Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
Scenic and Historic Interest Areas form a designated national park system in China.
These areas, predominantly nature-dominated, as the most attractive and popular
tourism destinations, are characterised by outstanding natural qualities as well as
cultural qualities. They are also significant components of the world park system due
to their great contribution to the World Heritage. By the end of 2003, 15 of the
China’s 29 World Heritage Sites are also Scenic and Historic Interest Areas or are
located in these areas.
Recently, the management of Scenic and Historic Interest Areas, especially in the
World Heritage Sites, appears to be following the tendency towards globalisation
values. This has raised hot debates (Huang and Wu; ChinaYouth 2002; Wang(a)
2003; Wang(b) 2003). Main debates focus on the State policies that are basically
derived from the criteria of Natural Heritage in World Heritage Convention: the
removal of local inhabitants and the demolition and strict restriction of man-made
structures within the properties (Guo 2003; Mingxing 2003; CNWH 2004). These
policies are strongly opposed by local communities and even local governments,
because such policies are not consistent with the traditional Chinese attitude to
Nature.
It is necessary to point out that, historically, wild Nature is not within the scope of the
Chinese appreciation. What they value is the part of Nature that has been
aesthetically sensed or has created cultural attachments. The Chinese believe artistic
re-built Nature is more beautiful than the original one, based on their tradition of great
aesthetic achievements. The Chinese have developed unique culture of landscape
poems, landscape gardens, and landscape paintings, where Nature as an assemblage of
isolated objects without connecting into a unified scene is more than 1,000 years
earlier than Western Countries. Thus, landscape has its specific meaning over time in
China. It is the renaming of Nature, which is characterized by Shanshui (mountain
and water), and especially, it refers to those ‘great’ or ‘scenic’ mountains and waters
embedding great moral and aesthetic values. Landscape is traditionally moral- and
aesthetic-centred in China. The interest of loving Nature and travelling in Nature
became the basic virtue of the good men since the Jin Dynasty1 (265~420A.D).
Distinguished from the West, the traditional Chinese View of Nature is marked by the
following characteristics (Lin 1935; Lin 1937; Zhang 1992; Wang 1998; Yang, Zhang
et al. 2001; Yu 2001; Shen 2002; Han 2003) :
1. It is humanistic rather than religious;
2. It is aesthetic rather than scientific;
3. There is great value and beauty embedded in Nature itself;
4. It is consistent with human moral and personality;
5. Nature is the extension of home; it is an enjoyable and inspiring place.
6. Artistic re-built Nature is more beautiful than the original one.
7. Nature aesthetics and practice are highly developed in China;
8. Travelling in Nature aims to be enjoyable, instead of solitude oriented.
1
It is widely accepted that landscape as an isolated objects without connecting into a unified scene
emerged from Jin Dynasty in China.
World Heritage Categories: Cross-cultural Misconceptions
The Detachment of Nature and Culture
From the above statements, it is not difficult to understand that the categories of world
heritage: Natural Heritage, Cultural Heritage, Mixed Heritage and Cultural
Landscape, are confusing concepts for the Chinese to apply in Scenic and Historic
Interest Areas where Nature and culture are highly integrated. Typically, many of
these sites are Associative Cultural Landscapes with different virtues of artistic or
cultural, moral or ethical associations without material evidence and easy to be
ignored by the outsider. Chinese consider it is artificial to set them into different
categories. Managers are usually mis-leaded by the policies of the Convention with
cross-cultural misunderstandings. Now they are guiding to separate Nature for
humans on these sites.
There is not one site considered purely natural according to our practice experiences
in the last twenty years. On the contrary, the cultural inventory in these natural-
appearing areas always amazed us with rich cultural virtues when we go through its
history. We are always surrounded by material culture or associative culture. A
common naturally-looking stone in deep mountain may remind us where Li Bai (one
of the greatest poets, Tong Dynasty 701—762AD) was drunk and lay and composed
his famous landscape poem. A flat platform with a beautiful view could be the place
where Bai Juyi (another great poet, Tong Dynasty 772-846AD) constructed his straw
study house and lived spiritually with Nature. When we are travelling in Nature, we
are with history and our ancestors without loneliness and solitude. The Chinese have
put too much emotion and energy into Nature through thousands of years and it is
such a tightly twined net that is impossible to separate Nature from culture (Lin 1937;
Feng 1990).
Such impacts are frequently attributed to the great pressure of tourism market instead
of cultural traditions. However, nature, for the Chinese, except the religionist, is an
enjoyable place for entertainment. Historically, people gathered there, having parties,
composing those well-known poems while drinking wine and appreciating beautiful
scenery since the Jin Dynasty (265~420A.D) (Kubin 1990; Wang 1990). It is not
understandable for the Chinese to go there to experience solitude as a temporary
visitor, as Westerners do. Nature is an open-air home. This perspective, while
maintaining the philosophical spirit of the Chinese View of Nature---‘being in
harmony and oneness with Nature’, has been vulgarised through history. Today we
occupy Nature and take it for granted unconsciously.
The great artistic achievement of natural aesthetics also has a profound influence. The
Chinese love humanising Nature more than any other nations for they believe that
rebuilt Nature is more beautiful than the original. In one of my investigation, among
100 visitors 92 percent responded that they always feel a site lacks spirit if they are
pure or wild natural areas without any cultural evidence (Han 2004). This important
cultural preference of the Chinese tourists has resulted in today’s many man-made
structures and altered- landscapes in Scenic and Historic Interest Areas.
Conflicts
However, the global influence is mainly limited within management authorities and
governments, instead of the local communities and visitors. Some management
policies, which are mis-applied from the Convention by management authorities due
to cross-cultural misunderstanding, have resulted in two unfortunate consequences in
Scenic and Historic Interest Areas in China. One is the removal of local inhabitants
from these areas which results in the rapid disappearance of the diversity of living
culture; the other, is the restriction of new man-made structures in these areas, which
is strongly against the Chinese traditional cultural activities. Both of these policies are
under the name of Natural Heritage preservation and they are leading to the danger of
static culture in these sites. They are creating cultural crises while dealing with
ecological crises. Battles between government and local communities, management
authorities and visitor, essentially, are battles between international universal value
and traditional cultural value.
Jiuzhaigou was once polluted due to the loss of vegetation and pollution accompanied
by large visitation annually (more than 1 million). The eco-restoration involved
complete removal of tourist accommodations in the valley and now hotel
constructions are strictly restricted to areas outside of the property. The management
effort to restore the ecosystem, and the model of partnership between authorities and
the local people was commended by the Bureau of World Heritage Committee
(UNESCO 1998). Now this model is strongly recommended by the Central
Government of China and all other sites are requested to learn from its experience.
The price of the removal of all tourism facilities and the prohibition of grazing of the
local minorities is the disappearance of culture. Traditional local life formed in five
thousand years ago has been totally changed. It was once a living cultural landscape
with nine minority villages living in this valley (the meaning of name of Jiuzaigou
Valley) on their own customs, grazing and farming generations by generations. Now
they still live in this site but their existence has become a tourist gaze, the tourists’
image of minorities and herdsmen. They stopped their traditional life of living in
Nature, in return for the high economic benefits from the local government. Tourism
has eliminated the need for the natural resources ‘exploitation’ that they formerly
lived on.
While the local people are losing their homeland, we are losing our living culture; we
are creating ‘dead culture’ (museums) while we are killing living culture. It also
relates to severe ethical issues. The poor local people are removed, possibly because
they are regarded as low ‘uncivilized’ people. Their existence interferes with the
aesthetic and ecological quality for some ‘civilized’ ‘nature seeking’ people. The
Wulingyuan locals have been removed from the site or resettled to new sites which
are “out of the view of tourists”(XHN 2003; Zhang 2003). It could be supposed that if
the Jiuzhaigou people were not minorities protected by special policies, and did not
have tourism values, they would be removed as well. Unfortunately, this
‘ethnocentric’ western wilderness concept (Callicott 2000) is rapidly pervading the
management of World Heritage Sites in China. Now whenever we begin to talk about
the site management, the first reaction of local authorities is ‘cleansing the local
people out of the property’. In many ways, this is tragic.
The restriction of human construction in natural areas is also against the Chinese
traditional cultural activities in Nature. Nature is culturally and socially constructed
and there is no ‘right culture’ or ‘wrong culture’. Culture can be guided but cannot be
restricted. It is evident that a huge lift which creates three world records (biggest,
fastest, and highest) has just been built at the same time as the big demolition in
Wulingyuan (Figure 8). It is equivalent to The Great Wall as a man-made structure in
natural area if we disregard aesthetic and historic preference. It is perhaps ridiculous
for the outsiders, but it is naturally accepted by the common Chinese people.
Many policies applies in China are against the central spirit of the Convention.
Heritage is a living concept, such as cultural landscape, where history and meanings
can be read and interpreted as texts (O'Hare 1997; Armstrong 2001). While we pass
on ‘yesterday’ to our generation, we have to think what of ‘today’ can be passed on.
When culture and ethics encounter universal science and globalisation, there emerge
most difficult issues. There are a range of values that we need to be “more sensitive
about who counts and why” (Light and Rolston 2003). There is no conclusion in this
paper; rather, it calls urgent attention to the cultural diversity and sustainability to
keep the vitality of cultural landscape.
Figures:
Figure 1: Traditional image of living in Nature.
Figure 2: Culture being in oneness with Nature
Figure 3: Rice terraces in deep high mountain.
Figure 4: New-constructed road in Wulingyuan.
Figure 5: New-constructed scenic spot in Wulingyuan.
Figure 6: Deep confusion in children’s eyes.
Figure 7: Living on the land
Figure 8: New lift in Wulingyuan
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