3
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) mandate requires ‘[t]he broadcasting system should be a mirror in which all Canadians can see themselves and see themselves portrayed fairly, accurately and without stereotypes’. Obviously, this is a basis, especially for those ethnic minorities who do not have their own media (especially with their own language). In this sense, representations of ethnic minorities transmitted in mainstream media are fundamental to this issue. In the context of China, the importance of mainstream media is reinforced on the ground that most ethnic minorities are living along the borderlines or in the mountainous areas (except almost assimilated and scattered Hui and Manchu people), which provides quite a few opportunities for the Han people to communicate face-to-face. Rather, they learn or get vivid pictures about ethnic minorities through books (especially textbook), television, films and websites.
Seeking Representations Strategies: Vibrating between the Realistic and Idealistic
It is not such a hot topic that few studies have carried out for researching the Chinese Ethnic minorities’ representations. Among those few but prominent studies, Senz and Zhu (2001) conducted a questionnaire-based interview among 128 Han people in a city of
Paul Clark (1987, 1988), however, based on his study of Chinese films since 1949, proposes an approach to divide ethnic minorities into two camps, namely, ‘hard areas’ and ‘soft areas’. In the first instance, it refers to Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, where people have strong ethnic identities and suffered from splitting activities, thus leading to the film themes on ‘anti-splitting’ and ‘anti-espionages’ like the Guests from the Ice Mountain (1963) to awaken people’s awareness of national unity. On the other side, more love themes like memorable film Ashima[1] (1950) were portrayed among ‘soft areas’ of south-western ethnic groups. It is also added later by Gladney (1994) that another attracting point for Han people lies in their expectations of ‘exotic other’, mainly due to different clothing, customs and folks.
Besides ‘exotic other’ films, Li (2000) from Ohio State University analysed representations of Ethnic minorities in Chinese Propaganda poster from 1957 to 1983, arguing that Ethnic minorities served as signifiers for ‘socialist prosperity’, ‘lack of progress and education’, ‘national security’ as well as ‘national unity’. He contends that ‘identity of ethnic minority people is constructed as little sisters and brothers being taken care of by the Han big brother in the socialist big family’ (ibid.) Similarly, Clark (1987, 1988), Gladney (1994), Senz and Zhu (2001), Mueggler (2002) are keen to observe this phenomenon. In this way, most ethnic minorities’ presences are typically characterised by their ‘colourful ethnic dresses, dancing movements, and hearty smiles’ (Gladney, 1994; Li, 2000; Litzinger, 2000; Mueggler, 2002).
Given that both political propaganda posters and media in China function similarly as ‘mouthpiece for the party/state’, the interactions between cultural products and state policies has been dominating ethnic minorities’ images in the minds of Han people, most of whom do not have the opportunity of visiting ethnic minorities areas directly. It should be pointed out that most signifiers among the four, as mentioned above, are now still functioning as an extension of state policy that shape people’s minds for generations. The ‘same encoding strategies’ (Li, 2000), still employed by the new generation of CCP leaders with a few revision of guise, serve as the party/state’s means of propaganda, especially confronted in a changing world with intertwined by splitting activities, religious sensitivity and so forth. Propaganda agenda, after all, matters.
If we pay attention to 19: 00 News Programmes[2] at CCTV 1, for instance, the features about ethnic minorities in recent years are: 1) leaders’ visiting ethnic minorities’ areas with aids and greets in festivals[3], as appeared on
Table 3.1 Statistics about CCTV news features
| Feature Theme | Qinghai-Tibet Rail | Economic Backwardness | Party Leader Meeting & Visits | Ethnic Minority Exemplars |
| Feature Numbers | 17 | 8 | 2 | 2 |
Source: CCTV News Channel
Notably, there are 6, 4 and 2 reportages about controversial Qinghai-Tibet Railway on 1 July 2006, 2 July 2006, and 3 July respectively. Besides this, as always, economic backwards, ethnic minorities’ exemplars and party/state ideological propaganda are emphasised. This example illustrated that traditional representations strategies remained almost the same with the slightly emphasis change of, namely, from social backward to economic backward.
Lastly, Gender and ethnicity are ‘intricately intertwined’. Evans (1999: 74) observes that the ethnic woman ‘emerges as the exotic embodiment of a range of imaginaries, fantasies, and sublimations that the dominant discourse denied in the representation of Han women’. Similarly, Gladney (1994: 27-37) tries, from a feminist perspective, to explore the essence of ethnic minorities' representations in so-called 'minorities films' as well as its politic implications. Specifically, he starts from the discussion of 'bathing scene of ethnic minority females' in the cultural expressions of murals (Like Yuan Yunsheng's Water Festival--Song of Life at Beijing Capital Airport), paintings, then locating this theme to the works of influential 'fifth generations' filmmakers. A striking theme of 'explicit, erotic nature', both from artworks and filmmakings, is found by Gladney (1994), besides exoticisation mentioned before, especially among females of southwest ethnic minority groups (like Dai, Hani and Li) who have a 'custom' of bathing in 'densely populated areas'. If shot as films, is it offensive to ethnic minorities? Is it like ‘Han voyeurism of minority women’? Can this be accepted by Han people, among whom women are prohibited to be naked in public sites? Zhang Nuanxin’s film Sacrificed Youth, for instance, illustrated this ‘ethnic sensuality’ of Dai ethnic group in Sipsong panna, Yunnan, by long shot in such a way of integrating this scene into the natural setting. Yuan Yunsheng's mural was partly covered owing largely to the complaints from Yunnan Ethnic Groups.
[1] In this film of Ashima, it tells a love story between beautiful Yi-minority girl Ashima and her lover A-hei, although the film was added the theme of ‘class struggle’ as others in that era. It is argued by Senz and Zhu (2000) that the aesthetic value of this film made itself become most people’s nostalgia.
[2] The 19: 00 New Programme in
[3] This news programme can be seen online at:
[4] This news programme can be seen online at:
[5] This news programme can be seen online at:
Representing ‘Positive Stereotypes’ of Ethno-cultural Diversity
Obviously, the portrayals of ‘a rich cultural heritage’ of ethnic minorities are prevalent among Chinese media through their ‘singing, dancing and wearing colourful, exotic clothing’ (Senz and Zhu, 2001), which induce most Han people to equalise ethnic minorities with ‘good dancers and signers’, as is in the case of Senz and Zhu’s (2001) findings of 78%. Western Anthropologist D. C. Gladney (1994: 4-5), through his field work, also notes the interesting phenomenon at CCTV Spring Festival Happy Gatherings[1]: Ethnic minorities (or some Han people wearing Ethnic minorities’ clothes) are singing, dancing, smiling, to create an atmosphere of ‘happiness’, which constitutes almost the half of this programme. Specifically, some singers of ethnic minorities’ origins sing their native songs in their native languages, with Chinese characters as subtitles.
Two questions arise associated with those portrayals. Firstly, do those music, songs, dances and clothes serve as vehicles of ethnic minorities’ cultural identities? Secondly, how can we understand by ‘exotic images’?
[1] China Central Television (CCTV)’s Spring Festival Eve Happy Gathering (Chunjie Lianhuan Wanhui) is a program broadcasted from
Vehicles of Identities?
First and foremost, it was challenged by the argument that ‘most music, songs and dances are in general adopted to Han people’s tastes’ and aesthetic values, rather than a ‘transmission of real knowledge’ (Senz and Zhu, 2001) or expression of true cultural heritage of ethnic minorities.
Moreover, Mueggler (2002) is quite critical of this way of representing ‘ethnicity’ by ‘discrete entity with distinctive costumes and traditions’, through his study of Yi-ethnic Clothing Competition Festival, arguing that images of ethnic minorities in China are vehicles of selectively objectifying ‘individual objects’ as ‘ethnic objects’ in such way of ‘celebrat[ing] the liberation and assert[ing] differences’. Specifically, Diamond (1994) analysed this phenomena by noting the fact that ‘each ethnic group is identified by the presence of various customs that differ from those of the Han people/ or from those of neighbouring ones’.
Obviously, it was largely caused by the ‘ambitious, painstaking’ project of ‘ethnic identification’, which ended in the late 1980s with the results of recognising 55 ethnic groups in China among then hundreds of groups applying for ‘minority status’ (Gladney, 1994: 2). The definition of ethnic groups is determined by Stalin’s definition and historical criteria, namely, linguistically, geographically, economically, and psychologically ‘manifested in a common culture’, or, in a narrow sense, distinctive from the majority Han (Gladney, 1994; Fei, 1999; Mackerras, 2003).
In this process, ‘selective cultural features’ are generalised or universalised as forceful emblems of one ethnic group, which could ignore the variations of, either dressing or language, within one officially defined ethnic group. For instance, those Miao ethnic group ‘most frequently shown on television’, as Diamond (1994: 98) notes, are just belong to one sub-group of Miao, who wear ‘elaborate silvers headdresses for festivals or marriages ceremonies, but largely different from the rest most. In this case, it would, through the television or film, give those know nothing about Miao a misleading impression, making them stereotyped Miao as a wealthy ethnic group wearing lots of silver jewelleries every day. But, for the purpose of ‘ensuring or representing a place’ in the refigured ‘Chinese nation’ family, an accounting of 'cultural difference' (Lizinger, 1998) or ‘relationally described identities’ (Gladney, 1994) must be considered or invented, and ‘happily accepting the objectivised identity’ were portrayed through the media (Gladney, 1994: 7).
Besides these symbolic practices of objectifying cloth and dance as ethnic identity, it should be noted there still exists another ‘subjective process of this identity formation’ (Litzinger, 2000: 47). In other words, it way employed, either by ethnic minorities’ elites or Han people, is to ‘restore or reclaim authentic pasts (such as inventing a festival, universalising a dance with ignoring its origin), either as common or not, as traditions or foundations for identity’ to pave the way for the essentialist process, especially in a ‘self-reflective symbolic activity’ of cultural politics. Ritualised dance for the Yi-people, as Mueggler (2002) points out, is only for some sub-groups of Yi people on the past ritual day, which, however, is now utilised as the universalised festivals.
‘Exotic Images’
The only exposure many Chinese have had to them [ethnic minorities] in the past has been in the official media's carefully-posed pictures of exotically dressed tribal people attending the annual meeting of the National People's Congress in
----- BBC Correspondent Tim Luard
Ethnic minorities wearing their traditional clothesIndeed, this approach in China’s context is termed with ‘exoticisation’ by American Anthropologist D. C. Gladney (1994) in the sense that almost ethnic minorities sing with different languages, and dance with colour, exotic clothing. E. Mueggler (2002) even radically named them with ‘dancing fools’. Not surprisingly, for most prominent Western anthropologists (like Colin Mackerras, Erik Mueggler and Ralph A. Litzinger) who were allowed to come to China in the late 1980s, they were astonished at ‘images of the charming and distinctive dances, clothing, dwellings and customs of 55 ethnic minorities’, displayed or framed through various expressions, ranging from ‘museum displays’ to audiovisual programmes, from ‘dance extravaganzas’ to ‘theme parks’. But, that’s what the way how most Chinese people, especially the majority Han who live far away from areas of them, learn about their ‘brothers and sisters’ around the borderland, especially through the media. That’s what they believe as ‘cultural diversity’.
That’s, however, another story for most Western anthropologist. Strikingly, they critically called this as a ‘new mode of imaging the nation in the post-Mao era’ (Mueggler, 2002: 4). Through this, as Ralph Litzinger (1998) argues, a ‘vibrant totality, diverse yet unified’ was invented or imagined with the ‘flavour of cultural plenitude’, in which ethnic minorities are, in fact, included as ‘limited participants’. Mueggler (2002) attributes this change to the extension of the concept of ‘Chinese nation’ and the policy shift brought by the reforming and opening-up policy, instead of assimilation and class struggle in the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, Gladney (1994: 4), from the perspective of ‘relation identity’, argues that at the expense of ‘the exoticisation of the minority’. ‘the homogenisation of the majority’ (namely Han people) is essentially constructed in such way of ‘formulat[ing] the Chinese nation itself’, due in part to the assumption that ‘Han is generally equal to the Chinese’.
This exoticisation also promotes the prosperity of Chinese films framed as 'national style'. Paul Clark (1987b, 101; quoted in Gladney, 1994: 28) commented to point this intriguing phenomenon, as ‘paradoxically, one of the most effectives to make films with Chinese styles was to go to the most foreign cultural areas in this nation’, which refers to the ethnic minorities’ culture that are easily ‘objectified’ and more vibrant. For instance, Tian Zhuangzhuang, the representative of influential 'fifth generation' filmmakers, claimed in New Chinese Cinema (1988; quoted in Gladney, 1994: 27) that '[the ethnic minorities] are actually about the fate of the whole Chinese Nation', which encouraged him to give the influential ‘minority films’ like On the Hunting Ground (1985) and Horse Thief (1986), to let ‘film audiences travel to foreign lands without crossing the nation's borders'.
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