of Shambhala. In contemporary Diqing, the location, albeit not in such precise geographical terms, was similarly an issue of debate. Some maintained that Shambhala was (or would be) a place on earth. As argued by those who situated Shambhala in the human realm, on

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earth, the Kalacakra texts say that Shambhala lies to the north of the Himalayan mountains, just where Tibet is located today. Others claimed that it was ‘in the sky’ or in an otherworldly realm. As the governor of Diqing put it: ‘Shambhala is not in this world, but it’s something everybody can envision’. The geographical location and ontological status of Shambhala was not merely of academic interest, as will become clear. The texts associated with the Kalacakra describe Shambhala as a land shaped like a giant lotus, encircled by mountains and filled with sandalwood forests and lotus lakes. The kingdom, ruled by the Kalkin, has 960 million villages. At its center is the capital, the city of Kalapa, containing palaces of gold, silver and jewels, plated with mirrors that make the night as light as day. Shambhala is the perfect place, where the lay people are all beautiful and wealthy, free of sickness and poverty, while the monks are naturally intelligent and virtuous, devoted especially to the practice of the Kalacakra Tantra. The texts about Shambhala also describe times of war and violent conflict, ending in an apocalyptic battle between the invading forces, usually interpreted as Muslim, and the forces of Shambhala, as representatives of Buddhism. The Buddhist victory marks the beginning of a golden age, when the lifespan of humans will increase, and Buddhism will spread across the world.11 As related by Tibetans today, a prophecy (Tibetan: lung bstan) says that in the future there will be a time of conflict, when two great powers will go to war against each other. After one of them has won the war, that will be the only remaining superpower. Subsequently the people of ‘Shambhala’ will lead in the fight against this superpower, which represents evil. The Panchen Lama will lead the people of ‘Shambhala’ in this battle. Although the technology of ‘Shambhala’ is not ‘developed’ as it is in the modern world, the people of ‘Shambhala’ control the forces of nature, and so they are able to win the battle. Such stories of ‘Shambhala’ have been circulating among Tibetans living in India, Nepal and Western countries, and also among Tibetans within the PRC. They are transmitted over the Internet, in video recordings and other channels of communication. Several reincarnate lamas living outside Tibet have contributed to the mythologizing by providing detailed descriptions of ‘Shambhala’, after having ‘visited’ the realm in visionary travels or ‘dreamlike’ altered states of mind. Tibetans I talked with in Shangrila knew of these accounts. One of the people I discussed this with suggested that the fighting between the two great powers might refer to the battles between the Soviet Union and Japan during World War II.12 Others maintained that the war is yet to come, and some suggested that it referred to a future war between the United States and China. Environmental protection has been a significant part of the ‘Shangrila concept’ as promoted by the local government.13 Environmental awareness is also evident in contemporary reinterpretations of the myth of Shambhala aimed specifically at tourists. For instance, the written introduction to the

Shangrila: a space of dreams 117 NGO ‘Shambhala Folk Environment Protection Association’ relates the story of Shambhala as follows: With the fast changes and development over centuries, the human race has progressed into a new era where competition is governing human greed. The threat [to?] human survival is affecting the survival of all life forms on earth. In addition, the ambitions of people seeking new ground are ever increasing. During the hardship of our forefathers, there is a legend of a beautiful place where everyone longs to be. In that place there is no suffering and sadness, all life forms co-exist in peace, harmony and equality, sharing resources. The snow mountain dominates and human is submissive to mother nature. This is Shangbala [Shambhala]. It is what our forefathers have passed down from generation to generation. We own it! We protect it! It may seem like a fairytale but we hope you will understand and respect it, because you are our guest. In this account the struggle between good and evil is not a battle between nations, but a battle between those whose goal is to protect the environment and those who wish to exploit it. Tibetans are presented as the owners of a tradition of protection, and Shambhala is the legend that embodies this tradition. The concept of Shambhala, and its connections with Shangrila, is multifaceted. At the core of the concept is an alluring vision of a future where Buddhism prevails, and where all struggle, conflict and suffering have been eliminated. However, there are several contentious issues regarding the ontological status of Shambhala. Is Shambhala another name for Tibet, or will it be in the future? If Shambhala is Tibet, which great power will the Tibetans (or people of Shambhala) be fighting? And is the time of the prophecies near or far away? If Shambhala is in another realm, is it some kind of parallel reality, and what is its relevance to the earthly realm or physical space of contemporary Shangrila? And finally, what is the link between Shangrila and Shambhala? Was the story of Shambhala known to the author of Lost Horizon, as some people claim? The debates raised by these questions provide opportunities for envisioning the future as well as deliberating the present. As a Tibetan villager explained when I asked whether Shambhala was the same as Shangrila: Shambhala is not the same as Shangrila. Shambhala is very beautiful, people have a good mind, and nature is very beautiful. In Shambhala everything is perfect, not like now. Now people cut down the trees. In Shambhala everybody is very kind-hearted, not like now where there is fighting. In Shambhala there is no sorrow, only happiness. The culture is also perfectly developed in Shambhala. The world has only one Shambhala, and it’s up to us to find it. Shambhala is in this world, but

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Shangrila: a space of dreams it’s in the future, it’s an ideal to strive for. We want this place to be like Shambhala.

As with all utopian dreams, Shambhala gives people a vision to reach for, while providing a critique of the present state of affairs.

Shangrila in Tibetan: a problem of translation? When the decision was made on the Tibetan translation of the name Shangrila, the issue of Shambhala, and its ontological status, raised difficult questions. As explained by the head of the Tibetan Studies Research Center, who supported the translation of the name as Semkyinyinda: It would be wrong to use the name ‘Shambhala’ as a Tibetan translation of ‘Shangrila’, since ‘Shambhala’ is actually a Sanskrit name referring to the whole of Tibet, to the north of India. The name ‘Shambhala’ refers to a country in the human realm, not in a different sphere such as a heavenly realm of gods. At first, the people of this country lived in a heavenly realm, and had the light of wisdom [shes rab ⬘od gzer] shining from their foreheads. However, this light gradually vanished, and the people fell down to the earthly realm, and there was a dark age. Then the wisdom of Buddha arrived, to light up the darkness. The name Semkyinyinda refers to this light. The light of wisdom is the sun and moon of the heart or mind [sems kyi nyi zla]. In the old Gyalthang dialect, the words sems kyi nyi zla were pronounced just like ‘Shangrila’, he added. In this dialect, ‘sems’ used to be pronounced ‘shan’, ‘kyi’ was pronounced ‘gi’ and ‘nyi zla’ was pronounced ‘li la’. There was thus clear linguistic evidence to support the name ‘Semkyinyinda’, he concluded. Not everybody in Shangrila was convinced by this argument. According to one Tibetan informant, a returnee from India, the name ‘Semkyinyinda’ was completely absurd. As he explained, the name Shangrila was based on the Sanskrit term Shambhala, and Shangrila should therefore be translated as Shambhala. In fact, he continued, the very meaning of ‘Gyalthang’, ‘victory plain’, supported the argument that Shangrila should be named Shambhala in Tibetan. This was because: ‘Shambhala is where the big battle between good and evil will take place, where the evil will finally be conquered by the good’. Other Tibetans I talked with appeared to accept the name ‘Semkyinyinda’, or politely refrained from commenting on it. As one villager replied: ‘I don’t know much about history, since I’m not an educated person’. Later he explained: Historically, this was called ‘Gyalthang’ in Tibetan, and the name of this area was known as ‘Shar Gyalthang Omätsuka’. Within the county, this is where we can see the sun first, where the sun is up the earliest. This is

Shangrila: a space of dreams 119 a good place, and the East [shar] is good because it is where the sun rises. As for the name ‘Semkyinyinda’, farmers don’t like this name because they don’t understand what it means. The name ‘Shangrila’ represents a worldly utopia. It stands for an ideal of a better world, a less commercialized, more ‘spiritual’ world where the environment is protected, where there is peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cultural exchange between peoples. This is a dream without borders, a vision that any one can share. The name ‘Shambhala’, on the other hand, represents a spiritual utopia, and as such it draws on a more powerful imagery. ‘Shambhala’ is a Buddhist term that has come to stand for a vision of Tibet shaped by the concerns of contemporary Tibetans. ‘Shangrila’ is a Western term that stands for a vision of Tibet shaped largely by the concerns of others. For most Tibetans, Shambhala is the land in which every Buddhist hopes to be reborn, a ‘pure land’ (Tibetan: bde ba⬘i zhing khams) where life is good and there is no suffering. As some say, those who are reborn in Shambhala might reach Buddhahood ‘in a single lifetime’. Shambhala is also destined one day to be the site of vital struggles between good and evil, where Buddhists must fight to dispel those who threaten the Buddhist order. When this is achieved, Shambhala will be reconstituted as the ultimate paradise. The question is whether contemporary Shangrila deserves to be associated by name with such a compelling utopian vision. Some maintain that although Shangrila is not a perfect place at present, the name ‘Shambhala’ would be suitable as an ideal that people could work towards. Others say no, arguing that the name represents Tibet in its entirety, and belongs to the Tibetan people at large. One of the primary issues at stake is the evident risk in using the name of a utopia: it invites comparison between vision and actuality. The vision might be corrupted by the imperfection of the actual place, and conversely, the imperfections of the actual place might be accentuated in comparison with the vision. For the local Tibetans who favor the name ‘Shangrila’, its popularity derives primarily from its association with the myth of ‘Shambhala’. In an important sense, its resonance with ‘Shambhala’ provides ‘Shangrila’ with a depth of reference that the name ‘Zhongdian’ never had. The place-making strategies of contemporary Tibetan cadres and tourism developers have thus been more ‘successful’ from a local perspective than those of the Communist bureaucrats who renamed the villages of Zhongdian during previous decades. The irony is that this significance appears to be lost on Western critics of the ‘inauthentic’ name of Shangrila. A Western quest for the authentically ‘Tibetan’, adopted also by some young Chinese travelers, seems to be colliding with the views of the ‘subjects’ of this quest.

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Sweet dreams are made of this Who am I to disagree? Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Dreams and fantasies can be treacherous, especially when they are regarded as innocent. As Foucault (1977: 194) makes clear, power produces reality, domains of objects and rituals of truth. The boundaries between reality and fantasy are thus precarious. They are the sites of discursive struggles where reality is sanctioned, while the ‘unreal’ is relegated to oblivion, or (when it stubbornly persists) to fantasy, madness, myth, the unscientific, the fake, the inauthentic, the superstitious or the less than sacred. In the utopian realm, however, fantasy can still be powerful, as a site of inspiration for would-be realities. Shangrila may well be described as the space of a dream (Cater 2001). It is a place where the Tibetan is fantasized, although Tibetan culture is simultaneously made into a marketable commodity for tourists. Tourism is not just a business where tourists use (or abuse) the commodified Tibetan, but also, and perhaps more importantly, a stage where locals can act out their own visions of Tibetan identity, vis-à-vis Han Chinese as well as other minorities. As described earlier, tourism has created new incentives for trying to ‘pass’ as a Tibetan. Another effect is that tourist destinations have become strategic sites for representing ‘ethnic culture’ in a multiethnic setting. Within this new context, the place-making strategies of Tibetans ‘compete’ with those of other minority minzu. Tibetans can be seen as ‘winners’ of this ‘representational game’, because Shangrila is reaffirmed with the help of tourism as a ‘Tibetan’ place. This is illustrated by the contemporary reconstruction of the Zhongxin townscape, where ‘Tibetanstyle’ buildings represent the latest trend in architecture.

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Refiguring the Tibetan through ethnic tourism Tourism has provided an entirely new context for the expression of ethnic identity in Shangrila. One of the effects of tourism has been to create more competition along ‘ethnic’ lines. By providing incentives for developing (and marketing) cultural products, tourism has set the scene for competition among people who are seen to represent different ethnic groups, or at least their ‘cultures’. During fieldwork it became evident to me that many non-Tibetan inhabitants of Shangrila resented Tibetans for their obvious success in attracting attention to anything ‘Tibetan’. As they saw it, the Tibetan success was won at the expense of other ethnic minorities, who were apparently ‘losing’ the competition. In the words of a frustrated resident of Weixi: ‘in order to do anything in tourism around here you would have to be a Tibetan’. Voicing a similar view, a Naxi friend commented rather sarcastically on the Tibetan owner of a new tourism enterprise: ‘it’s his village, his house, his driver, his tourism’. As described earlier, handicraft products and other items sold as souvenirs were frequently provided with ethnic labels. Building techniques and architectural designs were also commonly associated with particular ethnic groups. As a Naxi friend explained on a walk through a village in her home area, wooden cabins were the ‘traditional Naxi houses’, while stone houses were ‘modern’. Similarly, the Yi were associated with longhouses where extended families lived together. According to the governor of Diqing, the villagers of Shangrila would no longer be allowed to build their houses according to their own wishes, but would have to abide by new regulations to preserve the ‘traditional’ architecture of each ethnic group. As a consequence, residents of Tibetan villages would henceforth only be permitted to set up ‘Tibetan’ houses, and residents of Naxi, Yi and Lisu villages would only be permitted to construct the ‘traditional’ houses associated with the group in question. It would have been interesting to see how these ‘traditions’ were specified. As should be clear, the important point in this discussion is not what constitutes ‘authentic’ or ‘real’ cultural markers, but how the ‘authentic’ is used discursively, and how markers of ‘authenticity’ are made relevant in ethnic and cultural identification. Of particular interest is the value attributed to certain cultural expressions, once established as ‘authentic’, as markers of a specific ethnic group. One issue is the sales value of such expressions, while another is the attention they attract. When tourists show an interest in a particular ethnic group, at the expense of others, this has important consequences for the evaluation of and support (financial and political) for cultural expressions and by extension, the recognition of particular ethnic identities. Not only were souvenir items and other ‘cultural artifacts’ in Shangrila ‘ethnicized’ for the sake of tourism, so were places. Specific tourist destinations were associated with particular ethnic groups. For instance, Baishuitai

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(White Water Terraces) was consistently referred to in literature for tourist consumption as a ‘Naxi’ place, and even as the cradle of Dongba culture. Its significance as a sacred site of the Naxi people and their Dongba religious specialists was also emphasized at the site itself. Signs set up near the walkways surrounding the terraces named the most important of them (in Chinese) as, for instance, the ‘Field of Celestial Beings’ (xian ren tian) and the ‘Pool of Female Celestial Beings’ (xian nü chi). Adjacent to the terraces, Naxi cultural specialists had set up a school teaching the Naxi pictographic script, and also a venue for presenting Naxi song and dance performances for visitors, called the Dongba Culture Entertainment Center (Chinese: Dongba Wenhua Le Yuan). Both these institutions were set in log cabins presented to us as ‘typical of the traditional Naxi family house’. The annual ‘Naxi festival’ at the terraces attracted very few tourists when I was there, but it was depicted in numerous postcards, coffee-table books and museum exhibits. Also, several camera crews were present during the festival I attended, to record the event for broadcasting or video production. A Naxi photographer, working for the Diqing TV station, operated at least one of these cameras. Among the visitors from outside the prefecture was a French writer working on a book about the Naxi, and a group of Naxi academics from Lijiang. As the case of Baishuitai illustrates, Tibetans were not alone in successfully employing a sacred site (and a magnificent natural site) to represent their cultural heritage. However, ‘Tibetan’ religious sites such as Songtseling and Khawa Karpo received more attention, and larger numbers of visitors. The same was true of the ‘Tibetan family house’ and the local theme park, Yila Grasslands, compared with similar ‘Naxi’ establishments.1 In publications and audio-visual productions for tourists, as well as the souvenir market, ‘Tibetan’ products and representations attracted more attention than those of other ethnic groups, and local people were aware of this. The uneven attention received by different ethnic groups from tourists thus contributed to increasing ethnically based competition. Before the People’s Republic was established, Gyalthang was ‘Tibetan’ as understood by monastic elites who defined the area as a part of the Tibetan Buddhist realm. When Diqing was established as a ‘Tibetan’ prefecture its ‘Tibetan-ness’ was reaffirmed, and in certain ways accentuated, by the official recognition itself and the new meanings associated with it. However, as described in the preceding chapters, the new notions of place and ethnicity propagated by the Chinese state were very different from those previously held by the inhabitants of Gyalthang. One of the differences was that ethnic identity was far more rigidly defined by the state than were earlier ethno-regional identities. In fact, the Communist state essentialized the ‘ethnic’ and propagated stereotyped notions of the state-sanctioned ethnicities, among them the ‘Tibetan’. The ‘Tibetan-ness’ associated by most tourists with the name of ‘Shangrila’ has drawn on this Communist view of the ‘Tibetan’, but does not merely replicate it. The marketing of ‘Shangrila’

Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity 123 has highlighted this new view of the ‘Tibetan’. While reinventing the area as a ‘Tibetan’ place, this marketing has contributed to reinterpreting the meaning of the ‘Tibetan’ itself. In an important sense, the Gyalthang area has become more explicitly ‘Tibetan’ than ever before. If we acknowledge the close links between place-making and identity politics, it becomes evident that the promotion of ‘Shangrila’ has created opportunities for Tibetans to renegotiate the meanings of the ‘Tibetan’, and to reinforce local Tibetan identity vis-à-vis other minorities as well as the Han majority. Chinese authorities promote the image of China as a unified, multicultural, multiethnic state. Within this context, some view ‘Shangrila’ as a model for the oft-cited ideal of the ‘unity of nationalities’ (Chinese: minzu tuanjie). Many Chinese still see the ‘minority nationalities’ as representatives of the more colorful, exotic and ‘traditional’ varieties of Chinese culture, and the Han as representatives of the more ‘modern’ and cosmopolitan culture. Minority minzu elites do not necessarily share this view but have their own interests and agendas. Tourism has provided some of these groups, including Tibetans, with new opportunities to represent their ‘cultures’. Tibetan officials and tourism developers in Shangrila are actively taking advantage of these new opportunities to ‘revive Tibetan culture’ and reinvent Tibetan identity in much more positive terms than has been possible in previous decades. MacCannell (1984: 388) claims that ‘reconstructed ethnicity [. . .] represents an end point in dialogue, a final freezing of ethnic imagery’. I agree that ethnic tourism may be seen to contribute to the reification of ethnic categorization as such, and may also fix or ‘freeze’ some of the traits associated with ethnic categories. But this is by no means an ‘end point in dialogue’. As observed by Gamper (1985: 251), while the overt culture traits may indeed become ‘museumized’ for commercial reasons, the different processes involved in generating and maintaining ethnic groups continue to operate. By making ethnicity more consequential, tourism may even fuel such processes. It is therefore no coincidence, as MacCannell (1992: 159) admits, that ‘tourism operates in much the same way, and can superficially resemble, the behavior of ethnic separatist movements’. The rhetoric used by tourism developers for marketing purposes is similar to the rhetorical ‘weapons’ used in the politics of ethnic identity. This is because politicized and commercialized constructions of identity draw on the same symbolic ‘language’. According to MacCannell (1992), the difference between tourism and separatism is that in the case of tourism, the ‘energy comes from without, not from within’. This is far too simple, since tourism is seldom, if ever, driven completely by ‘outsiders’.

Authenticity and cultural commodification Is it meaningful to ask whether, or to what extent, cultural products ‘made up’ for the sake of tourists are ‘authentic’? As contemporary

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anthropologists seem to agree (if they agree on anything at all), ‘culture’ is inherently ‘constructed’ or ‘invented’. Consequently, upholding the notion of ‘inauthentic’ versus ‘authentic’ cultural representations would be reverting to essentialism. Does this mean that all issues of authenticity are irrelevant? On the contrary, the key questions that have been raised in this study are all related to issues of authenticity. How is place made real in contemporary Shangrila? Does tourism result in a deterioration of ‘cultural meaning’ and produce ‘pseudo-communities’? And if identity has ‘historically been founded on place’ (Urry 1995), can ‘dreamscapes’ provide people (the ‘visited’ as well as ‘visitors’) with a sense, or senses, of identity? Answering these questions requires first of all an investigation of local debates about ‘authenticity’, and especially the marking of objects and cultural representations as ‘authentic’. As described earlier, tourism has encouraged debates in Shangrila about the characteristics of ‘culture’, and how this ‘culture’ might best and most accurately be presented to tourists. For instance, a Tibetan tour guide described what was marketed as a ‘visit to a Tibetan family’ as an event where tourists ‘in the hundreds’ have a party and watch singing and dancing. According to him, these places were ‘built by rich people around here’ and had nothing to do with ‘real family houses’. Several villagers also expressed dissatisfaction with performances staged at ‘Tibetan family houses’ for their lack of accuracy in representing the ‘real’ homes of Tibetans. As one villager argued: The tourists would be better off visiting the homes of Tibetan families in the villages. That would be very good for them, since they would learn much about the Tibetan way of life and Tibetan culture. In the ‘Tibetan family house’ [zangmin jiafang], what the tourists see is not authentic [zhenshi], not like the real [zhen] homes of Tibetan families. I asked a Tibetan friend whether the dances performed at the ‘Tibetan family house’ were similar to those local people would dance at bonfire parties, or at home around the central pillar of their house. She replied that from what she had heard, the dances at the ‘Tibetan family house’ were ‘more like Deqin dances, not like dances around here’, and concluded that those dances were not ‘authentic’. I argued that the dances performed by her sister and other villagers during the name-changing festival were similarly ‘inauthentic’. To this, my friend explained: ‘that’s no problem, since the festival was not for tourists, it was for ourselves’. This statement highlights a crucial question; ‘authentic for whom?’ As we later watched a video of this festival, I suggested to my friend’s sister, who had participated as a dancer, that some of the ‘Naxi’ dancers resembled Dongbas. ‘They look like Dongbas’, she replied, ‘but they’re not really Dongbas’ [dongba ⬘drapo red, dngos gnas ma red]. This casual remark illustrates at least one important point; it certainly does not require a degree in anthropology to contemplate authenticity and its consequences. Villagers

Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity 125 have their own opinions about what is ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ and what is not, and they are also aware of how this might pose a ‘problem’. In fact, it appears that one of the main ‘problems’ posed by the lack of ‘authenticity’ is that tourists are known to expect, and demand, what they perceive as ‘authentic’, often disregarding the opinions of locals. With the development of tourism, a new concern about authenticity is becoming evident among Tibetan culture brokers, some of them rather ingenuously marketing their products as ‘authentic Tibetan’. Writing on tourism in Jiuzhaigou, a Tibetan area in Sichuan, Peng (1998: 198) describes how village leaders at this site had also become ‘keenly interested in constructing an “authentic” image of Tibetans’, inviting a dancing teacher from another area to teach locals how to dance the most ‘authentic’ dances in the newly opened ‘Ethnic Culture Village’. Peng (1998: 198) concludes that with the advent of tourism, local village identity in Jiuzhaigou now has wider implications: ‘It is being connected to areas perceived by the locals of Jiuzhaigou to be the “core” of Tibetan history and culture’.2 It is not insignificant, I think, that tourists share such views about ‘core culture’, and that local Tibetans are keenly aware of the touristic quest for the authentically Tibetan. The ‘authentic Tibet’ sought by Western tourists has been described by Cingcade (1998), who argues that tourism offers opportunities for different actors to represent their vision of Tibet. In so doing, the Chinese state propagates a view of Tibetans as a unique and exotic people who have always lived in harmony in China. The ‘authentic Tibet’ sought by the Western tourist is a Tibet ‘unspoiled’ by the presence of modern infrastructure, Han Chinese migrants crowding the city streets, hoards of tourists in the Potala, discos, karaoke bars and ‘the mediocrity of everything new’ (Cingcade 1998: 17). The ‘authentic Tibet’, for the Western tourist, is thus found in remote rural villages, and particularly at monasteries and other sacred sites (see also Makley 1994). When I asked a Tibetan official in the prefecture tourism department what attracted tourists to Shangrila, his description of various types of tourists revealed an acute awareness of the Western quest for authenticity, as well as the somewhat different view of Chinese tourists. Describing the tourists visiting the ‘Tibetan family houses’, he explained that the great majority were from Southeast Asia and China, and only a few were from Western countries: That’s because Westerners want to take the initiative themselves to find out about the local culture. They don’t like going in groups. They think these places are very commercialized [mao yi hua le], and that they don’t represent the natural, primeval culture [ziran de yuanshi de wenhua]. The Western attitude is that of the observer, and what they want is to be able to observe and understand the values of the local culture. The difference in mentality is that Westerners want to see the

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Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity normal everyday life, not the commercialized culture, whereas the Southeast Asians and Chinese have a strong desire to participate, and want to see the magnificence of the entertainment house. If we take you [the author] as an example, as a Westerner you will naturally choose the ordinary Tibetan house, to observe the original Tibetan culture [yuanxing de zang wenhua].

If some tourists are indeed demanding the ‘authentic’ and hence ‘undeveloped’ native, there seems to be a contradiction in the state agenda to ‘develop’ the minorities by showcasing their ‘primitive and exotic’ lifestyles for tourists. As noted by Peng (1998), there may also be inherent contradictions between the authenticity sought by tourists, and the modernity sought by local Tibetans. Such contradictions represent a challenge, as was also acknowledged by one of the more perceptive visitors to Shangrila: People in the West who ‘love Tibet’ may not understand the needs of the people here, but rather want to preserve Tibet as the place of their dreams; a place where people can live without any disturbance from the outside world, and with no development whatsoever. In the present age this is not possible, and I don’t think it would be in the real interest of people in the Tibetan areas, because they do in fact need some kind of economic development. At the time of my fieldwork, tourist demands for ‘authentic natives’ and ‘unspoiled’ ethnic experiences seemed to be met, and there was still not much evidence of the disappointed touristic quest for ‘un-developed’ ethnic others. On the contrary, Shangrila actually seemed to be growing increasingly ‘Tibetan’, as novel or foreign features that might hamper tourism were cleverly disguised, to make the ‘local’ appear more authentic.

Tourism and spatial realities For many urban Chinese tourists, Shangrila is a peaceful spiritual haven in a rapidly changing, and increasingly marketized, China. Monasteries and pilgrimage sites are among the main attractions for these tourists. Tourism developers are aware of this, and use images of ‘sacred ground’ (Chinese: shengdi) and ‘holiness’ (shen sheng) to attract tourists. Despite evident discord between tourism and religious practice at monastic sites, I have argued that tourism has above all led to a ‘re-sacralization’ of sacred sites, understood as a new understanding and appreciation of the significance of these sites on the part of the visited. A key factor in keeping tensions between tourists and religious practitioners at a minimum has been the framing of tourism as ‘pilgrimage’. Many tourists are attracted to Shangrila by the perceived ‘spirituality’ of its inhabitants and the ‘purity’ of its natural environment. They view local

Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity 127 minority villages as tight-knit and harmonious communities, where the ‘natives’ live close to nature and close to each other. This is the ‘dreamscape’ that characterizes ‘Shangrila’ as a tourist destination. The ‘dream’ in question is essentially a romantic, anti-consumerist reaction against the problems of urbanization and increasing marketization. For tourists who hold this dream, the re-conceptualization of the tourist as pilgrim offers a compelling alternative to the enactment of the tourist as a consumer. If tourism as ‘visual consumption’ provides tourists with a sense of identity, then tourism to the sacred sites of Shangrila consolidates a particular tourist identity, that of the ‘tourist-pilgrim’. Thus, the ‘pseudo-communities’ produced for Shangrila tourists would mainly be ‘religious communities’ of tourist-pilgrims visiting sacred sites. Of interest to the question of ‘secularization’ is how the sacred as understood by local Tibetans might be challenged by the use of religious sites for tourism. This is highlighted by the extraordinary case of a Tibetan Buddhist temple constructed in the Tibetan Village of the Nationalities Villages theme park (Minzu Cun) near Kunming.3 The temple has a genuine Tibetan monk, recruited from Songtseling, as its ‘caretaker’. When I visited the temple he was seated next to the altar, reciting from a very real scripture book. According to this monk, the temple ‘belonged to Songtseling’, although it did not have a name since it was ‘not a real temple’. Just a few days later I discussed this with a Tibetan scholar, and asked him to clarify whether this was a ‘real temple’. He replied that monks from Songtseling had performed three months of rituals to consecrate the images in the temple, so in this sense the temple was ‘real’. When a new temple has been built, its images are consecrated (Tibetan: rab gnas) so that they can be ‘spirited’ with the deities they represent. This is how the images, and consequentially the temple itself, becomes ‘spirited’ or ‘inhabited’ by the deities. Without the performance of such rituals, the temple is not holy, and hence not a ‘real temple’. According to the local Tibetan scholar, it is also necessary, for a temple to be ‘real’, that the temple has ‘[images of] the Buddha, Buddhist scriptures, and monks [fo, jing, seng]’.4 If it lacks any of these three it is not a real temple, he argued, but the temple in the Minzu Cun did have all three. He admitted, however, that the purpose of the Minzu Cun temple was different from other temples, in that it was built for tourists as a ‘showcase of Tibetan culture’. The images in the temple in the Tibetan Village have in fact been consecrated. A ‘real’ Tibetan monk has also been employed as an attendant, rather than an actor dressed up as a monk and the temple contains real scriptures. Those responsible for creating the Tibetan Village had thus made considerable efforts to make the temple ‘authentic’, especially considering that the consecration rituals performed there would have remained unknown to most visitors. Despite this, Tibetans I talked with in Kunming as well as in Shangrila maintained that the temple in the Tibetan Village was ‘not a real temple’. This was because it was built by the authorities for the

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display of Tibetan culture, and not by a religious community as a place to teach Buddhism. Its purpose was therefore not that of a ‘real’ temple. As this debate indicates, some Tibetans were critical of the building of the temple in the Nationalities Villages. A local Tibetan cadre disagreed: It has the function of being a window to show Tibetan Buddhism to tourists. As such it is good, because its function is good. The Buddhist idea is that Buddhism can be taught to anybody and can exist in any place. So this is not wrong. The temple shows all the different branches of Buddhism, and the masters of all these branches are represented in the images. It is no doubt a good arrangement. This is certainly a rather pragmatic argument. Authenticity is here simply a question of accurate representation and of fulfilling essential requirements such as the consecration of images. It is taken for granted that what is represented is a showcase, and what you see is therefore exactly what you get. The question of ‘authenticity’, according to this argument, is seen as less important, as compared with the question of ‘good’ intents and purposes, especially the promotion of ‘Tibetan Buddhist culture’. For such ‘good’ purposes, the local government’s ‘requisition’ of Tibetan monks and Dongba ritual specialists to act as performers at public events was defended in similar terms: Buddhism belongs to the whole world. This is a window for the local community to the world. If it’s good for the development of the local community, then it’s justifiable. However, if this were done for the purpose of making money, then it would not be right. Tibetans in Shangrila frequently disagree on what is and is not acceptable for the ‘good of development’, and what it takes to hedge in the sacred. They also argue in general terms about how Tibetan culture should be represented, as well as on the more specific cases, for instance on how their town should look. While some were dismayed by the new decorations on main street buildings, others maintained that the buildings looked much better after they were decorated. They were also happy to share their opinions on the highly commercialized song and dance performances for tourists, of which they sometimes made great parodies. Tourist destinations are inevitably ‘dreamscapes’ of tourist consumption. If we take this to imply that ‘real’ landscapes exist somewhere else, tourist destinations are also ‘deterrence machines’ (Baudrillard 1994). This will of course lead us straight into the predicament of the modern tourist, forever searching in vain for a place that is ‘untouched’ and thus, presumably, more ‘real’. However, tourist destinations are not only dreamscapes for tourists, they are also imagined by culture brokers and the visited. In imaging Shangrila, as in the making of any dreamscape, a whole range of different

Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity 129 dreams are involved. Shangrila is associated with the Socialist Paradise, the Garden of Eden and the ‘otherworldly peach garden’ (Chinese: shiwai taoyuan), as well as the ‘pure land’ of Shambhala. As tourism entrepreneurs know, some of these images have the potential to draw new tourists to Shangrila, and these are also the images that are propagated to large audiences of would-be tourists through the media. In Shangrila, local government officials and not so local investors draw the largest profits from tourism, and are also among the most influential promoters of what they call the ‘Shangrila concept’. The images these actors convey focus on the ‘Shangrila’ that appeals to most tourists; an unspoilt spiritual haven and natural paradise, where ethnic minorities live in harmonious communities. Such marketing definitely involves cultural commodification, but it also provides images that inhabitants of Shangrila draw on and react to as they generate new senses of identity, and re-make the place where they live. As Oakes (1998: 63) maintains, tourist villages in Guizhou are ‘paradoxical and contingent spaces in which villagers attempt to carve a sense of identity and produce a landscape that is meaningful to them, using the very tools that continuously work to alienate them and turn them into the objects rather than the subjects of change’. Tibetan villagers in Shangrila are in a very similar situation. However, the ‘tools’ they use to carve out an identity and re-make their place are not merely the ‘dominant’ representations of the state and tourism industry. Villagers have their own such ‘tools’, and their own evocative images to draw on, conveyed through ritual practices and oral histories, centered on notions of sacred space. They also engage in a manifest politics of representation when they interpret the name Shangrila, and especially when they envision Shambhala. As seen from the perspective of tourists, tourism may seem to produce ‘pseudo-communities’, especially where promises of a less alienated and commodified, more ‘authentic’ kind of ‘community’ are offered as a part of the attraction. Such promises are not easily kept, and visitors who hope to experience this kind of ‘authenticity’ will frequently be disappointed. As seen from the local perspective, however, tourism may rather heighten senses of community and identity, as new meanings of ‘culture’ are negotiated and new notions of ‘place’ are made real. On the other hand, tourism may also heighten tensions between and within communities as people compete for profits and recognition. That ‘culture’ is highly contested is evident from the frequent debates on the ‘authenticity’ of different expressions of Tibetan culture. As I hope to have shown, different stakeholders hold different views on what ‘real’ Tibetan culture might mean. Representations of ‘place’ are equally contested, and this is because ‘place’ is vital to identity politics in contemporary Shangrila.

Glossary of local terms with suggested Tibetan spellings

abataye b⬘yang ba⬘trong benka biga bishong bugye chiba

bem bang

Chilom dardi demo dewa ditsün

char lam dar mda⬘ brten lu sde wa

domu

rdo mu

Dongtruipi

stong mchod phul

Dratsang drong

grwa tshang

gedong Gedong⬘hong gedro

ka sdong

Godün gong⬘dreng

dgu ston

spos ka sbas ka

official appointed by provincial authorities (Chinese: xian guan) storage room cabin for herding cattle in summer incense-burner central pillar in the house mushroom (Chinese: songrong) prayer flag figure made of butter and roasted barley flour (also known as torma) ritual chanting for rain ritual arrow ritual basket of barley county official (Chinese: ying yuan) cloth tie in five colors, made for Gedong⬘hong pile of stones inscribed with mantras ceremony of ‘a thousand butter lamps’ name of main temple in Songtseling alcoholic drink made of fermented barley and milk pillar of a house ceremony of ‘putting up the pillars’ mixture of different grains inserted under the main pillar ‘[2]9th [day] festival’ sacred

Glossary gyamagyä gyantsen bugye Gyara

131

monastic management committee roof-top prayer flag brgya ri name of mountain meaning ‘a hundred mountain’ gyinkhor dkyil ⬘khor ‘nine-level mandala’ Gyunedi communal recitations on fifteenth day of fifth month Khawa Karpo kha ba dkar po name of mountain (pilgrimage site) lei glang male offspring of mdzo and mdzo mo lewa le earth up barley plants Lhakhu lha sku name of temple (Chinese: Baijin si) mubi traditional wedding dress Nagchu nag chu name of river meaning ‘black river’ naicha gnas chu holy water from sacred site Nainu gnas gnad name of temple meaning ‘important sacred site’ Omachu ⬘oma chu name of river meaning ‘milky river’ Pasangsheng dpag bsam shing name of tree at the center of the world Pema Chungnye pad ma ⬘byung gnas Tibetan name for Padmasambhava rangsheng rack for drying barley Rawashüka name of mountain meaning ‘chicken foot mountain’ Shambagönma byams pa mgonpo name of the future Buddha Shambagönma byams pa mgonpo festival of ‘taking out Dendrong gdan drang Shambagönma’ sheche rack for drying hay and other crops shua local Tibetan headdress shuka tsho khag village ti mthud sour cream cheese trui ston pa the Buddha truicha ston chu ‘Buddha water’; holy water from temple yamentaye official appointed by provincial authorities (Chinese: xian guan) yidröla the chanting of invocations yira yi rwa walled compound for threshing

Notes

1 Localizing Shangrila 1 Swain (1989: 85) similarly defines ethnic tourism as ‘the marketing of tourist attractions based on an indigenous population’s way of life’. 2 The Zhongdian County History (Duan 1997: 57) provides a figure of about 99 percent Tibetans for the rural township of Da Zhongdian. 3 According to Wiens (1954: 323) Zhongdian was first organized as a magistrate of the Qing Empire in 1724. 4 See Hillman (2003), Yue (2005) and Tang (1999, in Chinese) for details of the ‘discovery’ of Shangrila in Diqing. 5 The title of the application document is ‘Guanyu yunnan sheng diqing zangzu zizhizhou zhongdian xian gengming wei xianggelila xian de qingshi’ or ‘Application concerning the Name Change of Yunnan Province, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Zhongdian County to Shangrila County’ (see Hillman 2003). 6 The members of this expedition were Edward E. Vaill, a lawyer from Malibu, California, and Peter Klika, a former US State Department officer in Taiwan. 7 Throughout this study, I use the term ‘locals’ as my informants would use the term bendiren, referring to people originating within the county or prefecture, depending on the context. Identification as bendiren, and its opposite waidiren (‘outsider’) is of course subject to negotiation. 2 The political economy of tourism 1 As of the late 1990s Diqing had 33 state industrial enterprises and 153 collective enterprises (China Intercontinental Press 1997). Three hydroelectric power stations had been constructed in the area. Other enterprises involve the cultivation of agricultural products such as flowers, fruits and nuts for export. 2 In an interview the prefecture governor stated that on average 80 percent of government expenditures were subsidies from the province and central governments. He further explained that the total government expenditure of Diqing Prefecture in 2001 was 780 million CNY, and the expenditure of Shangrila County was 180 million CNY. 3 Plans developed by the Diqing government for the years 2000–2020 covered an ‘outer planning region’ with a tourist route traversing Tibetan areas in the three provinces, corresponding to the ‘Shangrila Ecological Tourism Region’. 4 Yunnan Sheng Chengxiang Guihua Sheji Yanjiuyuan Yunnan Sheng Diqing Zangzu Zizhizhou Lüyouju [Yunnan Province Urban Rural Planning Institute and Yunnan Province Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Tourism Department]. Document number 0870041. Diqing Zangzu Zizhizhou Lüyou Fazhan

Notes

5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17 18 19

20

21 22 23 24 25

133

Zongti Guihua: Wenben [Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Tourism Overall Development Plan: Text] September 2002. For statistical purposes the number of tourist arrivals to the prefecture is calculated on the basis of hotel registration forms, and includes all visitors who stay at least one night in a hotel. As for income from tourism, this is calculated according to six different categories, including dining, transportation, purchases, entertainment and accommodation. Total figures are compiled from a percentage calculated for a few sample enterprises that report on how much of their income is derived from tourism. Banyan Tree Spas and Resorts, the owners of Gyalthang Hotel, is based in Thailand and runs hotels, resorts and spas across Asia, including island resorts in the Maldives and Seychelles. Qianhu Shan, literally ‘thousand lakes mountain’, is known in Tibetan as Lhamo Dongtso or ‘thousand lakes of the goddess Lhamo’. Promotional booklet published by Yunnan Ziyuan Company, undated. Interview with managerial staff, March 2003. Two of these sites, Bita Lake and Haba Snow Mountain are designated provincial Nature Reserves. April 2003. When I returned in 2004 the renovation was completed, and the reception area had a stupa and a bright mandala painted on the ceiling. The windows on the front wall were refurnished with ‘Tibetan’ frames (widening towards the bottom) and the new entranceway carried signs in Tibetan, Chinese and English. A special case in point is the use of hot springs, since these have a long history as communal recreational sites. Not far from Zhongxin Town, two such sites have been developed as commercial enterprises. McKhann (2001: 165), writing on tourism development in Lijiang, notes that chuan meizi is a Yunnanese slang for a female prostitute that implies that she is originally from Sichuan, despite that many of the women so labeled are actually Yunnan natives. See especially Davis (2005), Hyde (2001) and Walsh (2001). For a discussion of ethnic ‘gendering’, particularly the feminization of minorities in China, see Gladney (1994), Litzinger (2000) and Schein (2000). www.x-trekkers.com/archive/opshang2002/oslindex.html (accessed 1 December 2006). www.law.harvard.edu/alumni/bulletin/2002/spring/feature_2–4.html (accessed 28 May 2004). http://nature.org/aboutus/howwework/about/art7002.html (accessed 28 May 2004). Related to this effort is TNC’s Photovoice Project, funded by the Ford Foundation, which was devised as a ‘participatory approach’ to inform the Yunnan Great Rivers Project. www.nature.org/wherewework/asiapacific/china/strategies/art13391.html# tourism (accessed 1 December 2006). See also http://nature.org/aboutus/howwework/about/art7005.html (accessed 28 May 2004); ‘Stress on Forest Function: Clearing for yak grazing; roads and corridors for tourist development; harvesting of wood for fuel (energy) and housing construction’. www.unep-wcmc.org/sites/wh/Three_Parallel.html (accessed 28 May 2004). Ibid. Ibid. The villages are identified as ‘representative of Tibetan, Naxi, Bai, Lisu, Nu, Pumi and Dulong cultures’. Text of the World Heritage Committee Inscription, 27 COM 8C.4, Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, China. www.unep-wcmc.org/sites/wh/Three_Parallel.html (accessed 1 January 2007).

134

Notes

26 Established in 2000, CEPF is a joint initiative of Conservation International, the GEF, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. 3 Issues and methods 1 The role of culture brokers as mediators in the host–guest relationship was first described by Smith (1989). 2 Hurley and Trimarco (2004) similarly analyze ‘Ground Zero’ in New York as ‘sacred space’. 3 Several of these writers have drawn on Turner (1973, 1974). 4 As the last reference shows, Bender (especially Bender 1993c, 2001) has the contestation of landscapes as a primary focus, and thus understands ‘senses of place’ as contested. 5 For instance, Foucault (1991: 36) argues that: ‘An experience is neither true nor false: it is always a fiction, something constructed, which exists only after it has been made, not before’. 6 See also Kockelmans (1967). 4 Sacred space, state territory and tourist destination 1 This chapter is in part based on an article that was printed in Tourism Geographies, a journal published by Taylor and Francis (Kolås 2004). 2 As described by Ming (2001), ‘Zhuo Kangcang’ was associated with the area called Jiangbian Qianzong, now known as Sanba and Jinjiang, ‘Zhaya’ and ‘Duke’ with Da Zhongdian and contemporary Zhongxin Town respectively, ‘Yangduo’ with Xiao Zhongdian, ‘Longba’ with Nixi and Dongwang, and ‘Jiedi’ with Geza. Finally, ‘Xiangcheng Kangcang’ was associated with Xiangcheng, which is now in Ganzi Prefecture in Sichuan, but was previously administered as a part of Zhongdian County. 3 Scholars of Tibetan Buddhism agree that the cult of the yul lha, involving competitions such as horseracing and archery, singing and dancing, and the planting of ritual arrows in a cairn, pre-dates the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet. As evidence Buffetrille (1998: 20) notes that territorial gods (yul lha) are mentioned in Tibetan texts excavated at Dunhuang from as early as the seventh– tenth centuries. 4 See Buffetrille (1994), Filibeck (1990), Huber (1994, 1997) and Kapstein (1997) for descriptions of such pilgrimage guidebooks. Khawa Karpo has its own pilgrimage guide, written in the thirteenth century by Karma Bashi. 5 The extent of ‘overlaying’ of ritual traditions is evident in that some Buddhist monastic communities perform rituals for the local ri bdag, whereas visits to mountain pilgrimage sites such as Khawa Karpo involve many of the same ritual activities that are performed for the ri bdag, especially the lighting of bsang along the route. 6 The term shen could be translated as ‘slave’ (Chinese: nuli), while yog means ‘servant’. Not all house servants were ‘slaves’, however, and the term nang ⬘zin was used as a more general term for servant. 7 This is a term that denotes hereditary headmen or chieftains, usually among ethnic minority groups, appointed in the Yuan, Ming or Qing dynasties. 8 Zhongdian County History (Duan 1997: 304) provides statistics on several of the ‘class’ categories introduced by the PRC authorities during this period, and details on ‘transferred farmland’ in selected areas of Zhongdian County (covering almost 80 percent of the county’s households).

Notes

135

9 For descriptions of this project see among others Gladney (2004), Harrell (1995: 23–24), Heberer (1989: 30–35), Oakes (1997: 44–47) and Stockman (2000: 41). 10 Hsieh (1959) provides a fascinating account of how the Chinese science of geography in the 1950s was influenced by Soviet geography, adopting its distinctly materialist approach. 11 See Nora (1996, 1997) for descriptions of similar commemorations, and reconstructions, of the French past. 12 See Ap (2003) for an overview of theme park development in China. 13 Interestingly, this writer confuses the origins of the name, describing it as ‘an ancient myth’. 5 Hallowed ground 1 Huber (1999) also translates gnas (transliterated as né) in the context of pilgrimage as ‘abode’. 2 The association of a particular site with a specific year of the 12-year zodiac also applies to some of the local sacred sites. For instance, Pamanai is best visited in the Year of the Pig, and as with ‘Chicken Foot Mountain’ the name pama is associated with the word ‘pig’. 3 Men also perform communal rituals for the klu, while women are more actively involved in rituals for the klu within the household. 4 There seems to be a strong case for interpreting rituals for the ri bdag as ‘masculine’. On the other hand, one mountain on the outskirts of Zhongxin Town has a pair of peaks known as Rimo (meaning ‘women’s mountain’) and Rido (meaning ‘men’s mountain’), where women from a neighboring village perform rituals at the women’s peak whereas men use the men’s peak. 5 Tibetan Buddhists always circumambulate sacred sites clockwise, whereas adherents of Bön walk counterclockwise. 6 Under this system, after a marriage the household who lost one of its members would also lose the amount of land allocated in that village to each person, whereas the household that received a new member would get an additional amount of land. Whenever a household member died or a baby was born into the household, fields were similarly reallocated. 7 In the local dialect the female of the yak is called ngyo (Tibetan: ⬘bri), while the offspring of yak and cow are called dzo (Tibetan: mdzo) if they are male and dzomo (mdzo mo) if they are female. The offspring of crossbreeds are called lei (glang) if they are male and ba if they are female. 8 Another alcoholic drink, drong, is made from fermented barley and milk, and is usually served during weddings and especially to women who have recently given birth. 9 See Corlin (1978) for a description of pre-Communist structures of landholding and kinship. 10 In the local dialect gedong means ‘pillar’, and hong means ‘to put up’. 11 In Chinese Lhakhu is known as Baijin Si, or ‘White Gold Temple’. 12 A lake in Jisha village is called Chilom Tso because local people put up pieces of cloth on the banks of this lake when they want rain. 13 At the end of the main street in Zhongxin there is a statue featuring a horseman picking up a scarf from the ground, with the poetic title ‘Flying horseman picking up silver’. 14 Chinese: Dabao Si, literally ‘Great Treasure Temple’. 15 The ‘sun and moon’ symbol is reproduced in a large number of contexts, among them as a protective symbol on the front of trucks. As will be explained later, the ‘sun and moon’ is also brought to bear in the Tibetan translation of the name Shangrila.

136

Notes

16 The units responsible for promotion were Deqin County, Kunming Municipality and Diqing Prefecture. 17 As the situation may be subject to change, I am referring in both cases only to the time of fieldwork. 6 Imagining the nation 1 The successive stages of society are primitive society (Chinese: yuanshi shehui), slave society (nuli shehui), feudal society (fengjian shehui), capitalist society (ziben zhuyi shehui) and socialist society (shehui zhuyi shehui). 2 The Bön religion is sometimes subdivided into ‘Black Bön’, ‘White Bön’ and ‘Mixed Color Bön’. 3 I attended one such wedding, which was celebrated in a hotel dining hall. On this occasion the Tibetan bride wore a white wedding gown and the Bai bridegroom wore a black suit, both typically ‘Western’ style. 4 As explained, the Naxi conceive of the world as containing three realms: heaven, the human world and the underworld or hell. After people die, their spirit descends to the underworld. The relatives of the deceased invites a Dongba to recite scriptures in their home, to help the spirit of the dead reach heaven, where they believe that he or she will stay forever. 5 I was told that the fourth reincarnation of Ami was alive at the time of my stay in Diqing. 6 In some Tibetan areas family names have been used, particularly among the nobility, but at present this is not the case in Shangrila. 7 If a child is seriously ill the parents might change his or her name, to help fight the disease. 8 Most people find it easier to use a Chinese name than to spell their Tibetan name with Chinese characters, although this is of course also possible. 9 For instance, in a music video featuring ‘house’ style Tibetan pop music, ‘Tibetan-ness’ is displayed solely in the costume of the performer. The female lead singer is set on a completely anonymous disco dance floor with flashing lights, where she jumps up and down in a bright red Tibetan chuba dress and huge fur hat. 10 Yangchen Lhamo is a singer from Diqing who is well-known all over Tibet, but especially popular in her home area. 11 See, for example, Nyíri (2006), Oakes (1997, 1998) and Schein (2000). 12 The government provides financial support for the maintenance of ancient buildings or ‘cultural relics’, and the culture departments manage these funds. Songtseling Monastery has the status of province cultural relic site, while the Tibetan Public Hall (Chinese: Zanggong Tang) in the Old Town is a state level site. 13 Transcribed in pinyin; Tibetan spellings unknown. 14 One such event was the October 2000 ‘Yunnan Province Tourism Festival’, where a large group of monks from Songtseling performed masked dances. 15 The head of the Tibetan Studies Research Center was one of the regular lecturers on Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture, and another was the deputy head of the tourism department. Both graduated in Tibetan Studies from the Central Nationalities University in Beijing. 16 One prominent religious figure claimed that in Diqing, awareness about the importance of preserving Tibetan culture only had a history of about five to six years, coinciding with the increased economic significance of tourism since 1998. 17 In one such exhibition an entire ‘kitchen’ wall had been replicated. 18 Silk images of deities, usually appliqué or painted.

Notes

137

7 Shangrila: a space of dreams 1 This percentage appears to have remained steady, at least since 1998. In 1996 the share of foreign tourist arrivals was higher, at 16 percent, but this included visitors from Hong Kong and Macau who were later counted as ‘domestic’ tourists. 2 Foreign travelers I met in Shangrila were from Australia, Canada, USA, France, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Finland, Spain, Italy, Israel, Malaysia, Japan and Singapore. 3 For instance, the headquarters of the Three Parallel Rivers Project is a grand ‘Tibetan-style’ building with a large driveway and parking lot outside. 4 A.C. Barnes, Chinese through Poetry: An Introduction to the Language and Imagery of Traditional Verse. Unit 31, online at: www.archiebarnes.com (accessed 15 December 2006). 5 Ibid. 6 Tibetan: rgyal thang rdzong sham bha la. 7 Tibetan: sems kyi nyi zla gling ga. 8 Tibetan: sems kyi nyi zla gtan du gnas bar shog. 9 The ‘deity’ (Tibetan: lha) Shamba. 10 Tibetans also use the name bde ba can gya zhing khams, the ‘land of happiness’. 11 This description is based on Lopez (1998: 182), drawn from Newman (1991). 12 The Soviet Union and Japan fought a short war in 1939, which led to an armistice kept by both parties until August 1945, when the first nuclear bomb attack was launched against Japan. The Soviet Union then broke the truce and attacked Manchuria. 13 In 2002 the county authorities even banned the use of plastic shopping bags, and made paper bags available instead. 8 Tourism, place-making and Tibetan identity 1 Among these are a ‘Naxi family guesthouse’ at Tiger Leaping Gorge and the ‘Dongba Culture Entertainment Center’ at Baishuitai, mentioned above. 2 Interestingly, Peng (1998) notes that the abbot of the local monastery attributed the decline of pilgrimage in the area after the introduction of tourism to the ‘backwardness’ of local culture compared to that of the core areas of Tibet. Officials at the Religious Affairs Bureau, however, claimed that the decline of pilgrimage was a positive sign that indicated the increasing influence of ‘advanced’ Han culture. 3 For a description of another such ‘theme park temple’, see Gladney (2004: 41– 46). 4 Better known to Western Buddhists as the three jewels: ‘Buddha, Dharma and Sangha’.

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Index

agriculture, 66–71 architecture, 107–110, 121; buildings ‘Tibetanized’, 107; and renovation, 107–108; ‘Tibetanstyle’, 108, 109, 120 ‘authentic’, ‘authenticity’ see cultural markers

Bai, 2, 52, 81, 101 Baishuitai (White Water Terraces), 13, 17, 85, 99; and ‘Naxi festival’, 85, 86; as ‘Naxi’ place, 121, 122 Bali, 30 biodiversity, 16, 24, 25 Bita Lake, 17, 18, 43, 102 Bön religion, 82, 85 Buddhism, 9, 119; and future Buddha, 115; Han Buddhism, 84, 85; and identity, 84; and Kalachakra, 9, 108, 115, 116; and ‘Tibetan Buddhist culture’, 100, 105, 128; and Tibetan Buddhist history, 38, 39, 56 Buddhist literature, 40

Central Nationalities Institute, Beijing, 3 Chicken Foot Mountain see Rawashüka

China, Chinese 1, 42; and ethnic identity, 79, 80, 84, 89, 107, 123; Han and ‘ethnic minorities’, 79, 80; and images of Tibet, 104, 125, 126; and Marxism, 79, 80; and ‘minority nationality areas’, 79; as multiethnic state, 47; and ‘nationality’ policy, 46, 82; population, 2; and public holidays, 45, 49, 89; and tourism 1, 98 Chinese Communism, 3, 78; and classifying ‘nationalities’, 82; renaming of places, 119; view of the ‘Tibetan’, 122 clothing (dress) see ethnic identity (clothing) commodification of culture, 26, 27, 29, 40, 54, 100, 120, 121 cultural markers, 100, 121; and ‘authenticity’, 121, 123–126, 128, 129 cultural products, 26, 50, 98, 100, 105, 106; books as, 102, 103; and consumption, 19, 29; souvenirs as, 100–102, 121; and tourism, 121, 123, 124 ‘cultural programs’, 16, 17 Cultural Revolution (1966–76), 44, 47, 49 cultural specialists, 99, 102

150

Index

Dali, 4, 15, 24, 57 death ritual, 63 Deqin County, 2, 104; population, 2; tourism, 2 Dhondrupling Monastery, 38, 114 Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture 1, 2, 46; and Bön religion, 82; Culture Department, 2; Department of Religious Affairs, 2; development plans, 2, 14; Diqing, 2, 3, 8; economics of, 11, 12; and environment, 23; ‘ethnic song and dance troupe’, 94; income from tourism, 53; logging in, 11; and meaning of place, 46, 47; and ‘place-making’, 78; and prefectural name, 42; as multiethnic area, 2; mythology and ‘spirituality’, 51, 52; Tourism Department, 2, 12, 79 Disneyland, 35, 36; Main Street, USA, 34, 35; and Walt Disney, 35 Dokar Dzong (Old Town), 4, 7 Dongba culture see Naxi

ecotourism, 12, 17, 22, 23 environmental protection, 22; and Shangrila, 116 ethnic identification project (minzu shibie), 46, 81, 92 ethnic identity 1, 50; catagories, 82; and clothing (dress), 81, 82, 91–93, 95; and diversity, 50; and tourism, 89, 92, 121 ethnic markers, 50, 80, 81, 92, 99 ethnic minorities, 1, 16; ‘cultural experts’, 3, 17, 100, 101, 112; Hui, 2, 16, 84, see also Hui language skills, 3; Lisu, 2, 16, 86, 94, 101; and mass media, 90–92; Miao, 2;

and minzu culture, 90–92, 103, 106, 120; Naxi, 2, 16, 81, 82, 84, 86, 94, see also Naxi; population, 2; Pumi, 2, 81, 86; and ‘stages of development’, 70; Yi, 2, 16, 81, 86, 91, 94, 101, 121; Zhuang, 2 ethnic tourism, 2, 10, 12, 26, 27, 29, 31, 107; and culture brokers, 3, 28, 98, 99, 100; development projects, 50; and ethnic relations, 74, 75; market forces, 51, 89

festivals, 70, 71, 89; and different calendars, 67; Duan Wu Jie (May Fifth Festival), 67, 68; Monlam Chenmo, 66, 67, 71, 115; New Year, 66, 67, 69, 70; Sakadawa, 68; Tomb Sweeping Day, 45, 67, 89 film and photography, 17, 72, 73, 83, 90, 104; Lost Horizon, 111; Shangrila, 112, 113

guesthouses see ‘Tibet family houses’ (zangmin jiafang) Gyalthang, 2, 34, 66; and Chinese control, 42; crops, foodstuffs, 62; household economy, 61, 62; name and history, 1, 4, 5, 118, 119; and place-making, 40, 55, 71, 72, 123; Tibetan Buddhist realm, 122

Han Chinese see Chinese handicrafts, handicraft products, 18, 50, 92, 100, 101, 102, 121 Hapi (monastery), 66 Heidegger, Martin, 33, 34, 36 Hilton, James, 5–8, 51, 52 104, 111, 113

Index house, household, 62–64 Hui (Muslims), 2, 16; identity, 84, 87, 88; and ritual specialist (ahong), 87 Hutiaoxia see Tiger Leaping Gorge

Jinsha (Golden Sand) River see Yangtze River Jiuzhaigou, 31, 125

Kalachakra see Buddhism Kham, 83 Khampa Arts Festival, 7, 83 Khampa identity, 83 Khawa Karpo Mountain, 18, 23, 40, 72; as model for ‘Mount Karakal’, 6; and mountaineering, 106; as pilgrimage site, 41, 55, 73; and reassertion of Tibetan-ness, 45; as sacred site, 56, 57, 93, 122; and tourism, 75, 76; as tourist destination, 50, 51, 73

Labrang Monastery, 74, 75 Lijiang, 3, 8; airport, 3; as model for tourism, 3; Mu kingdom, 4, 5, 7, 85; Old Town, 3; Sathang (ancient name), 4; World Heritage site, 3 Lost Horizon, 5, 6, 7, 8, 51, 104, 111, 113, 117

marriage, 63, 64, 69, 83, 84 medicine, 18; Tibetan medicine, 101 Meili Snow Mountain see Khawa Karpo Mountain

151

minorities, minority nationalities see ethnic minorities minzu see ethnic minorities Mongols, 106, 107 Mosuo, 93, 107 mountain cults and pilgrimage, 40, 41; deities, 60; and gender, 58, 59; and ri bdag (‘mountain owner’), 40, 41, 57–60, 68, 70 Mount Rdza-dkar, 30, 31 Mu kingdom see Lijiang mushrooms, 3, 19; Matsutake, 19

name, 1, 29 name change (Shangrila) see Shangrila names and place names, 2, 4, 5, 7, 47, 49, 78 Napa Lake, 96 National Geographic Society, 6 nationalities see ethnic minorities Nationalities Village, Kunming, 95, 96, 127; and Tibetan Buddhist temple, 127, 128 Naxi, 7, 122, see also ethnic minorities; Dongba culture and religion, 7, 17, 82, 85–87, 99, 103, 122; houses, 121; and identity, 85–87 NGOs (non-governmental organizations), 10, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 114, 117 Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, 24 nuns, 43, 44, 63, 76

Padmasambhava (Pema Chungnye), 40, 56 Pamanai cave, 55

152

Index

Panchen Lama, 45, 116; and visit to Diqing, 45, 46 Peach Blossom Source, 110, 111 People’s Liberation Army, 42, 48, 49 People’s Republic of China see China, Chinese photography see film and photography place-making, 8, 33, 34, 38, 40, 55, 78, 119; see also Gyalthang prostitution, 21

Qianhu Mountain, 18

Rawashüka (Jizu Shan), 57 ri bdag (‘mountain owner’) see mountain cults and pilgrimage Ringa temple, 55, 57, 66, 67, 71 ritual practices, 55–58, 60; and agricultural cycle, 66–69; Chilom, 67, 68; communal, 66; and festivals, 66–71; Gedong’hong, 65; for the household, 64–66; and reaffirming identity, 61; and relationships with gnas, 61 ritual sites, 58, 59; and community 59 Rock, Joseph, 7

‘sacred sites’ (gnas), 56, 57 Sanba Township, 13, 86, 87; see also Baishuitai Sangmu Lama, 42 Sathang see Lijiang Shambhala, 9, 105, 114, 129; and comparison with Shangrila, 113, 114, 117; first European reference to, 115; legend of, 112;

location of, 115, 116; and prophecy, 116; and utopia, 105, 114, 119 Shangrila (Xianggelila), 1, 5, 6, 9, 13, 26, 29, 36; academic promotion of, 7; construction of place, 4; ‘cultural resources’, 13; and ‘development’, 79; as dream, 120, 128, 129; and imagination, 38; marketing, 100; name, 5–7, 9, 11; name change, 12, 13, 29, 51, 53, 94, 95, 109, 112, 114; ‘natural resources’, 13; newspaper reports, 7; and political currency, 25; popular image of, 5; and reasons to visit, 105, 125, 126, 129; re-invention of, 8, 123; and ‘sacredness’, 74 ; search for, 5, 6; and Shambhala, 9, see also Shambhala; as Tibetan mythology, 110, 111; and Tibetan translation, 118, 119; and tourism, 20, 21, 106, 107, 120; as utopia, 51, 52, 119, 129; and wages, 20 Shangrila County, 1, 2, 13, 16 Shangri-La Hotels, 112 Shangrila Regional Airport, 3 shaoshu minzu see ethnic minorities sheche (drying racks), 64, 68, 78, 100, 109, 110 Sichuan Province, 6, 7, 12, 46, 48, 58, 83, 84, 99, 102, 105 Songtseling Monastery, 7, 14, 48, 56, 66, 99, 122; fees, 14, 53; and female tourists, 75; festivals and rituals, 69–71; founding of, 38; and Lhakhu temple, 55, 56, 67; and local government, 39; management committee, 14; monastic colleges, 39, 66, 85; monastic education, 63; and

Index souvenirs, 100; tombs near, 89; and tourism, 50, 51, 74–76, 106, 122; and Zhalaju, 55, 70 Songtsen Gampo, 4, 102 souvenirs see cultural products ‘space and place’, 34–37, 38

Tao Yuanming, 110 tea and horse trade route, 5 thangka, 64, 71, 101, 102, 114 The Nature Conservancy (TNC), 22, 23; and Yunnan Great Rivers Project, 22 Three Parallel Rivers National Park, 24 ‘Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Area’ (UNESCO), 23, 24 Tibet, Tibetans 1, 2; and Chinese influence, 83; and Chinese surnames, 89; clothing, 81, 93, 95; cultural products, 1, 3, 8, 93; cultural revival, 2; enterprises owned by, 17, 18; and identity, 82–84, 90, 93, 120; and mixed marriages, 83, 84; and modernity, 31; population, 2; rural areas, 2, 3, 17, 18; song and dance, 93–95, 124 Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), 12, 109; Chamdo District, 12 Tibetan medicine see medicine ‘Tibet family houses’ (zangmin jiafang), 19, 20, 102, 125 ; income, 96–99, 122, 124 Tiger Leaping Gorge (Hutiaoxia), 3, 13, 16, 17, 24, 25; and Tibetans, 82, 93; and tourism, 106 Tiger Leaping Gorge dam project, 24, 25

153

tourism, 1, see also ethnic tourism; as agent of change, 27, 28; and authenticity, 31–36; Chinese, 53, 54, 126; and conflict, 13, 15; corporate players, 15, 17; as ‘cultural pilgrimage’, 71, 72; and culture brokers, 28, 29, 98–100, 125; development 1, 2, 13, 25; economics of, 10, 11, 50; fees and entrance fees, 14, 16, 76; and gender, 74, 75; and global networks, 21; history, 10; impact of, 30, 31; income gap, 26; investment, 18; literature on, 25; and monasticism, 74, 75; and myth of Shambhala, 116; and name change, 112, 119; as pilgrimage, 32; private tourism 1, 3; and revival of Tibetan culture, 123; and Shangrila promotion, 6, 7, 13; and stereotypes, 92, 93, 103; tea and horse trade route, 5 ‘tourist gaze’, 29, 34, 53 Trinyi village, 22

utopia, 51, 52, 107, 110, 119, 120, 127

weddings see marriage Weixi Lisu Autonomous County, 2 White Water Terraces see Baishuitai World Conservation Monitering Centre (UNEP), 23

Xianggelila see Shangrila

Yangtze River, 4, 11, 24, 86; and dams, 24, 25

154

Index

Yila Grasslands, 93, 96, 122 Yönden (monastery), 66 Yunnan Province, 2, 22, 23, 46, 83, 100; tourism revenues, 11, 12

Zhongdian, 1, 3; county organization, 39; established as Qing-Dynasty county, 39; land reform, 43, 44, 49; and the Long March, 47, 48; name and history, 5; and post-Mao reforms, 45, 46; and re-invention of place, 49; renaming, 53; as Shangrila, 7,

29; and social organization, 42, 43 Zhongxin Town, 2, 19; architecture, 66–71; backpackers, 4, 101; buildings, ‘Tibetan design’, 3; Dokar Dzong (Old Town), 4, 7; as ethnic meeting place, 81; heart of, 109; hotels, 2, 12, 14, 16; hotel tax, 12, 13; Memorial Park, 48, 82; prefectural capital, 2; prostitutes, 21; religious items, 102; smiths, 100; as ‘Tibetan toy town’, 107, 108; traffic, 3; transformation of townscape, 110, 120