Tour Summary
by Ali Junkin

Walking around the Minority Theme Park in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, I could not help but wonder what the people thought who were displaying their “cultures” for all of the tourists to see.  Each group had an area with traditional buildings, clothing, tools, and everyday items of life.  From my perspective, I was not viewing culture, I was viewing what someone wanted to present as culture.  I think some other tourists actually believed they were seeing the true cultures of these people, conveniently located in one small area (perhaps about the size of Epcot Center at Disney World, and in a similar spirit as that multicultural world in the middle of Florida).  What is it like to sit in a replica of a house from your village, weaving blankets or churning butter all day so that people can learn all about the ways of your people?  My guess is it feels about as educational and authentic as it seemed to me (not at all of either).  I came away from that park wondering what the people working there felt, what life is really like in their villages, and why people choose to go to such a superficial representation of the cultural diversity of China. 

There are so many perspectives to consider, and perspective is precisely what is important about understanding different cultures.  Everyone looks at life from a certain perspective and the influences and biases accumulated over the course of one’s life affect the nature of that perspective.  If one can recognize that those biases exist, that one’s perspective is just that – a perspective – one has a much better chance of coming to understand other cultures.  Perspective affects how people view themselves, their surroundings, and other people, so in the end, it is hard to determine what is truth.  There is no right way to define a culture and therefore there is no right way to preserve it.  As China enters an age of modernization and urbanization, new influences affect all parts of the nation.  Traditional cultures must inevitably change but it is yet to be seen how they will change and which perspective of their culture will live on.
           
In Yunnan Province we learned about several different ethnic minority groups that are increasingly being affected by tourism and the influx of visitors to the region.  For many people, tourism provides an opportunity for economic growth and an increased standard of living.  At the same time, though, compromises and changes must be made in order to gain such advantages.  Inevitably, customs are compromised as contact with the outside world increases.  The Mosuo people provided a striking example of such compromises.  The Mosuo traditionally practice “walking marriages”, which means that men walk to the homes of women and stay for the night, but leave in the morning.  Women generally run the households and they do not have a husband living in the house with them.  Children of the same mother often have different fathers and often do not know who their fathers are.  As tourism has increased, though, and contact with the outside world becomes more frequent, many people are abandoning this traditional practice.  There are many more marriages between men and women and more people are having relationships with non-Mosuo people who come into the area.  Also, more people have been moving to cities to try to make more money or set up businesses.  All of these changes affect the Mosuo society – if the daughters of a family decide to move to a city or marry a man, there will be no one to take over the household and run it in the traditional way.
          
Changes like these are going on among many ethnic minority groups in China and the question I have been trying to answer is: are these changes good?  Some might argue that cultural traditions like those of the Mosuo people should be preserved, that it is sad that technology and tourism have caused traditions to fade away.  Such a perspective is natural for an outsider, but I wonder how the Mosuo people feel about the changes.  I gleaned from our experiences in Yunnan that there are several perspectives within each ethnic group, that one cannot simply assign one single perspective to a group of people.  There are some, I am sure, who are sad to see such traditions go, but at the same time there are some who are so glad to be able to advance themselves economically and provide better opportunities for their children.  But the perspectives are even more complicated than they seem.  The Nature Conservancy did a project called PhotoVoice which basically allowed people in these ethnic groups to voice their own perspectives through photographs.  They gave cameras to several people in a village and were careful to vary the type of people they chose by age, sex, and economic standing.  The results of this project are incredible.  They instructed people only to take pictures of things that are important to them and different people focused on very different things.  It became clear through this project that people within a group do not always look at things the same way and do not have the same perspective on the world.  Perhaps some of the Naxi people are excited that they can display Dongba to tourists at an evening cultural show in Lijiang, but perhaps others feel that the presentation is highly stylized and not a good representation of their culture at all.  I am inclined to agree with the latter opinion, but really the question is: what is culture?  Is the preservation of Dongba songs, dances, and religious customs in an entertaining show for tourists really preservation?  Or is it perversion?  Is it ok if those customs just die out as people join mainstream society?  We went to several such shows that involved singing and/or dancing and none of it felt authentic.  The actual songs and dance steps may have been so, but one can learn very little about a culture from viewing it through such a narrow and contrived lens.
           
After ten days in Yunnan Province, we flew to Xinjiang in western China and I had a whole new perspective on the country.  The vastness and diversity of China struck me with incredible force as I walked around the market in Urumqi.  The people there looked different, spoke a different language, and practiced a different religion.  That afternoon I realized that the perspective I had of China before I visited the country was very narrow.  Although I knew nothing of the ethnic groups in Yunnan before this trip, their cultures still fit into a basic framework of what I thought I knew China to be.  The cultures in Xinjiang were shockingly different from what I expected of China and I found myself rethinking everything I thought I knew about the country.
           
We traveled to the far west, close to the borders of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.  The area is sensitive and I could sense that our visit was restricted in a lot of ways.  Again we experienced contrived culture as our tour guide brought us from one “authentic” place to another.  We found ourselves getting annoyed with him, but as I thought about it I realized that we should also consider his perspective.  How do you show people your culture when the government restricts what people can see?  How do you present a true vision of your home province and hometown when it is a seat of unrest and holds a precarious position in relation to the central government?
           
There was a lot of tension in Xinjiang.  We did have a few very “real” experiences that helped me understand the situation there.  When we were shopping for carpets one day, we met a few young men practicing English in their shop.  They spoke very well and we invited them to an “English Corner” we were attending that evening at a coffee shop.  The men came and all sat in one group at a table with a few of us.  Very quickly we realized that their English was much better than that of many of the Han Chinese women who lived in the province to teach the language in schools.  But when we asked our friends why they were not talking with the English teachers they said that the teachers were outsiders and they had no interest in interacting with them.  That one evening shed a lot of light on what is going on in Xinjiang.  There seems to be a good deal of resentment towards the Han Chinese (and probably the government as well).  That comment made me think about how the people there view themselves and their relationship to the rest of China.  Clearly they do not feel a sense of connection to their country and the fact that there is a strong separatist movement in the province indicates that people are not content.  In fact, it seems that people in Xinjiang often have more of an interest in learning English than Mandarin.
           
During the 36-hour trip from Shanghai to New York (with way too many stops in between), I tried to process what I had experienced for the previous month.  Unable to sleep, I sat and thought about where I had been and what I had learned. China was not what I had expected.  That is probably true of most places one visits, but the contrast was especially striking after this trip.  I have always had a certain image of China in my mind, and although I knew that there were fifty-five official minority groups and that the places we would visit would be incredibly diverse, I had no idea what that meant.  My perspective of China has changed drastically and I realize now how important perspective is.  Sitting on the plane, my mind wandered back to photovoice and I thought about all of those beautiful pictures that reveal the diversity of perspectives that can exist within even the smallest community.  People see themselves and the people around them in different ways.  There is no way to define culture, to capture it and preserve it, because there is no right way to look at a culture.  Culture is essentially personal and each person within a culture has his own perspective and belief about what is important.  And the reality is that cultures will always change.  As China continues to grow economically and technology spreads throughout the country, people and cultures will be affected.  In the end, as the cultures change and the people assimilate to mainstream society, I hope that what remain are the people’s diverse perspectives of their own cultures.  Perhaps ultimately those perspectives truly are what define a culture.