TRIN-GYI-PHO-NYA: TIBET’S ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT DIGEST
By Jack Hayes*
Tourism and travel in the Jiuzhaigou region (Zitsa Degu) is a clear example of the conflicts and accommodations between tradition and modernity in Tibetan areas of northern Sichuan. Local Tibetans regularly make pilgrimages to and around the holy mountains of the region, and domestic Chinese and foreign tourists visit Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong Nature Reserves for their “fairy-tale” scenic beauty and local culture. The recent market reform and political developments saw the region explode into the consciousness of both Tibetans and Chinese.
Since 1980, tourism has been promoted in Jiuzhaigou and Songpan Counties, and its development has generated two significant strands of cultural and economic practices. The first is directly related to the rapid expansion of tourism and environmental projects in the late 1980s and early ‘90s when many local Tibetans were drawn into the eco-tourism industry. Tibetan religious and pastoral culture, at least a carefully constructed and duly administered version, was commodified and packaged for visiting tour buses in and around the nature reserves as early as 1987. In addition to the cultural elements of local tourism, the environment, specifically the colorful pools, grass-covered plateaus, and seasonal foliage were targeted for tourist consumption. In 1995 over 150,000 tourists visited Jiuzhaigou alone, and by 2003 this number grew to over 700,000 tourists for the region as a whole.
In contrast to a detachment from the “modern” felt by tourists visiting the region, local Tibetan cultural revival and participation in the development of tourism has served as a means to experience the modern. On one hand, Tibetans face the penetration of tourism into their daily life and how it has reshaped their outlook and way of life. On the other hand, however, tourism, with its focus on the local landscape and Tibetan culture has created a space to revive cultural traditions marginalized in the 1950s and ‘60s and create a new, and even “pop culture.” In effect, this has led to two layers of Tibetan culture in the region, with both negative and positive implications.
The first layer, the revival of traditional forms both religious and cultural, began in the early ‘80s with the revival of religious activities, including pilgrimage and reconstruction of local monasteries. Popular pilgrimage practices expanded after 1982 when the government offered guidelines to reestablish state religious affairs bureaus, compensated monasteries ruined since the ‘50s, and redressed some cases of persecution during previous political campaigns. Tibetan participation in subsidiary tourist industry and pilgrimage practices expanded as well—including services run by local villagers ranging from horse trekking, handicraft and souvenir trade, folklore entertainment, and inn-keeping brought in income beyond agricultural and pastoral production. On the more negative side, this led to greater social and economic disparity between local Tibetans more or less involved in the tourist industry, and increasing generational differences over proper practice of traditional cultural forms. More positively, it led to increasing interactions between locals and tourists of diverse ethnic backgrounds and served to highlight local Tibetan self-identity vis a vis others.
Since mid-1990s a second layer of Tibetan culture came to the foreground. The 1990s saw a decline in overall numbers of pilgrims visiting local holy mountains as administrative and economic diversification allowed for a slow but steady spread of traditional practices from select sites to other venues. There are diverse views regarding the decline of both traditional cultural and pilgrimage practices, including larger numbers of tourists and pilgrims headed to the TAR with increasingly open policies by the national government. Yet while many village elders express their concern over the decline of traditional Tibetan values and practices, other venues to express Tibetan-ness have come to the fore. These include the popularization of Tibetan-run trekking companies and businesses in the area where Tibetans channel tourists and visitors (including other Tibetans) to Tibetan venues. Furthermore, Tibetan guide books and literary production have expanded and led to the collection and publishing of a variety of cultural materials by concerned local and regional scholars. There has also been increasing interest in local and regional Tibetan music—and a massive increase in production and sales of Tibetan music (both traditional and pop music). The local areas were and are primary venues for filming and recording as they are identified as “authentic” sites of Tibetan traditional culture.
From the perspective of tourists, tourism may seem to produce “pseudo-communities”, especially when “authentic” Tibetan communities and areas are offered as part of the attraction. As seen from the local perspective, however, tourism may rather heighten senses of community, and identity, as new meanings of culture are negotiated and new notions of place made real. On the other hand, tourism may also heighten tensions between and within communities as people compete for profits and recognition. There is, then, a tension between modern economic needs and traditional practices, between generations, and between the need to reaffirm identity and the need to make money in these counties. Yet despite the influx of domestic and foreign tourists and the Chinese promotion of the region as primarily a tourist and conservation site, there has been a strengthening and reaffirmation of Tibetan identity in the process.
[* Jack Hayes is Ph D candidate at the University of British Columbia and did his field research in the Tibetan region of Songpan. For a full text version of the above article and more information relating to Songpan region, please contact Jack Hayes at jphayes@interchange.ubc.ca]
