To investigate the history, structure and current characteristics of tourism development in the minority ethnic area – Lijiang City, Yunnan Province, China

To evaluate the extent to which Naxi people’s handicrafts, traditional music and culture, etc. figures as tourist attractions/assets in the tourism industry

To examine Naxi people (e.g. emerged ‘Middle classes’ and local farmers) in the tourism industry in Lijiang City, in the role of conserving Dongba culture

To assess the role of Dongba culture in sustainable tourism development within the context of globalization and commercialization

To scrutinise the processes of commodification with Dongba art and culture and an analysis of the impact of this on their way of life

3.         Background of Research:

Lijiang City, where this research is mainly focus on, is a minority autonomous district, situated in the western part of Yunnan. In 2002, the total population of the region was about 351 thousands of which 58.6 percent are Naxi people. The history of this ancient town dates back 800 years. It is one of the 99 most famous state history and culture cities of China, and in December 1997 was listed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List (Duang S., 2000: 3; Zhang H., 2003: 6; Sofield, H.B, 2000). In the past two centuries, one of its unique cultural phenomenon—the Dongba culture, has drawn much attention from researchers both at home and abroad.

The relationship of this investigation to previous work in the area

(1). Previous works

Cater (2000: 475) and McKhann (2001: 162) both argue that the tourism development in Lijang has caused unpleasant social, cultural and environmental impacts. For instance, Lijiang’s 2,600% growth rate in tourist arrivals in nine years and a 6,600% increase in tourist revenue in eight years have seriously destroyed the original ecological balance in Yulong Snow Mountain. The very limited carrying capacity of the city has to accommodate a bewildering market demand so that the quality of service and product has been impaired significantly (McKhann, 2001:149; Zhang, 2003).

A number of problems concerning tourism development in ethnic areas are documented by Sofield and Li (1998) these are: political domination, assimilation, lack of empowerment, discrimination, exploitation (by the majority group), economic impoverishment, cultural degradation, and ‘museumization’ of ethnic culture. From here, we can realize that the issue of ethnicity in China is far more than an economic matter, rather a political and sociocultural issue. Tourism, be it cultural tourism or ethnic tourism, is a good place to examine all the issues of the country’s ethnic policies.

Wen (1998: 474) continually complements the commercialization of ethnic culture in China manifest in the changes in traditional family structure, moral system, social values, lifestyles and even ideological attitudes. To sum up, in terms of ethnic tourism in China, it is not purposely served for sustaining ethnic groups. All their studies have left enormous chances and challenges to be explored in my research.

(2). My research

Lemcine’s (1989) study in Yunnan shows that most of the minority have a very strong will to identify their ethnicity, proudly assuring their minority status. My research would try to answer those questions raised from his study, such as to what extent can clothing, housing and folklore, etc keep ethnicity alive? To what extent should a traditional culture adapt to new economic and technological progresses? To what extent can tourism stimulate this process appropriately?

Implementing ethnic tourism in Lijiang should beforehand consider several questions (Tisdell, 1997: 1367), i.e. what characteristics of a local community should be sustained or preserved? Is it the social cohesiveness of the local community, the political control of the community over local resources or the economic viability of the local community, or all of these factors? And for whose interest? Sometimes when we say ‘the Lijiang’s tourism is out of control’ (McKhann, 2001: 150), we’d better make it clearer out of whose control and for what reasons.

Besides the participations of community, individual’s initiatives should also not to be ignored. Tisdell (1997: 1365) analyzes that people’s different roles in a society would involve certain duties correspondingly. These traditional or customary restraints function as cushion by promoting social cohesion and limiting selfish behaviour in social responsibility. Once this senses of duty become weak, social disintegration is inevitable. In reference to Lijiang, Dongbas are the interpreters between nature and humans. They bring spiritual calm and comfort to people by translating the god’s instructions and ideas. They are the spiritual leaders of the villages. However, their position and influence have been weakened since 1956, so it would be necessary to examine whether tourism work as a catalyst revitalizing their functionary role in the social life.

Analyzing tourism through an anthropological perspective

In view of the essence of this study, it is inevitable an anthropological account. From the anthropological point of view, culture and cultural identity may contain different connotations. Because an ethnic group might always face a continuous process of contracting with other groups in which assimilating other cultures or being assimilated by others is inevitable (Wu, 1989, 11-12), so one concept of culture does not always reflect a clear-cut cultural identity. The term ‘situational ethnicity’ is introduced by Wu to highlight his point that in reality the preservation of one group’s genuine tradition is only the partial content. The other function of preservation should include the ability of the culture to redefine and interpret the meaning of ‘new’ culture. A dynamic culture would be active enough in interpreting the symbol of new behaviour, value and identity.

As MacKerras (1994: 181) argues, tourism is one of the industries that is mostly associated with globalization investment from various parts of the world to the destinations, including some ideas and fashions which exert effects upon the local community in many ways. The significance of studying China’s international tourism upon ethnic areas lies in the speed of China’s rapid tourism development. China is expected to be one of the top destinations of the world by 2020. Tourism invariably contributes to the process of modernization and globalization with the consequences that positive impacts outweigh the negative. With regard to the issue of undermining cultural identity and differences, it is easy to blame the government’s policies, but more concern and attention should also give to the ethnic groups themselves. Both the government and the minorities welcome tourism, mostly because of the economic advantages. In terms of preserving ethnic culture, the attitude and awareness of the ethnic groups is paramount to success. Policies can be unfair, distribution systems can be unequal but culture and identity will survive, as long as the ethnic groups are aware and willing to do so. Tourism will intensify the process of globalization in which some ethnic cultures will weaken or even disappear. However, some stronger ethnic cultures will survive and thrive during this process. This can be proved by the fact that the assimilation of ethnic groups in China vary from group to group. Some remain very distinctive while some do not. As Grunfeld (1985: 54) put it, the smaller the group, the easier they are assimilated. The more impregnable to Han culture, the more sensitive they will be perceived by Han with regard to their unique characteristics.

(3). Research issues

Although Dongba culture has been examined in many works, few of the papers are purposely and exclusively evaluating them as tourist assets. In addition, the role of Naxi people in conserving their culture has not been fully addressed.

Both Zhang (2003) and Cater (2000) argue that as the majority of the Naxi are farmers, so the key issue becomes how to optimize tourism resources to improve farmers’ economic and social conditions, e.g. using more local manufacturing materials and skills to sustain their subsistence. Therefore, this study would pay more attention to those local farmers who are living outside Dayanzhen, evaluating their way of live and attitudes towards the social-cultural impacts from the tourism industry upon their tradition, culture and belief.

With the rapid social, especially economic development in the past twenty years, the middle classes have emerged in some ethnic areas in China, including the Naxi. The new ‘middle classes’, labeled with new means of production, new class interests, new class consciousness and new way of thinking, mushrooms steadily (Mackerras, 2005: 814). Unfortunately, few studies have ever evaluated their roles and functions in conserving Naxi art and culture. Would they become an agency of propelling the conservation of Naxi art and culture and awaking their awareness of minority identity? All these issues need to be assessed by this study.

4.         Research Methodology:

Denscombe (1998: 103) claims that a researcher should consider which method is the most appropriate one in practice, or best suitable for the task, rather stick to the one which is superior to others in an absolute sense.

Case study and research design

Case study (participant observation and in-depth interview) would provide the real-life situations (Flyvbjerg, 2004: 424) on the role of Naxi people in reference to conserving the Dongba art and culture. This is not something that survey strategy can carry out. With regard to the selection of cases to be studied, Denscombe (1998: 33-34) argues that any case that is selected should be subject to the purposes of the study. The cases should be typical, meaning they contain crucial aspects so that possible findings that are generated from this case could be applied to the whole thing. Recently, multiple-case becomes popular for its strengths. For instance, evidences from multiple cases are often regarded as more compelling to the extent of which the overall research is considered as more robust. Similar or contrasting results could be stimulated so that the evaluation of propositions can be intensified from either extreme. Apparently, analytic conclusions that are produced individually from different cases are much more reliable than those from a single case. Last but not least, the skeptical fears about single-case of the uniqueness or artifactual condition will be blunt (Yin and Robert, 2003: 46-54).

Ethnography & participant observation

Since 1970s, the term ethnography became a preferred term in relation to participant observation. Ethnography is a procedure during which observation and participation are interwoven. Spending considerable time, an ethnographer or a participant observer would input extensive involvement in their social life, watching things happen around him/her, listening when people talk, asking questions and finally analyzing all the data at a theoretical level. The characteristic of ethnographic research is in adequately placing entities, widening and deepening our understanding of their social and cultural significance (Forrest, 1991: 49). Different from other research methods, ethnography is not a report of the researcher’s analysis of the situation, rather it claims to be an account of the people who are being studied, their visions of the world, understandings of the society and perceptions of their relations to life. To do this, the ethnographer has to abandon his/her own perspective and preference. The most distinctive aspect is that it is not a description but a reconstruction, setting up a passage, by means of the researcher’s writing skills or rhetoric, between the given social setting and the ethnographer’s own experiences, belief, knowledge and mentality (Delamont, 2004: 218).

In-depth interview

As far as interviewing (in-depth) is concerned, it is useful when tending to obtain more detailed and in-depth information, from a relatively small number of informants, in order to form an insight view of a topic. Interviewing is design to help the researcher to go for depth rather than breadth of a topic. It is an efficient way to explore people’s emotions, feelings and experiences. In particular when the research topic is concerned with some sensitive matters, a face-to-face approach is necessary to carefully handle informants’ emotions, keeping them open and honest for the purpose of obtaining a better quality of data. If some privileged information is requested, interviewing proves to be invaluable for providing contact with some experts or ‘key players’ (Denscombe, 1998: 111-112). When doing field research, an ethnographic interview is widely used alongside participant observation.

5.         Project Significance and Value:

According to census in year 2000, China has 55 minority nationalities with a population over 106,430,000 people (Mackerras, 2003: 814). Apart from Hui, Manchus, Mongolians, Tujia, Yi, Uigur, Tibentans and Zhuang, whose population is over five million, the rest are small in numbers. Most of them like Naxi, no ethnic relations across borders, no intention to claim independence and even no many Han Chinese can name them correctly. From the references provided by Chao (1996), White (1998) and Mackerras (2003), we can confirm that Dongba books are religious, or at least containing some religious context. Therefore, it is necessary to assess this ethnic religious culture appropriately. Hopefully, this study about Naxi will set a benchmark for us to know whether they can promote their religious practices as cultural practice as the Naxi did.

The academic contribution of this study will try to enrich the contemporary literature regarding to the nature of modern tourism and its impact upon the ethnic community. It will try to demonstrate that the intrinsic meaning of local culture will not disappear in the process of commodification. The destruction of local culture’s authenticity, which resulting from the contrived cultural products for tourist, will not significantly influence the essence of the local culture’s authenticity. The aim of the study will try to outline a positive significance of the modern tourism in the effort of conserving ethnic culture appropriately. If this purpose is eventually achieved, so the experience of preserving Naxi culture by themselves would illustrate that the authentic Chinese modernity should rely on their own social, economic, political and cultural conditions.

References:

Bryman A. (2001), Social Research Methods, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Cater Erlet A., Tourism in the Yunnan Great Rivers National Parks System Project: prospects for sustainability, Tourism Geographies, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2000, pp. 472-489

Chao Emily, Hegemony, Agency, and Re-presenting the Past: The Invention of Dongba Culture among the Naxi of Southwest China, in Brown Melissa J., (1996) Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan, The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley

Cohen Erik, Authenticity and Commoditization in Tourism, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 15, 1988, pp. 371-386

Daher Rami Farouk, Dismantling a community’s heritage ‘heritage tourism: conflict, inequality, and a search for social justice in the age of globalization’, in Robinson M., Evans N., Long P., Sharpley R. and Swarbrooke J. (2000), Tourism and heritage relationships: Global, National and Local perspectives, reflections on international tourism, The Centre for Travel and Tourism in association with Business Education Publishers Ltd., Sunderland.

Delamont S., Ethnography and participant observation, in Seale C., Gobo G., Gubrium J. F., and Silverman D.’s book: Qualitative Research Practice, pp. 217-227, 2004, Sage Publications Ltd., London

Denscombe M., (1998), The good research guide: for small-scale social research project, Open University Press, Buckingham.

Duang Songting, Bhaktapur (2000) Culture Heritage Management and Tourism: a heritage protection and tourism development case study of Lijiang ancient town, China, UNESCO

Flick U. (2002), An Introduction to Qualitative Research, Sage Publications Ltd., London

Flyvbjerg B., Five misunderstandings about case-study research, in Seale C., Gobo G., Gubrium J. F., and Silverman D.’s book: Qualitative Research Practice, pp. 420-432, 2004, Sage Publications Ltd., London

Forrest J., Visual Aesthetics for Five Senses and Four Dimensions: An Ethnographic Approach to Aesthetic Objects, in Browne R. B. and Browne P.’s book: Digging into Popular Culture: Theories and Methodologies in Archeology, Anthropology and Other Fields, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Ohio.

Greenwood Davydd J., Culture by the Pound: An Anthropological Perspective on Tourism as Cultural Commoditization, in Smith Valene L. (1989) Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd Edition, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia

Grunfeld A. Tom, In Search of Equality: Relations Between China’s Ethnic Minorities and the Majority Han, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1985, pp. 54-67

Hansen Mette Halskov, (1999) Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity

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Hongyuan He, Shaoying He

This article focuses on the protection and inheritance of Naxi village culture during the tourism development process. There is a close relationship between the protection and inheritance of traditional ethnic culture and the development of tourism and other industries in ethnic areas. Both sides can benefit from each other by rightly handling their relationship. The effects of tourism on socio-culture have long been discussed by anthropologists and ethnologists since 1960s. People have become increasingly realized that tourism, positively or negatively, is bringing the local people some changes in the aspects of economy, society and culture.

The traditional culture area of Naxi ethnic group in Yuhu village, Baisha Township, known as one of the first batch of non-material culture heritages in Yunnan province, has its vitality actually exit in its local people, where the spirits and emotion integrated. Naxi village culture is just like a flower blossoming gradually, attracting attention from innumerable persons. However, the conservation and inheritance of it is fragile.

This article chooses Yuhu village as the site of fieldwork, investigates and analyzes the current state of Naxi ethnic village culture in the process of tourism development, and explores the solution to culture protection by the theory of culture conflict and cultural change. The full text altogether is divided into five parts:

Ⅰ. Introduction

This part mainly introduces the geographical conditions, the natural environment and the social situations in Yuhu village, which provide rich resources for the development of tourism in Yuhu village.

Ⅱ. The process of tourism development and the condition of economic development in Yuhu village.

Ⅲ. The effect of tourism development on Naxi ethnic village culture in Yuhu village. < NT>

This part, by investigating, will describe the tourism development and the current condition of village culture change.

Ⅳ.  Tourism development is combined with the conservation and inheritance of village culture in Yuhu village.

This part will point out that tourism has both positive and negative effects. Tourism has brought cultural conflict and change to some extent. A new cultural ecology can be formed only by organically fusing tourism development and the protection and inheritance of village culture.

Ⅴ. Conclusion .As an American scholar, Fox, puts it, tourism is a fire, so not only it could help you cook your food but also burn down your house AN>. According to the investigation of what has been mentioned above, the author come to the conclusion that in the process of modernizatio every one in every village is inevitably involved in and they also cause the conflict changes of culture. Tourism offers Naxi village an opportunity to gain economic interests. What’s more, it makes the value of ethnic culture rise. However, inevitably, the tourism also causes the edging of culture under the pressure of strong culture. The villagers are in a dilemma. The way of getting out of the dilemma is to protect and inherit the culture through active conscious culture behavior and to set up a new ecological system of village culture on the basis of actively absorbing and combining the modern culture.

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「世界遺産登録による観光開発と住民の生活環境の保護の両立について」（关于为了开发观光利用世界遗产与保护居民的生活环境的两全其美）。

高仓健一, 日本神奈川大学

现在丽江古城发生一个问题，就是由于开发观光，丽江古城的环境带来了变化。之所以，原来居民往外移住，而从外部商业为目的的人流入丽江古城。我觉得一方面为了开发观光利用世界遗产，又一方面保护被命名为世界遗产的房屋和创建的居民，才是真正保护世界遗产和纳西族文化的有效途径。关于我这个见解，想把丽江古城作为个案例子进行实地调查，同时已被世界遗产登录的日本富山县五个山人字木屋顶建筑村落进行实地调查，并进行比较分析。

1997年，丽江古城的房屋和街景成为登录世界遗产的对象，但是从古以来居住在丽江古城而创造这里的房屋和街景的居民的生活和文化确没成为登录世界遗产的对象。其实登录世界遗产的房屋和街景是表现居民的历史和文化。所以我想探讨怎样才能把开发观光和保护居民的生活和文化两全其美方法。

日本富山县五个山人字木屋顶建筑村落登录世界遗产的时候，“結い（互相帮助组）”受到很高的评价，可是最近由于人口在急剧减少和老龄化，越来越难维持那“結い”状况。这次进行调查五个山人字木屋顶建筑村落的现状，并进行比较丽江古城的现状，论述开发观光有防止人口在急剧减少的效果，还有保护居民的生活文化的必要性。

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