Chinese: What does the Chinese language mean to Western tourists visiting China?

Ingrid’s blog post “Character challenge” has set me thinking about Chinese language learning these days. I have found her observation about learning Chinese characters as “the most intriguing pastime” particularly impressive, especially when I look again at the data I analyzed for my thesis. There I looked (inter alia) at the ways in which English-language travel writers describe their communicative encounters in China.

In my corpus, only few writers seem to have made any attempt to learn Chinese before they traveled to China. However, they usually have a lot to say about the English deficiencies they observe in Chinese locals (as is also the case in hotel reviews).

How does Chinese figure in English-language travel writing? Mostly as an absence. My corpus consists of travelogues from the New York Times and China Daily. Despite their different origins from outside and within China, both newspapers have little to say about any communication occurring in Chinese.

To begin with, Chinese languages tend to be lumped into one single variety, “Chinese.” Regional dialects and ethnic minority languages are generally rendered invisible.

Second, Chinese words or phrases are sometimes used as iconic tokens to refer to local cultural specifics and to signify authenticity. Examples include place names for which a conventional English translation exists such as Changjiang instead of “Yangtze River” and names of Chinese dishes such as xiao long bao (soup dumpling) or baochaoyaohua (fried pig kidney). Other Chinese terms that I’ve found in my corpus included Qipao (a type of clothing), Xiangqi (a game similar to chess), baijiu (an alcoholic drink), pipa (loquat) or shanzha (hawthorn). Instead of serving any communicative function, these snippets of Chinese languages act as “linguistic decorations.” They serve to inject some local flavor authenticating the writers’ touristic experiences and thus contribute to linguascaping the exotic in China.

Third, Chinese languages are also exoticized in meta-comments that make judgments about or express attitudes toward local linguistic practices, serving the purpose of drawing social boundaries and reinforcing similarities and differences between the Self and the Other. For instance, the Guilin accent is described as “fairly different” from Mandarin, Cantonese is labeled as “bird language” or the Jinan dialect is compared to Putonghua spoken by foreigners who cannot grasp the four tones. By recursive logic, such linguistic differentiation is transposed onto the differentiation of destinations and local people. Thus, Guilin is constructed as a peripheral destination; Cantonese speakers are rendered sub-human as their language is compared to animal sounds; and Jinan speakers are made to look foreign and non-belonging.

Finally, some travel writers playfully cross into Chinese languages to enact an elite identity of sophisticated travelers belonging to a global community of tourists. For example, in a travelogue about Yunnan, the travel journalist describes himself as greeting some pilgrims by saying “Tashi delek” (Tibetan greeting). By crossing into Tibetan, the writer momentarily embraces the identities of the Tibetan pilgrims but also maintains his identity as an American tourist. This instance of language crossing presents the travel writer as knowledgeable and well-travelled but not a cultural/linguistic imperialist.

So, what do Chinese languages mean to English-speaking tourists? It’s easy to say what they are not: languages that have any communicative value. Firmly assigned to the Other and lacking any intrinsic interest, they are reduced to commodified snippets serving to affirm touristic identities. One could almost conclude that travel to China is not about China but about the ‘me’ of the tourist.

Publications based on my research are forthcoming. In the meantime, I would refer readers to Jaworski et al. (2003) for further reading.

Jaworski, A., Thurlow, C., Lawson, S., & Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2003). The Uses and Representations of Local Languages in Tourist Destinations: A View from British TV Holiday Programmes Language Awareness, 12 (1), 5-29 DOI: 10.1080/09658410308667063

东方主义，这种西方文化中对东方文化及人文的旧式及带有偏见的理解，可谓是由来已久、根深蒂固。一日偶读澳大利亚旅游杂志《出发和到达》中一篇题为“爱情游戏，中国风”的文章，我对东方主义在当今世界的影响力，尤其是在旅游文本中的呈现，感触尤为深刻。

乍看标题“爱情游戏，中国风”，觉得有趣而有些费解：什么样的“爱情游戏”可以称为“中国风”呢？接下来的副标题解释道：“远离现代社会的纷扰，中国纳西族在罕见的母系社会中独享亘古不变的清静”。文中描绘的中国西南边陲的云南白沙古镇是纳西族的故乡之一。而作者描绘的方式却使得白沙镇成为代表整个中国的一个影像：亘古不变，陷入一个远离现代文明的永恒世界。

文章主要介绍“走婚”习俗，援引作者的话，即为“男人永不结婚，女人当家作主”。实际上，“走婚”是摩挲族的风俗，摩梭族乃纳西族的一支，通常被称为世界上仅存的母系社会。沿袭“走婚”传统的男人和女人都不离开自己的母家，男方仅在夜间的时候在女方家居住。由此所生下的孩子归母家抚养。“走婚”是区别纳西族和摩挲族的主要标志。然而，作者显然对此一无所知，因为他在文中写道“纳西和摩挲妇女在爱情游戏中理所当然占主动地位”。

据文中介绍，在纳西社会里，女人承担主要家务，而男人却“游手好闲”。这种鉴定性的描述源自一位曾经是学校教师的非纳西族人，他来自云南首都昆明。想来作者没有做过任何调研，否则他为何还要援引来自一位局外人和城市教师的话呢？下面这句话更是彰显说话者对纳西男人那不屑一顾、鄙视的态度：同样是这位学校教师断言有一半的纳西男人慵懒无为，与猪无异。

直到文章接近尾声的时候，作者才认可“纳西族年长的男人颇有书法造诣、深谙园艺设计、且音乐才能非凡”。但他们的乐队据说是“以‘三老’为名：人老（大多年逾八旬）、乐器老、歌老。”

由此可见，古老和亘古不变是贯穿全文和图片的主题。例如，文章开端给读者展现的是一位自称“又老又丑”的长者。在作者眼中，这位“八旬老人相貌不俗”，“在许多方面都代表了中国的谦逊之美”。文中描绘的影像与图片中老人的形象相互映衬：“宽松的棉裤”，“五十年代的夹克”，“神秘如天使头发的烟袋”，“银色的稀疏胡须”。不仅仅是文中描写的人物是古老的，白沙镇也是古老的：“自十一世纪以来就几乎没有变化的小镇”；这个地方“老就是好的、美的、值得珍惜的东西”；这是“古老文化的家园”，“不受时光变迁”的影响。

尽管文章的核心是纳西母系社会，纳西女性的形象在文字和图片中都被隐化。虽然文中提到纳西女人“在爱情游戏中主动出击”，这句听起来很诱人的话语在文字和图片中都没有得到回应。

简言之，文中描述的白沙镇就是一个人和事都亘古不变的陈列橱。这个白沙镇脱离了飞速现代化的中国这个大环境，实际上只是作者的一种幻像，而非今日白沙的现实。众所周知，白沙镇的母系社会早已不可避免地遭遇现代文明的冲击，而当地旅游业的发展就是改变这一古老社会形态的因素之一。比如，“走婚”习俗竟然成为迎合游客的红灯区的借口。奇怪的是，种种由旅游业给纳西摩挲人带来的变化，文中只字未提。现代文明没有在白沙镇留下任何痕迹，这符合西方旅者对中国及整个东方的期待和幻想。这种西方对东方的形象建构在萨伊德的东方主义中得到最佳阐释。它源于西方世界对东方人的控制和权威，而由此产生的西方对东方形象的偏见很难颠覆。所以，今日中国尽管现代化建设日新月异，在这种旅游文本中仍旧是一个“古老而永恒的国度”。

Game of love, Chinese style.

Nowhere is the persistence of Orientalist ways of viewing the non-Western Other so obvious than in tourism brochures, as I was reminded when reading an article titled “Game of Love, Chinese Style” in the most recent issue of the Australian travel magazine Arrivals and Departures.

When I saw the title “Game of Love, Chinese Style” on the front page, I was intrigued. What sort of “game of love” could be labeled as “Chinese style”? The subheading provides more detail: “Undisturbed by modernity, China’s matriarchal Naxi minority exist in a rare time-warped world.” The destination featured in the article, Baisha, is a small town in China’s southwest province Yunnan and home of the Naxi ethnic minority. The way it is presented, however, makes Baisha an icon of China as a whole: forever old and trapped in a timeless world cut off from modernity.

The article centers on the custom of the “walking marriage,” which supposedly means that “men never marry and women wear the pants.” “Walking marriage” is actually a custom of the Mosuo, an ethnic group related to the Naxi and often presented as the only matriarchal society in the world. In this tradition men and women never leave the maternal household and men visit their female partners only at night. Children born of such relationships stay with the mother’s extended family. The practice of the “walking marriage” is a major difference between the Mosuo and the Naxi. However, the author is apparently unaware of this when he says “Naxi and Mosuo women are expected to take the lead in the game of love.”

According to the article, in Naxi society, women do most of the work while men are regarded as “slovenly.” The source for this characterization turns out to be a non-Naxi and a former school teacher from Yunnan’s capital Kunming. If the author had done any research, why did he need to source this comment from an outsider and an urban intellectual? More condescending and contemptuous quotes follow: 50% of Naxi men are judged to be lazy “like a pig” by the same school-teacher.

Only towards the end of the article does the author acknowledge that “male Naxi elders are renowned calligraphers, gardeners and skilled musicians.” Their musical collectives are said to be “famous for the “three olds”: old men (few players are under 80 years of age), old instruments and old songs.”

Oldness and timelessness thus are the overarching themes running through the text and the photos. For instance, the reader is also introduced to an old man who claims himself to be “old and ugly” but whom the author considers a “handsome octogenarian” who “in many ways typifies China’s humble beauty.” All the images of “loose cotton pants,” “1950s Mao jacket,” “an angel-hair tobacco pipe” and “his wispy silver beard” are echoed in the photos. It is not only the people featured in the article who are old, the city of Baisha is old, too: “a town virtually unchanged since the 11^th century;” a place where “old is good, old is beautiful, and old is something to be treasured;” and the home of a “time-locked culture.”

Although the article is about the matriarchal Naxi group, women are back-grounded in the text and pictures. Although there is the titillating piece of information that Naxi women “take the lead in the game of love,” they certainly don’t have a prominent position anywhere in the text or the pictures.

The image of Baisha as a whole is represented as a showcase of people and things that exist unchanged forever. Being taken out of the context of “rapidly modernizing China,” the timeless image of Baisha is thus more about the author’s fantasies than Baisha’s realities, one of which is that its matriarchal customs are unavoidably being challenged by modernization – including tourism. For instance, the custom of the “walking marriage” has actually become an excuse for the emergence of a red light district catering to tourists. Strangely enough, this sort of change, among other changes that are brought about by tourism to Mosuo Naxi, is absent from this article. The absence of all traces of modernization in Baisha matches the Western tourism imagery of China and the East at large. This Occidental construction of the Orient is best understood with reference to Said’s concept of Orientalism. It is grounded in Western dominance and authority over the East which has in turn produced a stereotypical Oriental image that can hardly be subverted. It is no wonder that China, despite its accelerating pace of modernization, remains “the ageless reign” in travel writing.