Performing Frontier as Home: Yuanshengtai Performance and the Representational Politics of Homeland in Southwest China

Yuanshengtai, a term derived from Chinese idea of ecotourism to indicate the pristine condition of environment, has been connected to an imagined authentic indigenous culture in China. With the mark of Zhang Yimou—one of the most famous film director in China, the show Impression Lijiang has strived...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Space and culture 2019-11, Vol.22 (4), p.324-340
Main Authors: Chen, Huai-Hsuan, Hung, Po-Yi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Culture
Ecotourism
Ethnicity
Homemakers
Identity politics
Mass media images
Minority groups
Nationalism
Postcommunist societies
Socialism
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Yuanshengtai, a term derived from Chinese idea of ecotourism to indicate the pristine condition of environment, has been connected to an imagined authentic indigenous culture in China. With the mark of Zhang Yimou—one of the most famous film director in China, the show Impression Lijiang has strived for exploiting the symbols and icons of ethnic minority culture in order to invent an imaginary space for tourists to experience a yuanshengtai borderland in southwest China. A UNESCO site, Lijiang is known for its geographic imagery of cultural and natural landscape and as the brightest prospect for expressing Chinese nationalism and cultivating modern Chinese tourists. As such, it has been gradually transformed into a stage for displaying and (dis)locating the spatial imagery of home for Chinese tourists in post-socialist China. This article illustrates how yuanshengtai performances are a cultural mechanism of the Chinese state to spark a yearning for home. We will proceed with a theoretical approach relating home and homemaking in China’s cultural politics. After noting the research methods, we contextualize the development of yuanshengtai performances in Southwest China.
ISSN:1206-3312
1552-8308
DOI:10.1177/1206331217751779