china forever - orientalism recovered

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COMMENTARY

CHINA, FOREVEROrientalism Revisited

Songshan (Sam) HuangUniversity of South Australia, Australia

Tourism research has long been directed and dominated by Western or Euro-centric theories and conceptualizations. Despite the market trend that increasingnumbers of tourists nowadays are being generated from past underdeveloped hostcountries, the voice calling for a more legitimate research paradigm incorporatingthe perspectives of those historically silenced has been weak (Winter, 2007). How-ever, unless a culturally and politically pluralistic knowledge creation mechanism isbuilt up and widely agreed upon among researchers (Winter, 2009), the truth

about tourism and its representations can only remain fragmented to their bestand researchers constrained in their roles as lions in the circus (Tribe, 2006,p. 360).

In their article CHINA, FOREVER: Tourism Discourse and Self-orientalism(Annals 36: 295315), Yan and Santos attempted to analyze Chinas first nationalpromotion video as a contemporary non-western tourism discourse resorting to aWestern-contextualized theory,Orientalism(Said, 1978). While the research endea-vor is to be praised for its investigation regarding largely overlooked non-Westernproduced representations (Yan & Santos, 2009, p. 295), as claimed by theauthors, the research approach and the interpretations leave much to be criticized.

First, by employing the conception of Orientalism, the authors seem to have

derived a methodology in their study which actually embodies Orientialism, in-stead of ascending over it to look into a West-East interactional scenario. Arguingthat Orientalism. . .sustains the myths of unchanged and uncivilized Others(Yan & Santos, 2009, p. 295), the authors overlook the initial attempt by Said(1978)to demystify the West-Orient relations through defining and using the termOrientalism. In his bookOrientalism,Said (1978)has made it clear what he meant tosay about Orientalism. Starting from the accepted definition of Orientalism at the

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 11881192, 20110160-7383/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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REJOINDERS AND COMMENTARY

This Department publishes rejoinders, commentaries, and rebuttals on the con-tents of Annals. Attempts should be made to submit contributions to the Associ-atiate Editor forRejoinders and Commentary, Graham Dann (Department of Tourisma nd L ei su re , U ni ve rs it y o f L ut on , B ed s. L U1 3 JU , U K. E ma [email protected])

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time as an academic designation in which those who teaches, writes about, and re-searches the Orient, also referred as Orientalists (scholars), invest their academicinterests, Said goes further to note that Orientalism is a style of thought basedupon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Orientand (most of the time) the Occident(p. 2), and even further to define Orien-talism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authorityover the orient (p. 3). By demystifying a culturally molded mystification overthe Orient by the Orientalists, Said has contributed to opening of avenues ofrethinking the West-East relation and made it possible for the dialogue of civiliza-tions (Ghazoul, 2004). Although such a point is clear both in Saids own works andhis critics, the authors of the CHINA, FOREVER article interpret the intendedtourism discourse in a way that is against Saids real intention in his book. If theauthors were discerning in reading Saids (1978)seminal work Orientialism, theyshould have noticed the discrepancies between their intended track and that ofSaid.

Following the trapped old track of Orientalism both epistemologically andmethodologically, it is natural that the authors come up with their propositionsthat the CHINA FOREVER promotion video reveals a changeless, nostalgic, myth-ical and feminized China that speaks to a Western Orientalistic imagination andcreates a modern China subjugated to Western understanding and authority overmodernity (Yan & Santos, 2009, p. 296). These propositions are produced by theauthors as interpreters with a predominated mindset of Orientialism, the oneSaid (1978) attempts to deconstruct. Taking this in mind, the validity of thesepropositions remains not unquestionable. Since the interpreters are not the initialproducer of the discourse analyzed, and the analysis just goes though the analyzersself positioned lens of analysis without consulting either the producer or the sub-

jects the producer intends to present in the video, the propositions are rooted inthe authors.Second, the termSelf-Orientalismseems confusing and misleading in its meaning.

In the two authors lexicon, Orientalism is not simply the autonomous creation ofthe West, but rather that the Orient itself participates in its construction, reinforce-ment and circulation (Yan & Santos, 2009, p. 297). While it is true to say there isinterconnectedness, interaction, and mutual-formation between the Occidentaland Oriental in the creation, production and evolution of the phenomenon Ori-entalism, caution should be taken to objectify the two cultural groups positionsin the process of Orientialism. The Orient should never be treated as occupyingthe same power as the Occident in leading and directing the process. They can

only play a reactive or responsive role, which may never be their real expressionpolitically, in such a process. If Orientalism is a Western style for dominating,restructuring, and having authority over the orient (Said, 1978, p. 3), there existsno Self-Orientalism among the subjugated because any reaction taken by the Ori-ent is not a Western style and thus not Orientalism at all. Therefore, there isnever Self-Orientalism produced by the Orient, as the authors presuppose; thereis only a self-imagined Self-Orientalism produced by the producers/interpretersthemselves. In contrast, the extended terms of Internal Orientalismwhich appliesthe same mechanism between the geoculturally different places within a Westernhegemony (e.g., Jasson, 2003), and to a lesser extent, Neo-Orientalism which ex-plains the relationship and interactions between two unequalized Oriental cultural

entities (e.g.,Bovair, 2008), appear more theoretically and logically upholding.Third, critical discourse analysis (CDA), as a research approach, seems to be mis-

used in the article. While CDA is indeed an appropriate research approach toexamine the issue, the authors appear to have hijacked its usage in the research,for CDA in the majority of cases takes the part of the underprivileged and triesto show up the linguistic means used by the privileged to stabilize or even to inten-sify iniquities in society (Meyer, 2001, p. 30).

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Following the above arguments come the not unexpected issues of femininityand modernity in the interpretations of the discourse. While it is true that the por-trait of young, slim, and attractive Chinese women appears here and there in thestoryline, especially in the first half of the video, a scene-by-scene calculation toclassify the expressed genders informs a roughly same number of scenes betweenfeminine (31) and masculine (32) presentations, with twice the number (64) pre-senting people in an un-gendered way (e.g., men and women together, children,old women and children). The expressive masculine presentations include menplaying drums, Shaolin monks performing Kungfu, old beard man weighing Chi-nese medicine, man performer blowing fire from his mouth, chefs, and bell boys,to name a few. However, one has to admit that it is the women figures that wouldattract most of the audience attention, because those scenes are presented in a nos-talgic, historic and idyllic atmosphere.

The metaphoric embodiment of China as a young and attractive woman is notproblematic. However, shedding the color of Orientalism in interpreting such a

representation without resorting to the cultural contexts in which the discourseis produced is by no means appropriate. In the Chinese culture, representing acountry with a female nature is common. As Germans refer to their country asfatherland, Chinese use motherland, a feminine word to refer to their coun-try. When describing a countrys beauty, one tends to employ the analogy to com-pare the country attractiveness to the beauty as embodied in young women. Thiscould also be a commonsense to the video producer. However, whether the pro-ducer intended to project a feminized China lies outside commentator specula-tions. Applying Hofstetes Masculinity as a cultural dimension, China could becomparable to Western countries like the US, UK, and Australia, judging fromthe empirical scores from Japan and Hong Kong for their similarities in national

cultures with China (Hofstede & Bond, 1988).The modernity of a third world country like China would also be easily subject topostcolonialist scrutiny. However, a so-called Western understanding over moder-nity and subsequently an equalization of Chinas modernization to westernizationwithout referring to Chinas historical, cultural, social and political contexts do notsuffice to explain Chinas situation in this respect. Chinas modernization actuallystarted in mid 19th century when it was forced by Western powers to open its bor-der and ports for international trade. There have been continuous struggles, de-bates, retrospections on Chinas cultural identity and intercommunicationsbetween the Chinese civilization and the Western civilization among its rulingclass, especially its intelligentsia (Hu, 1963). It is undeniable that Chinas modern-

ization has its unique features in its different historical developmental phases andcan only be understood from an ethnocentric perspective. It is evident that Chinaattempts to steer its own way in labeling its reform towards market economy withChinese characteristics, as expressed in its recent political discourse. Nonetheless,even a superficial examination of Chinas contemporary history focusing on its so-cial and cultural transitions would enable one to refute Yan and Santos claim thatthe video as a tourism discourse cater affably to Western tourists through rein-venting, reconstructing and renegotiating marketable Chinese identifiesself-Ori-entalism (Yan & Santos, 2009, p. 296).

In analyzing any form of discourse materials, researchers subjectivity cannot beeliminated. This does not discount the utility of discourse analysis as a research ap-

proach. In fact, there is no purely objective research. I personally take the stancethat researchers consciousness of their own positions would make social sciencesstudies more exciting and humanistically colorful. In the current case, what mat-ters most is to look into the same social discourse and its representations from adifferent perspective. If it is self-Orientalism under study as the authors claim,the producers perspective and that of the subjects are indispensible. The research-ers perspective can only speak the imagined truth to themselves and can vary when

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their positions change. With my own Chinese ethnicity and continuing observa-tions and reflections on Chinas various forms of tourism discourse, I interpretthe video rather as a self-centered promotion work without much understandingof its audience. It presents a touristic China which proudly owns historicaland cultural wonders, world heritages, colorful ethnic cultures and a variety of nat-ural landscape beauties.

The Chinese title of the video actually differs from its English title and conveys aricher meaning which may speak more of the producers intention. It reads China,its glamour lasts forever. Linguistically, the word glamour underlies a derivationof wealth and status, which could hardly explain self-deprivation and compromiseimplied by the authors of the article. Regretfully, Yan and Santos seem to have over-looked of the meaning distinction between the Chinese and English titles. Whilenot intended in its designation, the video could be equally applicable to Chinasdomestic tourists, for the staged scenes in the video could even evoke Chinesenationals to go and see their own countrys glamour. Therefore, the video repre-

sents, in its primary purpose, a touristic China or staged China rather thana self-Orientalized China. In this sense, the video parallels itself to any Westerntourism promotional discourse. One could resist interpreting a promotion videoproduced by Tourism Australia figuring indigenous peoples cultural performancesas self-Orientalism, even if it took comparable filming strategies and techniques.

Saids Orientalism thesis denotes a Western style of thinking which has its owncultural limitations. One of the legacies left by Saids seminal book is that it helpsdismantle cultural and intellectual barriers among us researchers to seek the truthin an alternative perspective. The tourism research community has seen an increas-ing number of authors with Asian or Oriental ethnicity in the recent decade (Ryan,2009). When we raise the challenges posted by cultural filters of our research

understandings (Ryan, 2009, p. 1), we need to acknowledge that researchers fromboth cultural divisions should treat the issue seriously. So far, we have seen a cleartransition of our research content and subjects from the West to the East; however,the research approaches as indicted in the tourism literature in English are stillpredominantly Western. Even researchers with Asian ethnicity, working either intheir home country or in Western countries, are following in their research themainstream Western approaches they are equipped mostly through studying theirPhDs in Western universities. On very few occasions have we seen research publi-cations adopting a real-sense Oriental ethnocentric perspective. Nonetheless, asthis research field progresses to claim its maturity, a culturally balanced dynamismin research practices incorporating both Western and Eastern perspectives should

be a highlighted welcome.

REFERENCES

Bovair, E. A. (2008). Journeys to Shangri-La: The neo-orientalism of Tibetanculture. In G. Cochrane (Ed.), Asian tourism: Growth and change(pp. 335343).Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

Ghazoul, F. J. (2004). Orientalism: Clearing the way for cultural dialogue. Religion,34(2), 123127.

Hofstede, G., & Bond, M. H. (1988). The confucius connection: From cultural

roots to economic growth. Organizational Dynamics, 16(4), 521.Hu, S. (1963). The Chinese renaissance. New York: Paragon.Jasson, D. R. (2003). Internal orientalism in America: W.J. Cashs the mind of the

south and the spatial construction of American national identity. PoliticalGeography, 22(3), 293316.

Meyer, M. (2001). Between theory, method, and politics: Positioning theapproaches to CDA. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of criticaldiscourse analysis(pp. 1431). London: Sage.

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Ryan, C. (2009). Thirty years of tourism management. Tourism management, 30(1),12.

Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.Tribe, J. (2006). The truth about tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 33(2),

360381.

Winter, T. (2007). Rethinking tourism in Asia. Annals of Tourism Research, 34(1),2744.Winter, T. (2009). Asian tourism and the retreat of anglo-western centrism in

tourism theory. Current Issues in Tourism, 12(1), 2131.Yan, G., & Santos, C. A. (2009). CHINA FOREVER tourism discourse and self-

orientalism.Annals of Tourism Research, 36(2), 295315.

Songshan (Sam) Huang: School of Management, University of South Australia,Adelaide SA5000, Australia. Email .

Received 17 March 2010; accepted for publication 5 January 2011

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2011.01.001

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

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china forever - orientalism recovered

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