Report on YDCC Involvement in Fenghuang City, China
Originally written for Intro to Anthopology, Sring Semester, at York University
Fenghuang City is situated in Hunan Province, central China. It has a population of around 400,000 people, the majority of which are of Miao ancestry. There are 55 officially recognized minority groups in China, each of which has their own culture and traditions. The Miao consist of roughly .7% of China’s total population. This selectivity, combined with their distinct, authentic practices make them prime subjects to exploit by tourism companies. To make things more interesting, a new portion of the Great Wall, dubbed “the Southern Great Wall” was recently discovered and excavated. In 2002, seeking funds, the government of Fenghuang City hired “Yellow Dragon Cave Corporation”, a tourism company, to promote, give tours of and draw people to their city. The plan was successful, as thousands of tourists flocked to Fenghuang to get a glimpse into the lives of its inhabitants and the new great wall. But was the increased tourist revenue worth the cost of losing one’s authenticity? How does the increase in tourism really affect the practice of traditions and rituals of Fenghuang City? This report details how the YDCC and Fenhuang government made their city into a tourist attraction rather than a cultural hub of Miao culture as Fenghuang should have been.
The newly discovered Southern Great Wall is different from the rest of the Great Wall. Whereas the Wall in the north was built to keep out Mongols, the wall in the south is theorized to have been built to separate the “Raw Miao” from the “Cooked Miao”. This is a reasonable hypothesis due to the modern placement of ethnic groups on either side of the wall, and the slight cultural differences that can be seen on each side. According to Yonglin Jiang, an associate professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and former resident of Hunan Province, the “Raw Miao” are Miao who kept to their own culture, and the the “Cooked Miao” are those who assimilated with Han culture, the most prominent in China with nine in ten Chinese people identifying as being of Han ancestry today, making Fenghuang is a prime city for tourism development, exploitation, and mcdonaldization.
The effects of these decisions by the government and YDCC can be seen as early as 2003. Immediately after the construction and repair of the Southern Great Wall, YDCC sponsored a martial arts tournament entitled “Sino Korea Go Invitational Tournament on the Southern Great Wall”. In this spectacle of a tournament, over 350 martial arts students from Fenghuang acted as living chess pieces, controlled by two opponents, one Chinese, the other Korean. Students would move to their required spaces, and attack the opposing team’s student using traditional martial arts moves taught to them at their school. Throughout this event, traditional Hunan and Miao music and dances were performed, all just beneath the giant looming presence of the Southern Great Wall. This is the beginning of the end for tradition in Fenghuang City, made evident by the fact that the event was promoted as a window inside “Southern Great Wall Culture” instead of Miao Culture.
What began to happen is what some call “McDonaldization”. The term was coined by George Ritzer, an American sociologist currently working as a professor at the University of Munich. McDonaldization refers to when certain aspects of one’s lifestyle begin to be served to customers like a fast food restaurant. However, instead of serving fast food, they serve fast culture. This can be seen in more places than just Fenghuang. Indigenous reservations in the United States do this to themselves in states where gambling is illegal, as reservations do not have to abide by American Laws. In Connecticut, where I am from, casinos built by the Mohegan tribe are accompanied by museums and reenactments similar to what one would see at historical sites like the famous colonial Williamsburg reenactments or at the Battle of Gettysburg.
What the Mohegans did to themselves is the same as what YDCC did to Fenghuang. By dishing out certain aspects of their culture and history they can draw in larger crowds and serve a wider array of tourists, ultimately making a larger profit.
What are most impacted by the influx of tourists in Fenghuang are the residents. In 2002, they were promised by YDCC increased incomes, modernized facilities, higher property values, and everything in between. Unfortunately, none of these promises were kept. Nobody planned on any of the following effects to happen, nor did they intend to allow them to occur, but the combination of all of YDCC’s services led to some rough outcomes.
The first promise not kept is that tourism would not have as significant of an effect on the environment as other industries would. When debating what to do before the discovery of the Southern Great Wall, the government had to find new industries to settle in the city and create jobs and income. Unlike a massive factory, which creates smog similar to Beijing and Linfen, tourists would simply add pedestrian traffic at the worst. This is not the case. Air pollution from cars became so bad, large chunks of the city have banned cars from going through in an attempt to maintain property values and people’s health. Over one thousand motorcycle owners in the city were banned from riding in certain areas due to noise pollution. As for foot traffic, tourists from cities increased litter being left in the streets and rivers, resulting in massive amounts of eutrophication, damaging the catches by local fishermen. It also made weeds grow taller and stronger, making it harder for boats to pass through.
Another, less noticeable, effect coming from the hastened modernization is the changing statuses of women in domestic roles. This is more arguable of a change in that some people could justifiably argue that this is better. It is worth bringing up the argument as a whole nonetheless. Fenghuang was previously an extremely conservative social environment, meaning women stayed at home and took care of the family and land while their husbands worked. Post 2002, they were given more opportunities to work as tour guides and in tourist facilities. This is a good thing for women seeking jobs and self-reliance. That being said, in this conservative environment women were the ones who planned and crafted cultural practices such as the Phoenix festival around Chinese New Year, which has also succumbed to mcdonaldization.
The third peripheral effect on the residents of Fenghuang is the increased differences in wage. Before 2002, salaries and wealth were fairly standard, as very few people strayed far from the average. This is due to the fiscally liberal society, as the city is relatively isolated and relying on old traditions. It also helps that unlike a few hundred years ago, there is no local monarchy anymore. Income inequality can be seen most prominently in facilities and attractions managed by companies based elsewhere, such as hotels, chain restaurants, transportation, and more. These companies were able to pay higher salaries, and provided enough range for the town that there were no other options for unemployed people than to fill those positions.
That is just the beginning of inequalities in the town emerging from increased tourism. Political inequality was also a major downside of this situation. There are two parts to this; what the government does, and who is in the government. Firstly, the town began to make its decisions based on what was best for corporations, opposed to what’s best for the general population. An example of this can be seen in Xianghong Feng’s paper on Fenghuang where his interview examines the implementation of YDCC and their offspring company; Phoenix Ancient Town Tourism, which focuses solely on Fenghuang. PATT has an estimated 92% monopoly on all tourism based resources and promotions in and about Fenghuang. The government is indebted to them, therefore to repay the debt, they must allocate more funds aiding tourism for the city. An example would be if they were low on funds and given a choice between fixing potholes in a popular area of the city or adding more teachers to a school, they would choose the prior.
Political inequality does not end with simple decision making unfortunately. During city council reelections shortly after the introduction of YDCC and PATT, many high ranking positions in government went to people not from Fenghuang. Due to it being in such a rural and antiquated setting, many residents of Fenghuang were not qualified to run the city anymore. Now that it is on the map, and people know about it, the city requires more qualified people to handle bigger situations. This meant people from cities like Shanghai and the nearby Chongqing (greater Chongqing region population 49 million) move to rural Fenghuang and get jobs meant for actual residents. Their lack of dedication for the city makes their decision making vulnerable to bribes and commercial influence. Therefore, commercial elites not only influenced people’s decisions, but the people in charge were always in their back pocket too.
But none of this matters if the city can repay their debt to the Yellow Dragon. To the city’s disdain, the increased revenue was not enough to pay back the expenditure. In 2002, the city was indebted to PATT ¥161 million Yuan (26 million CAD), and in 2005 that debt rose to ¥238 million Yuan (40 million CAD) nearly doubling their debt when it should have been going down. This is most likely attributed to the lack of taxation towards tourism facilities as well as the fact that YDCC and PATT had a monopoly over the city, meaning if they go under, the city’s customers leave and businesses fail.
The introduction of an external tourism company into Fenghuang was a poor decision on behalf of the city government. In what should have been a simple way of getting more tourists to visit this ancient city, the worst possible outcome occurred instead. It’s a perfect example of why forced modernization does not work, and why natural modernization over time can alleviate the struggles that come with change of any kind.
Bibliography
Robbins, McGarry, Cummings, and Larkin. Cultural Anthropology: A Problem Based Approach . 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Toronto, ON: Nelson.
Ritzer, George. The McDonaldization of society. Los Angeles: Sage, 2015.
Yonglin, Jiang. "The “Southern Great Wall Of China” In Fenghuang County: Discovery And Restoration." Ming Studies 2013, no. 68 (2013): 57-82.
Feng, Xianghong. "Who are the "Hosts"?: Village Tours in Fenghuang County, China." Human Organization 71, no. 4 (2007): 383-94.
Feng, Xianghong. "Who Benefits?: Tourism Development in Fenghuang County, China." Human Organization 67, no. 2 (2008): 207-20.
