KUNMING, China - As the road descends from
the mountain, winding its way through cliffs and
pine trees, the crater and the turquoise Lugu Lake
in its center come into view. The numerous trucks
roaming the bumpy road, raising clouds of dust,
somewhat disturb the serene atmosphere.
This writer debarked near Lige, formerly a
small Mousu minority village ideally located on a
small peninsula, accompanied by a
Chinese tourist. She complains
about the bad roads, as well as the lack of
authenticity of the villages. Like many others,
she has come to see the local Mousu people, a
small matriarchal group described in ads as "the
living fossil[s] of human society". A new road is
being built down the peninsula, and a few
bulldozers level the ground on the shore. The old
houses were all demolished, and rebuilt about 200
meters from the lake.
"We relocated the
people to protect the lake's ecosystem," explained
Yu Lijun, head of the lake-area administration
office. "We also try to protect the Mousu cultural
heritage. Notice how we rebuilt the farmhouses in
the old style. We don't allow the use of concrete
here." A rumor repeated to me by several local
residents and government sources, however, says
the vacated coastal strip is to be given to a Shanghai developer who
intends to build a five-star hotel on the site.
A local woman carrying rubble in a basket
on her back from the construction site, questioned
about the rumors, said she didn't know. She and
her neighbors were ordered to leave, but received
no explanation about what would be built instead
of their old family houses. "They said we were
polluting the lake, but we have been living here
always," she protested.
Yu insisted the
government's intention is only to help the local
people. "The scenery of the lake and the Mousu
culture are both very attractive for tourists," he
said. "Once more tourists come, the Mousu will
benefit greatly."
Lugu Lake and its
village are examples of a growing phenomenon in
China's mountainous Yunnan province:
"minority tourism".
The big ethnic
puzzle Yunnan, in southwestern China, has
historically been one of the poorest, most
backward provinces in the country. Ever since the
early 1990s, however, the provincial government
discovered what is now becoming a main source of
income for the area - tourism.
The
beautiful landscape of this mountainous region is
the province's biggest asset, but there is
another. Twenty-five of the 55 recognized minority
groups in China can be found in Yunnan, creating a
stunning profusion of customs, languages and
dress. From the Thai-related Dai tribe in the
south to Kamba Tibetans in the northwest, the 25
minorities are divided into hundreds of
distinguishable subgroups numbering from a few
thousand to several million and inhabiting all the
province's areas. This richness of cultures and
costumes is attracting growing attention from both
international and domestic travelers.
"Ethnic tourism" is defined by scholars as
a visit to ethnic groups with cultures different
from that of the majority in a certain country or
region. Other Asian countries long ago discovered
the gold mine this kind of tourism can be,
boasting an ever-growing flow of visitors to once
remote and isolated groups such as the "long-neck"
tribes in Thailand, or the Ifugao in the
Philippines. Yunnan is now following the same
path. Colorful posters in China's big cities show
attractive minority people wearing their
traditional costumes (or a modern rendition of
these costumes), and splashy ads lure urban
Chinese to visit their exotic and primitive lands.
As in the case of Southeast Asia, making
the people themselves a tourist attraction can
cause many unexpected complications. Field
research in different parts of Yunnan has shown
fast commercialization of the culture, as well as
a false representation of the minority culture,
and disrespect for their traditional way of life.
There is a tendency to present the minorities as
more exotic, romantic and primitive than they
really are, researchers argue.
The Mousu
people of Lugu Lake may have become the most
recent example. This obscure and mysterious
society has drawn much attention to itself in
recent years, as it is claimed to be one of the
world's last matriarchal societies. Traditionally,
Mousu couples didn't get married, but maintained
an arrangement known as "walking marriage", in
which the man goes to visit his lover at night,
but continues to live under his mother's roof.
This unique way of life, worthy of thorough
research, was severely misunderstood, and led many
Chinese tourists to see the lake area as a "girls'
kingdom", full of attractive free-loving women,
which was far from the true, highly conservative
nature of Mousu society. But the perception, false
though it was, still created a widespread
phenomenon of prostitution in the lake area.
South of Lugu Lake, the prefectural
capital Lijiang has become one of the hot spots of
tourism in China, receiving more than 3 million
visitors annually. The tourism boom in Lijiang
started with another boom. In 1996, an earthquake
hit the area, destroying much of the then-remote
town, but also drawing the world's attention to
Lijiang and its indigenous Naxi people. In 1997
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) put Lijiang on its
list of world cultural heritage sites, and the
tourism industry has grown in leaps and bounds
ever since.
"The Naxi people have
benefited a lot from tourism," said a local
resident, herself involved in the industry. "The
unemployment rate has dropped down to zero and
visitors bring much-needed income to this
previously poor area. I think Naxi culture has
benefited as well. There is huge international
interest in this ancient society, with numerous
research projects being conducted in recent years.
This has led many young Naxi to rediscover their
old culture.
"Back in 1995, there was
almost no interest in the old ways, but now you
see people studying Dongba [the old pictograph
script of the Naxi] and many are going back to old
traditions." She admitted, though, that this
interest is mainly profit-driven. "To a large
extent, Naxi culture became a commodity and is
offered for sale in Lijiang, but there is also a
lot of genuine interest."
Beggars and
the environment One of the questions that
have to be asked when a poor minority area
develops so fast is, who are the main
beneficiaries? In the case of Lijiang, it seems
the Naxi and other minorities have indeed gained
some economic benefits and improved their
previously very low standard of living; but the
big winners, as so often happens in China, are
outsiders.
All the big hotels and tourist
facilities in town are owned by investors from
eastern China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, while the Naxi
and other minorities are mainly employed in
low-paying jobs. The same is true for the southern
county of Xishuangbana, where the Dai people
perform festival dances for tourists staying in
big foreign-owned hotels. In the provincial
capital Kunming, it seems as if the minorities'
participation in the local economy comes mainly in
the form of women selling handicrafts on the
sidewalks outside big hotels and coffee shops, or
just sending their children to beg.
Begging is a problem often related to
minority tourism, and is becoming more and more
evident in Yunnan. Along the shore of Lugu Lake,
children dressed in rags chase tourists, calling,
"Aunt, uncle, give me an apple."
"They
know there is money in tourism," said a restaurant
owner from Luoshui village, "but they are not sure
how to get this money." The solution, he said,
should be found in government incentives and
education programs to help youths from the
villages integrate better into the industry and
get their fair share of the profits.
Yunnan is famous for more than just
curious ethnic groups. The province, known in
Chinese history as "the kingdom of flowers", is
celebrated for its diverse landscape and many
microclimates and ecosystems. Environmentalists in
particular consider northwestern Yunnan an
"ecological hot spot" worthy of intense
protection. In 2003 UNESCO declared most of the
area between Lijiang and the Tibetan border a
world natural heritage site known as "the three
parallel rivers park".
Many international
non-governmental organizations are working on
environmental protection projects there, as well
as in other parts of Yunnan. They see the hordes
of tourists as a threat to this unique environment
and warn that the current rate of economic growth
is unsustainable. Organizations such as US-based
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) are trying to develop
alternatives to mass tourism, in the form of more
environmentally and culturally sensitive
ecotourism activities. This trend turns against
the tide of mass tourism, and the hunger of local
government and local communities seeking quick
gains by accommodating as many tourists as
possible, but it is a growing niche.
Lily
Zhang is a young woman of the Naxi minority,
trained by TNC to be a tour guide in Lashi Hai, a
protected area for migratory birds near Lijiang.
"Visitors who come here are mainly individual
travelers, and almost all of them are westerners,"
she said. "They are people interested in seeing
the minority culture and helping the local
economy. The profits from these tours go directly
to the villagers, not to any big company, and more
tourists are now interested in making this
contribution."
With growing awareness in
Beijing of the need for
sustainable development, people working on
conservation in Yunnan are hoping the ecotourism
trend will grow to draw more Chinese visitors, as
well as government support. If in the early '90s
most visitors to Yunnan were Westerners, the
economic development and lifting of travel
restrictions for Chinese citizens has resulted in
more and more urban Chinese exploring their
homeland, and Yunnan has become one of their
favorite destinations. According to China's
statistics bureau, almost 90% of the visitors to
the province in 2004 were domestic tourists, and
the industry is cut to their size, following the
average urban-traveler preferences.
China's minority groups have always been a
source of curiosity to the Han majority.
Throughout the long history of the Middle Kingdom,
these people were perceived as exotic barbarians
to be contained or feared. Though today almost
none of Yunnan's minorities (save perhaps
Tibetans) are showing any aspiration for
independence, the old image prevails, and the
visitor from Shanghai or Zhejiang is looking for
primitive exotic people selling pretty
embroideries and performing dances. In
commercialized tourist zones such as Lijiang and
its neighbors Dali and Zhongdian, this is exactly
what he'll get, sometimes at the expense of real
development and progress offered to the minorities
themselves.
The tensions are not just
between Han and non-Han. The many ethnic groups of
Yunnan are different in almost every aspect of
their lives, and were often involved in conflicts
throughout the province's turbulent history. The
attention some of these groups have been getting
has brought some old enmities back to the surface.
While the Dai of Xishuangbana hold daily
water-splashing festivals for visitors, other
ethnic groups in the south stay hidden in their
forest havens, making hardly any contact with the
outside world.
While the Naxi and Bai
cultures of Lijiang and Dali are known throughout
the world, their neighboring Yi minority, the
largest ethnic group in Yunnan and once the rulers
of the whole southwest, are almost completely
ignored. The Yi autonomous counties in Yunnan and
Sichuan count among the poorest in China. Many
Naxi consider the Yi to be "troublemakers", while
the Yi scorn the Naxi, who they say are "losing
their culture and becoming just like the Chinese".
The Mousu in Lugu are getting intense and
often negative attention, but their close
relations, the Pumi, are little known. This uneven
development and profit share in a province where
almost 50% of the population is non-Han can
threaten social stability in Yunnan and lead to
estrangement from Chinese society of some of the
more marginalized minority groups, researchers
warn.
Ecotourism as a
solution Ecotourism can be the answer. Mu
Shangxun is another Naxi tour guide in Lijiang. He
takes small groups of mainly European travelers
for hikes into remote minority villages where they
stay with local families and experience the
culture first-hand.
"In Lijiang," Mu told
me over tea in the overcrowded "Naxi corridor" in
town, "there is no real experience for tourists
anymore. It's all just shops and commodities. It
is very disappointing for visitors from Europe
looking for encounters with ancient cultures. We
take them to the villages, and there they feel the
experience is real."
Ecotourism "is
definitely a growing niche in the market", said a
French tour operator who works with Mu. "Mass
tourism and luxury hotels aren't going to
disappear, but alongside the more traditional
tourism activities of shopping and sightseeing,
there is a growing search for more unique
experiences. People in Europe want to travel to
places that are intact, and we'll see this trend
spreading in coming years.
"In my opinion,
Yunnan has got much to offer for the ecotourism
market, and the provincial government should take
that into consideration. They can benefit a lot
[from] this market; I believe the trend will catch
up with Chinese tourists as well."
Shaxi as a test case A fine
example of such enterprises is the Shaxi
Rehabilitation Project, initiated by Dr Jacques
Feiner of the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology. Shaxi is a small market town on the
old tea-and-horse trade route connecting China to
Tibet.
A bit out
of the way, between the booming towns of Dali and
Lijiang, this mainly Bai-populated valley has
received very little attention so far. In 2001,
after a visit to the area, Feiner initiated a
project, with Swiss funding, to restore some
buildings and temples at the old marketplace of
Shaxi. After the town was listed among the 100
most endangered sites for the World Monuments Fund
(WMF), additional funding was raised and an
overall plan was formulated for the development of
the valley for tourism, with strong emphasis on
cultural conservation and endogenous
growth.
"When I first told my guides in
China that the dilapidated market square of Sideng
was their main [site with tourist] potential they
did not believe it. Later, after Shaxi had been
selected for the WMF List of the 100 most
endangered sites, the attitude of the local
government reversed completely to the other
extreme. At that time, they virtually believed
that they could build a second Lijiang in a two
years' time. Despite us telling the government
from the start that this was neither possible nor
desirable, their dreams were 'flying high' and the
deception was therefore even stronger when they
realized that their plans were in fact not
possible in Shaxi and neither were the enormous
profits," Feiner said.
Quite different
from the fashion of Chinese government officials,
the project people are preaching slow development
without excessive commercialization, or what
Feiner calls "Lijiangization" of the Shaxi Valley.
"Lijiang is not a good example for us,"
said Huang Yinwu, an architect and the project
manager onsite in Shaxi. "Naxi culture is sold to
tourists in Lijiang like in a big shopping mall.
Development there isn't sustainable. If the
tourism boom declines, there will be nothing left
of the culture."
In Shaxi, he explained,
tourism isn't yet established, and it remains
uncertain how it is going to develop. There is no
hotel in town, only a few family guesthouses.
"We are in discussion with suitable
investors for a hotel project," said Feiner. "I
put here the emphasis on 'suitable investor'
because this investor should also be in charge of
running the hotel and have relevant experience in
the region. The goal is to create an ambiance
hotel with not too many rooms, built for a
selected class of tourists, and not a place for
mass tourism. We are aiming at mainly cultural and
individual or small-group tourism. We set as a
target figure 1-1.5% of the cumulated tourist
figures of Dali and Lijiang, which would thus be
between 80,000 and 120,000 tourists a year. Seen
within the dynamics of tourism in the region, this
is very realistic."
On the monthly market
day in Shaxi, as farmers from the nearby villages
streamed into town for their Spring Festival
shopping, poverty was very evident in the villages
and the inadequate, dusty roads between them. Most
of the people I asked either did not know about
the project or were skeptical about the prospect
of tourism ever actually coming to Shaxi.
One enthusiastic supporter was a Mr Zao,
the owner of a guesthouse. "It can help us so
much. It can create jobs for young people so they
don't have to leave and look for jobs in the city.
I hope we can receive tourists, and still keep our
way of life. I don't want to see the valley
changing too much."
There is no shortage
of good intentions in the Shaxi project. Both
Feiner and Huang talk about a "comprehensive
program of sustainable development",
"commercialization without
over-commercialization", and "participation of
local people". Their project, which now enjoys
funding of some US$1.5 million from different
organizations and the Yunnan government, offers
loans to local residents who wish to open
businesses in town.
"We want to develop
high-quality tourism here, with business activity
dominated by the local Bai people. This is our
wish for the valley, but it's really in the hands
of local people and the county's government. We
can only offer support," Huang summed up. When I
asked what he thought Shaxi will look like 10
years from now, he admitted with a sigh, "It will
probably be just like Lijiang."
As Yunnan
discovers the value of its minority people as a
tourist attraction, tourist numbers are growing
annually. Much is changing in the province; living
standards in many minority areas are rising,
whereas the ancient and inimitable cultures are
undergoing rapid transformation, sometimes beyond
recognition. More tourists will arrive in the
coming years, and more ethnic groups will probably
decide to offer their culture on the free market.
Whether the future of tourism in Yunnan will look
like Lugu Lake, or more like Shaxi, is mostly in
the hands of foreign and Chinese tour operators,
and largely depends on trends in international
tourism.
Rui Xia is a Western
teacher and freelance writer living in China. Rui
Xia is her unofficial Chinese name.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing
.)
