Tourism's Great Leap Forward: A Threat to Traditional Culture, Environment - Part 1 of 2

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Cultivating Culture

In early September, Xiaoyi Liao, the president of Global Village Environmental Education Center in Beijing, went on a 20-day trip around southwest China’s Guizhou Province. Originally, she had hoped simply to enjoy the peace of the mountains while attending a local conference on village tourism development. But, she says, the situation in Guizhou “woke her up” to the need to take action. Protecting the region’s rich natural environment, she realized, should start from its cultural roots: rather than dealing with details surrounding tourism development, she should work to influence the hearts and minds of local officials and residents. “If you can help them to think outside the box, then they will change their minds about development and do a better job protecting the area.”

Liao, a graduate of China’s Zhongshan University, founded Global Village in 1996. In addition to the environmental education center, she now hopes to register a second organization, possibly called the Global Village of Beijing Cultural Education Center. Liao studied philosophy in college and loves reading books about Chinese traditional philosophy and oriental mysticism—and incorporating these ideas into her own reflections: “In China, sky is no longer sky, ground is not ground, mountain is not mountain, and water is not water, because humans are no longer ‘human.’ Only one day, when we go back to our niche, does the environment have a hope to be improved.”

Since her return from Guizhou, Liao concedes that: “In some ways, what I have done for the past 10 years is a failure. The trip to Guizhou made clear what I can do by myself and what needs to be accomplished by my organization.” At Global Village’s 10th anniversary celebration in April, Liao had announced that the daily affairs of the organization would be taken over by its executive director, Ms. Li Li, and that she would assume the role of Board chair. Since then, she has been looking for suitable projects for herself, and the Guizhou trip only confirmed her need to work more closely with cultural workers and remedy society’s “spirit.” Currently, Liao is proposing a project called “Three 100s” to the Chinese Olympic Committee under its framework of building a “green” and culturally themed Olympics. “China’s Tibetan area and the southeastern part of Guizhou have been recognized as two of humanity’s ‘last homelands’ on Earth,” she explains. “So I plan to select 100 villages, 100 people, and 100 photos of traditional village culture from these two areas.”

Liao has been sharing stories from Guizhou with friends. When she first arrived there, she just followed the rest of her group and looked around several ethnic villages. “After a few days, more problems with local development became apparent, and this worried me a lot. So I asked one official there to help me arrange several lectures for local residents and officials. These lectures were very successful, and many officials from other villages came to listen. We all agreed that Guizhou needs to develop local tourism, but that we need to: first, prepare enough before starting; second, fully respect local culture and environment; and third, maximize the benefits to local communities.” The region’s current development model, Liao explains, “is basically extracting blood and bone from local residents and natural resources, destroying their environment and traditional culture, but contributing nothing to local economic growth.”

Before allowing this small success to go to her head, Liao has already begun developing “protection plans” for the local communities. “We need to hurry; otherwise, three months later, things could change dramatically.” She explains that in recent years, under China’s so-called “Tourism Great Leap Forward,” many culturally and environmentally rich parts of Guizhou’s southeast have been tagged as “backwards” and “poor,” and subsequently been rudely exploited.

Song Li, director of the National and Folk Culture Development Center of China’s Ministry of Culture, is familiar with Guizhou’s situation. “Possibly because local officials fear offending environmental protection policies, the only development model they are choosing is to develop local tourism. Local residents are organized to perform songs and dances day and night, but they receive little respect for their culture and little reward for their efforts.” Song explains that a tourist may be asked to pay 30 yuan (US$3.8) to visit the village, but of this 2 yuan (US$0.25) will go to the local government, 1 yuan (US$0.13) to the village, and the rest to the local tourism bureau. “Culture becomes a burden, with sacred ceremonies and other local entertainment being repeatedly offered as a market good.”

According to Song, local residents have been largely excluded from the formation of tourism councils in the region, and the competition for tourist dollars has caused some separation among them. “The result is that the local tourism bureau essentially controls local politics, while ‘culture vampires’ like director Yimou Zhang are grabbing artistic talents for so-called ‘performance companies,’ which has both broken the continuity of culture and desolated villages.” Song explains that his culture development center will try to collaborate with Ms. Liao by selecting several spots in southeast Guizhou and developing a more sustainable tourism model for local residents. “Meanwhile, we will organize both international and domestic scholars to undertake more research,” he adds

“Living Trees”

Zhe Chen, a lyricist known for writing several Chinese popular songs in the 1980s, has spent most of the past decade or so pursuing a self-initiated project called the “Folk Vogue Project,” also known as the “Project for Preserving Chinese National and Ethnic Culture.” The initiative has been officially recognized by China’s Ministry of Culture and has received both moral and written support from the government. But most of the work relies on Chen’s influence and diligence, especially in dealing with fundraising and time-management, which are a persistent challenge.

A few years ago, Chen recorded a tape of traditional songs that has been called “China’s best music.” But because of his overwhelming concentration on the project, the tape has missed many opportunities to be released and promoted around the world, publicity that would help Chen earn enough money to support his career in cultural preservation. He has also made multiple promises to compensate the individuals who teach traditional culture in his project, yet most of these promises cannot yet be cashed.

Guodong Yang, 83, is one of the few people who can still remember all the details of traditional worship in Yushichang, a small Pumi minority village in Lanping County in western Yunnan Province, where he teaches these traditions to Chen’s Pumi Culture Training Group. The group has been divided into many subgroups, one of the most important of which is the “traditional worship and sacrifice learning group.” Encouraged by Chen, Yang has demonstrated a variety of complete sacred ceremonies and taught them to students that sit by his fireplace. Most of his students are young people in Yushichang, eager to learn all the “memory and wisdom” from Yang as soon as they can.

In the beginning, Chen had promised to compensate the teachers with 600 yuan (US$76) a month, but he has fallen short of his budget. He is still not able to pay the elderly villagers who teach herb usage, old songs, embroidery, and worship. ”We are all very impressed with Chen’s enthusiasm for our culture as a person from the outside,” says Yang. “Thanks to his work, we have never before received so much attention to Pumi culture from the outside world, or even from ourselves. He has given each of us some, but only a little, money. But we all understand his difficulty and the reason that he was not able to pay for his promise.”

The training group at Yushichang is only a small part of Chen’s project; he has many similar programs across China, focusing on preserving local traditional knowledge and culture. Villages countrywide suffered continuous cultural injuries from the 1950s through the 1980s, followed by blind and impulsive economic development. Most are struggling to recover from this cultural destruction—if they can. Year by year, older residents are passing away, while young people leave to work in cities. Culture is apparently being ignored, especially by women, who were traditionally the backbone for handing down village culture but are now either working in cities or marrying outside the village. Children go schools that do not teach them local traditions, and they sit in classrooms that separate them from the natural environment that is so essential to nourishing local culture.

Chen has achieved more success in Lanping than in many places, due in part to the support he receives from local Pumi elites and the interrelationship he has found between the natural environment and culture. For these same reasons, Chen continues to oppose mining, logging, and road building in Yushichang, where people have traditionally fought to protect their environment but are now wavering on whether to build roads for further development. Chen has had heated confrontations with residents who support the new roads.

When Chen runs into a person of authority in Lanping, the words he uses most frequently are: “The woods should not be cut. If those forests are gone, you will regret it forever! Money can be made from elsewhere. All of these are living trees, living trees! No matter if they are valuable species or not.” And almost every time, Chen closes the dialogue with a tone of frustration. “Living tree,” a phrase used by Chen, simply means that the trees are still alive. But for him, it has also become a heroic statement.

Many of Lanping’s forests have already witnessed extensive damage. In fact, Chen had not seen intact natural forests until he walked to Yushichang. There, he discovered the well-preserved Pumi culture, with residents bowing to the mountain and tree gods, performing old songs and sacred dances, and speaking in old tongues. “All of these things are growing together with the surrounding forests,” he explains. “We cannot avoid the ecosystem when we talk about culture.” Chen says he even invited Fangcheng Wang, an instructor from Beijing’s Eco Engineering Research Institute, to give a lecture on ecosystem protection to Pumi villagers. “Building a road is usually the prelude to logging,” Chen explains. “With no road to Yushichang so far, the forests can be saved. And thanks to its isolated and protective environment, Pumi culture can be saved.”

Yongfeng Feng is an acclaimed editor and journalist who has worked at China Guangming Daily since 1995, reporting and writing on science and technology issues. He also works as a columnist at China Economic Times, and Shenzhen Economy Daily and has published a novel and several poems.

Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author, and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.