Tazin and Jia discuss crisis communication in a linguistically diverse world and a new book co-edited by Dr. Jia Li and Dr. Jie Zhang called Multilingual Crisis Communication that gives us insights into the lived experiences of linguistic minorities affected during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Multilingual Crisis Communication is the first book to explore the lived experiences of linguistic minorities in crisis-affected settings in the Global South, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. China has been selected as a case of inquiry for multilingual crisis communication because of its high level of linguistic diversity. Taking up critical sociopolitical approaches, this book conceptualizes multilingual crisis communication from three dimensions: identifying communication barriers, engaging communication repertoires, and empowering communication justice.

Comprising eight main chapters, along with an introduction and an epilogue, this edited book is divided into three parts in terms of the demographic and social conditions of linguistic minorities, as indigenous, migrant, and those with communicative disabilities. This book brings together a range of critical perspectives of sociolinguistic scholars, language teachers, and public health workers. Each team of authors includes at least one member of the research community with many years of field work experience, and some of them belong to ethnic minorities. These studies can generate new insights for enhancing the accessibility and effectiveness of multilingual crisis communication.

This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in the fields of multilingualism, intercultural communication, translation and interpreting studies, and public health policy.

This volume brings together 23 contributors and covers a range contexts in which crisis communication during the COVID19 pandemic has been investigated. Focusing on China owing to a high level of linguistic diversity, this book uses critical sociopolitical approaches, to identifying communication barriers, engaging communication repertoires, and empowering communication justice.

Advance praise for the book

‘Setting a milestone in critical sociolinguistic and applied linguistic studies, this volume offers critical insights into overcoming communication barriers for linguistic minorities during crises, promoting social justice, and enhancing public health responses through inclusive, multimodal, and multilingual strategies. It also serves as testimonies of resilience, courage and kindness during the turbulent time’ (Professor Zhu Hua, Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences and Director of International Centre for Intercultural Studies, UCL, UK)

‘The global pandemic has brought to the fore the key role of multilingual communication in disasters and emergencies. This volume contains cutting edge ethnographic studies that address this seriously from the perspective of Chinese scholars and minoritized populations in China. A decisive contribution to the burgeoning field of multilingualism and critical sociolinguistics in times of crisis.’ (Professor Virginia Zavala, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú)

Related content

For related content, visit the Language on the Move Covid-19 Archives.

Transcript (coming soon)

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The Hani are one of the officially recognized ethnic minorities in China, and can also be found across the border in Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. Like other ethnic minorities in China, Hani people need to become bilingual in Putonghua proficiency for educational and social mobility. At the same time, ethnic minority languages are increasingly valorized in tourism and for China’s soft power project in its borderlands. Even so, the linguistic and social experiences of China’s minority speakers remain poorly understood. How do their linguistic proficiencies and life trajectories intersect? What are the affordances and constraints of using the minority language, the national language Chinese, and the global language English? Here, we examine the experiences of three Chinese Hani women from three different generations to explore these questions.

Hani folksongs bring comfort to older generation facing poverty and hardship

Hani woman singing Haba while weaving

Haba is a Hani folksong genre that was included by UNESCO in the world intangible cultural heritage in 2013. Official reports describe Haba as a men’s tradition. It is commonly assumed that only Hani men may sing Haba and win the respect and reputation it brings. This is not entirely true, as our research has found. Hani women sing Haba, too, as a daily practice of self-comfort. However, they do so without an audience. This may be particularly true of poor older Hani women without formal education.

Let’s consider the example of the Haba singing of Fang (a pseudonym). Fang is the aunt of the second author, Yongzhen. Yongzhen often hears her aunt singing Haba in private spaces. Fang’s Haba singing is full of lament and sorrow featuring narratives of the hardships and misfortunes of her life.

Born in 1966, as the oldest daughter in her poverty-stricken family, Fang’s life has been overshadowed by the pressure to bear a son. As a child, she did not have a chance to receive any formal education and so she remains monolingual in Hani and illiterate. At the age of 16, she was forced to marry a man who she had never met and who lived in an even more remote village. Shortly after, she gave birth to her first daughter. Over the next 20 years, she bore 13 daughters before the desired son was born when she was 40 years old.

Today, that son is her only surviving child, and Fang suffers from poor physical and mental health. Singing Haba is a way for her to digest her bitterness, to reduce her sorrow, and to comfort herself, as in this song (our translation):

I married you because I used to think that you would treat me well and live with me.
Now you don’t care for me and don’t even bother to talk to me.
However, I have delivered these children for you in your home.
How come you don’t talk to me properly?
I plant the land on my own.
Our children are born, and the land is planted.
I gave birth to our children. I don’ t want to leave them or abandon them.
The land is planted. I don’t want to leave it.
You often beat me, hit me with your fists and kick me with your legs.
I don’t want to stay here any longer.
I don’t want to eat at all. Neither do I want to drink.
I can only worry, about these children, this land.
I choose to endure the sufferings and stay.
But still you don’t treat me well, don’t talk to me properly.
In this house, I want to cry every time I pick my bowl and take my chopsticks.
This is not my home, but the home of others, your home.
I eat two meals a day, yet my belly is still empty.
The water I drink is never gulped down.
The threshold of this house is like a python by the river, lying in my way.
I dare not take a step in.
I don’t want to stay any longer.
I don’t want to eat another meal here.
A day here feels as long as a life time.
But I don’t want to abandon these children here and leave them once and for all.
I have no idea why you don’t care for me.
I can’t make up my mind just to leave.
My desire to leave has led my feet two steps forward.
But I still can’t leave.
But then you don’t care for me at all.
My desire to leave has taken three steps away from this home.
But I still can’t leave.
The dog never changes its heart to stay and guard the home.
It is the same with me and my children.
The deer in the wild does not wish to stay, either.
Upon consideration, I also decide to hold back and stay.

Hani becomes glamorous

In contrast to Fang’s mournful Haba, which can only be found in personal and private spaces, Hani pop music has been promoted by government institutions to enhance local tourism. Hani pop music is bouncy, joyful, and optimistic, and the famous Hani singer Mixian (米线) is one of its most famous exponents.

Mixian was also born into a poor Hani farming family in 1983. Her educational opportunities were slightly better than those of Fang and she received a primary education but had to stop school because her parents need her help with farm work (China’s nine-year-compulsory education was not implemented nationwide until 2001).

Like Fang, Mixian’s life was also transformed at the age of 16. However, in her case, she did not have to leave her family for marriage but for work, when she moved to a tourist-centered city and became a waitress. Soon, she combined waitressing with singing for tourists. During one of her restaurant performances, Mixian was discovered by Beijing Dazang Record Company.

Since then, Mixian’s has become a national celebrity. She has released several popular albums, which brought her much profit and fame. One of her most popular songs is “My Hani (Honey) Baby”, which is performed in three languages and combines ethnic and global elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8PXgZUdec

The song “My Hani Baby” distinguishes itself from other Chinese pop songs through the use of Hani language, English, and Putonghua, and the integration of ethnic and modern music styles. Although there are four singers who all identify themselves as ethnic minorities (Hani, Wa, Hui, and Yao), only Hani language appears in the text and is performed by Mixian. Mixian thus becomes a symbol of local ethnic identity while the three male singers perform the cool aspect of modernity by switching between English and Putonghua.

The theme of the song is one frequently found in pop music: romantic love. What is challenged is the traditional identity imposed upon Hani women who are not expected to marry for love, as exemplified in Fang’s story. The lyrics form a dialogue between Mixian and the three male singers, where the female character boldly expresses her romantic love, and the male character reciprocates.

Choosing the romantic theme and combining the ethnic language (Hani) with modern languages (English and Putonghua) have served to increase the popularity of this song. Whether it contributes to the emancipation of Hani women is another matter.

It is also worth noting that the commodification of the Hani language apparent in this successful pop song has not only helped Mixian establish her reputation but has also drawn public attention to the Hani language in China and beyond. One Chinese netizen liked “Hani Baby” so much that he started to learn the Hani language by searching for relevant materials and posting Hani scripts online. His posts in turn have become a learning resource for Hani people to acquire Hani literacy.

A new generation of educated multilingual Hani women

Yongzhen is both the second author and the third Hani woman we will now turn to. Born in 1999, receiving a 9-year-compulsory education was normal for Yongzhen, as it is for women of her generation from all over China. Her childhood was also shaped by rural poverty but in a way that is very different from previous generations. Like hundreds of millions of rural people from China’s underdeveloped western regions migrate, both her parents migrated to work in factories in Zhejiang and Guangdong.

Yongzhen introducing her bilingual translation project to university professors

As a result, Yongzhen became a left-behind child at an early age and was raised in a boarding school. Yongzhen distinguished herself by excelling in school and pursued her university dream. Her parents’ migration and labor experiences in developed cities were crucial in forming her ambition to pursue higher education and her parents have been unconditionally supportive of Yongzhen’s ambition.

Choosing English as her major was mainly driven by her parents’ aspiration to get a stable job working as an English teacher in the future. Now that she has been exposed to the Course of Language and Society with a particular focus on linguistic diversity, Yongzhen is motivated to become a new broker for Hani language and cultural heritage.

New Hani voices

When the Covid-19 pandemic was still prevalent last year, Yongzhen organized a team with three other ethnic minority female students to conduct a small project in their communities. They investigated how ethnic minority people in their hometowns might understand Putonghua-mediated public health information. Their findings are very similar to others conducted in minority-centered regions in China and featured in the Language on the Move Covid-19 archives.

Based on their research, Yongzhen and her teammates designed a bilingual app inspired by the national emergency language services. Their bilingual translation product has been recommended by the College of Foreign Languages at Yunnan University to participate in the national project targeting Chinese university students’ innovation and entrepreneurship.

Through the multilingual translation project, Yongzhen and her teammates developed their empathy towards their ethnic minority communities and learned of the importance of providing language service to linguistically diverse populations. Additionally, the have felt it their duty to become a voice for their peoples, especially ethnic minority women.

While writing up this study and having access to knowledge about linguistic diversity via Dr Li Jia’s course and the learning materials on Language on the Move, Yongzhen has come to understand how her aunt and other female Haba singers have been linguistically, economically, and culturally marginalized, and how the official and commercial discourses about the Hani people only reveal a partial truth while sometimes simultaneously erasing minority voices. As a multilingual and educated Hani woman, Yongzhen has developed a new faith devoting herself to the sociolinguistics of gendered trajectories of Chinese ethnic minority women for equal social participation.

*** 

Editor’s note: There is a Chinese saying that two heads are better than one (三个臭皮匠赛过一个诸葛亮). This proverb emphasizes both collective wisdom and the value of grassroots work. At its best, teaching is both. In this mini-series, Dr LI Jia and Ms LV Yong, Yunnan University, share how teaching about linguistic diversity has changed their understanding of linguistic diversity. Specifically, they summarize the findings of 77 small research projects undertaken by their undergraduate students. These research projects provide insight into the multifaceted and dynamic language experiences of Chinese youth from Yunnan province, a highly diverse border region in the southwest of China. Following on from their recent posts about the revalorization of Chinese dialects and the changing role of minority languages in Yunnan, this final post in the series focuses on the learning of foreign languages other than English in China.

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Yunnan as a link between China and Southeast Asia

Yunnan province in China’s southwest shares over 4,000 kilometers of borderline with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Because of its geopolitical advantage and China’s regional expansion project, Yunnan is constructed as a window linking China to Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries (see detailed discussion of the linguistic consequences of the geopolitical position of Yunnan here and here). In the emerging discourse of China’s engagement with its neighbouring countries, Yunnan has seized the opportunity and actively developed its cooperation Southeast and South Asian countries on all levels.

In education, for instance, over 80% of international students in Yunnan are from Southeast Asia and South Asia.

The increasing number and scale of non-English foreign language programs is unprecedented and largely geopolitically motivated. Yunnan University, for instance, has established ten foreign language degree programs in languages of Southeast Asia and South Asia only within the past seven years. This bi-directional flow of international students learning Chinese and Chinese students learning Southeast Asian and South Asian languages constitutes a new approach in foreign language education in China, which is very different to the approach of metropolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

Learning Burmese as extension of family capital

The study by Yang Hongli (杨洪黎) has offered some interesting learning experiences of a Chinese female student majoring in Burmese. Being brought up in Yingjiang, a border town in Yunnan, this Chinese student was able to speak simple Burmese language for daily communication with her parents before entering university. Her Burmese proficiency is mainly associated with the fact that she has a Burmese mother and a Chinese father, and both of her parents have been involved in the jade trade and crossing the border for decades. While studying at university, this student reports that “缅语越学越有成就感，越学越有自信” (“the longer I study Burmese, the more I feel accomplished and the more I feel confident”). As one of the top students in her class, she is often set up as an example in pronunciation, oral communication, and academic achievement. Despite undertaking her Burmese studies in Yunnan, this student does not feel inferior to other Chinese peers from elite universities in Beijing and Shanghai because her university has a one-year-exchange program with Yangon University, the top university in Myanmar and her excellent oral performance in the national Burmese language competition also proves her competence over other Burmese majors in China.

Learning English as burden

Li Jia with Dai and Shan students in a Yunnan primary school

This student, however, feels quite stressed when asked about her English proficiency. In the interview she confessed that her English is poor because she has not passed CET-4 (College English Test Band-4). Without this certificate, she is afraid that her future job prospects might be affected. Similar to this Burmese learner’s story, a Thai major also reported her different language learning experiences in English and in Thai to Bai Qiongfang (白琼芳）.

This Thai learner used to study English in her first year, but due to her lack of interest and unsatisfactory performance in English, she decided to transfer to major in Thai. Another important reason to shift to study Thai is because of her ethnic identity as Dai. As a Dai speaker, she can understand 40% of Thai language because of the shared linguistic and cultural background.

Cross-border minorities learning Thai for additive identities

As China is increasingly promoting non-English foreign languages, Thai has become one of the most popular foreign languages in Yunnan and the spread of Thai social media also shapes Chinese young people’s desire to learn Thai. Due to the similarity between her mother tongue and Thai, this Thai learner has proved her competence in her class when she just started to learn Thai compared to other Chinese classmates who have to struggle from zero knowledge. It is interesting to note that her competence in Thai also shapes her curiosity and desire to maintain her ethnic identity. By working with her teacher on a project, she is running an official account on introducing the cultural practices of both Dai and Thai people. In fact, the increasing interest in speaking ethnic minority languages like Dai is not limited to grassroots efforts but also observed from top down approach in the shifting context of China’s geoeconomic and geopolitical conditions, as we shared in the previous post.

The studies mentioned above are mainly based on our students’ observations and lived experiences. An in-depth and longitudinal study is needed in future in order to understand how the shifting meanings of speaking “small languages” like Thai and Burmese might contribute to more equitable access to social resources. Whether the valorization of these foreign languages will fulfill the career aspirations of their speakers in education and at work also remains an open question.

While having abundant linguistic and cultural resources in Yunnan, we should not exaggerate the idea of multicultural prosperity. As we pointed out in the previous post, only a very small number of ethnic minority students can overcome the linguistic and social barriers to be accepted into university. English still constitutes a huge barrier for their access to equal education especially in remote and minority-centered regions of Yunnan. In order to fulfill minority people’s aspirations, a more diversified foreign language educational policy needs to be adopted. Rather than using English as the only foreign subject, Southeast Asian languages such as Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Laotian should be established to make use of the local linguistic resources and to empower young people’s upward mobility in the borderlands.

*** 

Editor’s note: There is a Chinese saying that two heads are better than one (三个臭皮匠赛过一个诸葛亮). This proverb emphasizes both collective wisdom and the value of grassroots work. At its best, teaching is both. In this mini-series, Dr LI Jia and Ms LV Yong, Yunnan University, share how teaching about linguistic diversity has changed their understanding of linguistic diversity. Specifically, they summarize the findings of 77 small research projects undertaken by their undergraduate students. These research projects provide insight into the multifaceted and dynamic language experiences of Chinese youth from Yunnan province, a highly diverse border region in the southwest of China. Following on from their recent post about the revalorization of Chinese dialects, the second article of this 3-part series explores the state of minority languages in China.

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Maoduoli candy from Yunnan is a huge success. Its name means “bright boy” in the Dai language.

Yunnan province is one of the most linguistically diverse provinces in China. It also ranks near the bottom for degree of socioeconomic development in China. With China’s rapid development in the world economy, Yunnan is seeking to capitalize on its linguistic and cultural heritage to integrate itself into China’s regional expansion. Tourism is one of the three pillar industries in Yunnan, and offers associated business opportunities related to minority languages.

Ethnic minority people’s languages and their cultural products increasingly come to be seen as a form of capital to boost the local economy.

This is apparent in the names and images of local foods, as Xiong Qingqing (熊青青) has found. Xiong finds that ethnic minority languages transcribed in Mandarin scripts can create exotic and authentic feelings among Chinese customers who are keen to purchase these commodities. Maoduoli (猫哆哩) is such a case in point: this snack made from local fruit is named after a word from the Dai language, where “Maoduoli” means “bright boy”. Since it was first sold online in 2011, Maoduoli has gained such nationwide popularity that there was a significant rise in its Baidu index from 300 to 2500 within half a year.

Ethnic minority people lack interest in maintaining their heritage languages

The commodification of ethnic minority languages has been studied by many scholars both in China and the world. Some of our students are ethnic minorities themselves, but what they have observed is quite different from the official discourse of celebrating diversity via tourism. Their studies indicate that ethnic minority people themselves do not have much confidence in maintaining their heritage languages.

Wang Liping’s (王丽萍) study is based on the language practices of Bai people from Heqing, Yunnan. Despite the tourist discourse in promoting Bai language and cultural products, the local Bai people see it as challenging to revitalize their heritage language. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, the Bai language in Heqing has no written script and Bai people do not have any religious belief or other strong ideological desire to maintain their cultural practices.

Second, Heqing’s geographical location between two popular tourist destinations (Dali and Lijiang) have actually sped up the loss of Bai. This is due to the fact that more and more translocal migrants settle down in Heqing and marry locals. In the process, Putonghua replaces Bai as the medium for family and wider communication.

Third, many local Bai people migrate to more developed cities in the east of China for better prospects.

Finally, despite the discursive valorization of Bai as a commodity, the language has not been legitimized in the mainstream educational system.

For all these reasons, Bai people do not find it worthwhile to pass Bai on to their younger generation. Instead, the prefer to invest in Putonghua and English. According to Wang’s study with Bai people of different age groups, young people between 7 and 18 have only receptive but no productive knowledge of Bai language, even though they live in a Bai-centered region.

Constructing ethnic minority language as soft power

Despite the lack of interest in minority language maintenance on the part of minority groups, local governments are keen to promote these languages by displaying ethnic minority language signage at tourist destinations (see also Yang Hongyan’s study) and other public spaces. Such top-down approaches to revitalizing ethnic minority languages and cultural practices become more prominent in Yunnan’s border regions such as 西双版纳 (Xishuangbana; see map), a Dai-centered city bordering Myanmar and Laos.

Bai Qiongfang’s (白琼芳) analysis of official documents about the promotion of Dai and Dai culture indicates that Xishuangbanna is becoming a window targeting its neigbouring countries where there are many cross-border ethnic groups living on both sides of the border and sharing a similar language and culture.

Dai people constitute the majority in Xishuangbanna. The Dai are called Shan in Myanmar, and Dai language is also similar to Laotian, the national language of Laos. Given its geopolitical importance, Dai language is not only promoted as commodity but more importantly as “soft power of the borderland”. By making use of digital information technologies and social media transmission, the quality of spreading Dai language and culture has been greatly enhanced, and many national projects and funding supports have been granted to revitalize Dai language and culture via TV/radio/movies and by compiling Dai textbooks and a dictionary.

The local government has even initiated a new policy requiring local leaders and civilians to wear ethnic minority clothes and accessories for at least two days a week.

The increasing visibility of minority languages and cultural practices in China and across its border constitutes a new perspective on China’s language practices in which ethnic minority languages are part of China’s soft power projection, revitalization of the local economy and reinforcement of minority groups’ cultural confidence. However, it remains to be seen whether the discourse of constructing ethnic minority languages as commodity and symbolic identity is actually beneficial to ethnic minorities and does not create more tensions and discontinuities within ethnic minorities and cross-border groups.

Despite the discourse of embracing diversity and having abundant linguistic and cultural resources in Yunnan, we should not exaggerate the idea of multicultural prosperity.

Based on our decades of teaching experience, we are well aware that only a very small number of ethnic minority students can overcome the linguistic and social barriers to being accepted into university. English still constitutes a huge barrier for their access to equal education especially in remote and minority-centered regions of Yunnan. An in-depth and longitudinal study is needed in future in order to understand how ethnic minority students might get empowered through education and at work. What our students Zhu Ziying (朱子莹), Li Jincheng(李锦程), Liu Zongtuo(刘宗拓),Bi Yanming(毕砚茗) and Li Jia have been doing in recent months and in the years to come is to investigate how language shapes the educational and employment trajectories of Yi ethnic minority students and hopefully our study might contribute to the linguistic diversity at the borderlands.

In the next and final part of this series, we’ll focus more on these cross-border languages and explore foreign language learning of languages other than English in China.

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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

I know the area and the people well and, as a matter of fact, only a few months ago I spent time in Lijiang collecting data for my PhD research (which deals with practices and ideologies of multilingualism and language learning among the Naxi). The Naxi people I know bear little resemblance to the caricature presented in “Game of Love, Chinese Style.”

Let me introduce you to Jinfang HE and Xinwan HE (both are pseudonyms). Jinfang and Xinwan are friends of mine from Baisha. They are a typical Naxi peasant couple and their ancestors have lived in Baisha for generations on their self-sufficient farm. Both are extremely hardworking, as subsistence farmers have to be. Jinfang usually does most of the farm work in the field and all household work. Xinwan, her husband, drives a mini-bus operating between Baisha’s ancient town and Lijiang city (18 minutes one-way) during the tourism season (usually from April to November). During the off-peak season, he sometimes offers private car charter services to business men from Baisha who need to make a deal in Lijiang city. Jinfang and Xinwan live in a typical Naxi-style house and from the outside it may look “timeless.” However, look closer and you will see that except for the wooden doors and windows carved with traditional Naxi patterns, the interior of the home is very modern and they have the same electric appliances and furniture we usually find in the houses of the Han or westerners. There isn’t much difference there.

However, the local economy does depend on the image of authentic timelessness that the tourists come to see. In 1997, Lijiang’s old town was declared a UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage site. This site includes three ancient towns, Dayan (大研古镇), Baisha (白沙古镇) and Suhe (束河古镇). A lot of effort goes into keeping their ancient looks and old beauty! The historic stone pavements, wooden houses and small bridges, and the streams flowing through the streets and lanes do indeed form a very beautiful landscape.

In Dayan, Baisha or Suhe, the locals, particularly older people, are used to being a tourist picture motif. If you ask permission to take a photo of them, they will unanimously say: “I/We am/are old and ugly, why do you want to take photos for me?” with their friendly smiling faces – it’s part of the spiel and comes with being a living tourist attraction. The ladies in this photo with their healthy smiles all said to me they were old and ugly before posing for the photo …

I imagine that being asked to pose for a photo also happened to Dr. HE and that he graciously obliged. Although it really is a shame that the author of “Game of Love, Chinese Style” apparently has no idea who the old man in the white coat in his picture is. Dr. HE is 86 years old and that’s presumably why he gets featured in the picture but what is really important – and not mentioned at all – is that he is a famous Chinese herbal doctor. Dr. HE has cured many people with cancer from home and abroad. As a matter of fact, he also speaks very fluent English!

Now let me get to the heart of the article, the Mosuo custom of the walking marriage. To begin with, the occupations of my Mosuo friends vary a lot and I know a Mosuo doctor, a university teacher, a tourist guide and more than one researcher. Walking marriage (走婚), also called A Zhu Hun (阿注婚) or A Xia Hun (阿夏婚), is the marriage practice among Mosuo people ONLY (Mosuo  are considered a branch of the Naxi ethnic minority but have been campaigning for independent status for a long time), not for all Naxi. When Mosuo girls/A Xia (阿夏) or boys/A Zhu (阿注) reach puberty, they will get an adult ceremony and girls will from then on be called A Xia and have their own A Xia Fang (bedroom). When A Xia loves A Zhu, A Zhu will ask a witness to ceremoniously go to A Xia’s home with gifts for everyone in the family to ask for A Xia’s mum’s and uncles’ permission to be A Zhu. There are three forms of walking marriage, the most popular one is that A Zhu visits his A Xia at night only and goes back to his home at dawn, the other two forms include that A Zhu will stay in A Xia’s home (阿注定居婚) or A Xia will go to stay in A Zhu’s home (阿夏异居婚). But the latter two are not popular in the local area. Mosuo people have their own values and standards in sex and morality. A Xia and A Zhu respect each other and bear responsibility for each other. The walking marriage is not an arranged marriage and so love plays a very important role in continuing the A Xia-A Zhu relationship. Until they have children, there is some freedom to change to a new A Xia or A Zhu if they find they no longer love each other. However, after they have children, they generally can’t change to a new A Xia or A Zhu.

The way it used to be was that when a child was born, the child would live in the mother’s home and the uncles would take on the responsibility of educating the child. However, the paternal grandmother would come and visit the new baby with gifts for everyone in A Xia’s big family. A Zhu was not allowed to bring the baby back to his home but he would hold a dinner party and invite the seniors in the family and neighbors to show he is the father of the baby and he shoulders his part of the responsibility to raise the child even though mother and father don’t live together in the same household. However, nowadays more and more Mosuo people melt into the mainstream society and give up the walking marriage in favour of the official marriage system.

If anyone needs further evidence that the ethnic minorities of Yunnan are not stuck in a time-warp, look it up on a map. Yunnan is in Southwest China and constitutes the most convenient international passageway to access southeast and south Asia by land. The area is developing rapidly as a centre in the Greater Mekong sub-regional economic zone. It’s hard not to see traces of modernization there. The only ones who are stuck in a time-warp are those travel writers who fail to see how rapidly the lives of the ethnic minorities of Yunnan are modernizing!