ASIAN HERITAGES Zhu Heritage and in Romantic Consumption China Yujie Zhu Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China Publications The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a research and exchange platform based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and to promote (inter)national cooperation. IIAS focuses on the humanities and social sciences and on their interaction with other sciences. It stimulates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks among Asia Scholars. Its main research interests are reflected in the three book series published with Amsterdam University Press: Global Asia, Asian Heritages and Asian Cities. IIAS acts as an international mediator, bringing together various parties in Asia and other parts of the world. The Institute works as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, the construction and support of international networks and cooperative projects, and the organization of seminars and conferences. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Europe for non-European scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement between Europe and Asia. IIAS Publications Officer: Paul van der Velde IIAS Assistant Publications Officer: Mary Lynn van Dijk Asian Heritages The Asian Heritages series explores the notions of heritage as they have evolved from European based concepts, mainly associated with architecture and monumental archaeology, to incorporate a broader diversity of cultural forms and value. This includes a critical exploration of the politics of heritage and its categories, such as the contested distinction ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ heritages; the analysis of the conflicts triggered by competing agendas and interests in the heritage field; and the productive assessment of management measures in the context of Asia. Series Editor Adèle Esposito, CNRS, UMR-AUSser, France Editorial Board Members Sadiah Boonstra, National Gallery Singapore, Singapore Min-Chin Chiang, Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University, USA, and Leiden University, the Netherlands Yew-Foong Hui, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong Aarti Kawlra, Madras Institute of Development Studies, India Ronki Ram, Panjab University, India Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China Yujie Zhu Amsterdam University Press Publications Cover illustration: The local actors at the Naxi Wedding Courtyard Photo: Provided by the Naxi Wedding Courtyard; © He Yongchang Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 567 4 e-isbn 978 90 4853 682 5 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462985674 nur 743 © Yujie Zhu / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Table of Contents Prologue: Somewhere in Time 9 1 Introduction 13 Lijiang Old Town and the Naxi 14 Ethnic Tourism in China 18 Cultural Heritage in China 22 Romantic Consumption 26 Authenticity, Authentication, and Customization 29 Why the Naxi Wedding Courtyard? 31 A Note on the Method 33 Theatre of the Book 34 2 Stage 39 Reconstructing a World Heritage Site 40 The Development of Mass Tourism 44 Becoming a Town of Romance 48 Transforming into a Capital of Love Affairs (Yanyu) 50 Creating a Cultural Theme Park 54 Conclusion 57 3 Scripts 61 Dongba as Religious Practitioners 62 Transformations in Dongba Practices since 1949 65 Traditional Naxi Wedding 69 Current Marriage Customs in Lijiang 72 The ‘Dongba Wedding’ in the Courtyard 75 Conclusion 82 4 Local Actors 85 The Manager, Mr. Liu 86 The Dongba, Fuhua 90 The Adviser, Prof. Ming 94 The Moderator, Mei 97 The Dancer, Chao 101 Locals’ Responses: Hope and Frustration 105 Conclusion 109 5 Guests 111 The Honeymooners, Vincent and Lulu 112 New Lijiang Residents, Wang and Yan 114 He Gang from Naxi Mama 117 Foreign Tourists, Marina and Johnson 119 Conclusion 122 6 After the Show 125 Wandering between Dream and Reality 125 Embracing a New Home 129 Resistance, Coping, and Departure 132 Conclusion 136 7 Conclusion 139 Romantic Consumption and Customization 141 Global Significance of a Local Courtyard 142 Epilogue: The Show Must Go On 145 Acknowledgments 149 Bibliography 151 Index 161 List of Illustrations Figure 1.1 Lijiang Prefecture on two location maps in 2010 15 Figure 2.1 The World Heritage emblem in the Old Town of Lijiang 42 Figure 2.2 The newly built entrance to the Old Town of Lijiang 43 Figure 2.3 New Sifang Square with horse riding for tourists 47 Figure 2.4 Bar streets in the Old Town 53 Figure 2.5 One of the courtyards displaying traditional cloth sewing 56 Figure 3.1 A Su basket and the objects inside 71 Figure 3.2 A local Naxi wedding ceremony in Lijiang 74 Figure 3.3 Dongba Fuhua chants and throws rice into the river 77 Figure 3.4 The actors toast the guests during the ceremony 79 Figure 3.5 The dancing of Remeicuo in the middle of the courtyard 80 Figure 3.6 The Su basket used by Dongba Fuhua during wedding rituals 81 Figure 4.1 The local actors at the Naxi Wedding Courtyard 86 Figure 4.2 Dongba Fuhua in the courtyard 93 Figure 4.3 The promotional photo about the wedding ceremony 98 Figure 4.4 The Naxi leba dance in the wedding ceremony 99 Figure 4.5 Chao’s wedding in the courtyard 103 Prologue: Somewhere in Time On 11 May 1920, Austro-American botanist, anthropologist, linguist and adventurer Joseph Rock travelled from Chiang Mai, in Thailand (then called Siam), to Lijiang, in the northwest part of China’s Yunnan Province. He made the journey with caravans and his medical team. The eminent scientist had a commission from the US Department of Agriculture to collect commercial botanical specimens in that region, as he had done on previous missions to Siam and Burma. Eventually he decided to settle down in a Naxi village in Baisha township, at the foot of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, remain- ing there until 1949 (Yoshinaga et al. 2011: 126). He was fascinated by the natural environment and indigenous culture of the region. Over the years, Rock wrote essays and took high-quality black-and-white photographs documenting local culture and religion, which were later published in the journal of the National Geographic Society. His most influential work, The Nakhi Kingdom of Southwest China, published in 1947, well documented the region through his photographs as, in his words, ‘a magic Kingdom of wealth, scenic beauty, marvellous forests, flowers and friendly tribes.’1 Few Westerners had travelled in this region. Another was the Russian explorer and exile Peter Goullart, who had spent years in Shanghai learning Chinese and working as a tour guide before getting a position with the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (a government agency) in Sichuan and then, in 1942, Lijiang, where he remained until 1949. Like Rock, Goullart documented the life and customs of the Naxi people in the region and described the Lijiang plateau as an ancient forgotten Naxi kingdom of southwest China in his books (Goullart 1955). In the postscript of his work Forgotten Kingdom he wrote: Thus, due to the political upheavals, I ended my stay, of almost nine years, in the little-known and all but forgotten ancient Nakhi Kingdom of southwest China. Even during my youth spent in Moscow and Paris I had been unaccountably attracted to Asia, her vast, little-explored mountains and her strange peoples and, especially, to mysterious Tibet. The fates, stern to me in many other ways, have been kind in vouchsafing my long travels in Asia which even now, I have a feeling, are not at an end. I had 1 This is a description written by Joseph Rock in his book The Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of Southwest China, published in 1947. This book is the very first work introducing Lijiang to Western readers. 10 HERITAGE AND ROMANTIC CONSUMPTION IN CHINA always dreamed of finding, and living in that beautiful place, shut off from the world by its great mountains, which years later James Hilton conceived in his novel Lost Horizon. His hero found his ‘Shangri-La’ by accident, I found mine, by design and perseverance, in Likiang. The Lijiang that Rock and Goullart documented has now become a distant memory, a hazy ‘magic kingdom’ of the past. These adventurers, who left together after the Communist Revolution in 1949, believed that they had stumbled upon a mythic civilization forgotten to the world. Now their own accounts have become the stuff of legend, as over the decades of revolution and then of economic reform, the town of Lijiang would go through unprecedented (and irreversible) urban, architectural, religious and social change. In particular, Rock’s photographs are a valuable record of the traditional social, cultural and religious life of Lijiang as well as of the natural landscape of this region, a fact that earned him the moniker ‘The Western Father of Naxi Studies.’ Rock and Goullart’s stories have featured in Western documentaries, films, magazines, and books, many of which are still in print today. Back- packers have clung to them since the early 1980s, when the region was first opened to foreigners, and Western and Japanese backpackers began visiting Lijiang, keen to follow in the footsteps of Rock and Goullart.