Hill Stations in Asia: A Discovery of Scenery and Environmental Change

抄録

　Hill stations are mountain resorts that were developed under colonial management by suzerain countries. Because of their historical background, hill stations are evidently products of colonialism. Hill stations tended to show a particular path of development from a few cottages, to military cantonments to popular summer resorts, or even “Summer Capitals.” The colonial history of these hill stations has come to an end. However, hill stations still survive as mountain summer resorts for domestic tourism of the new nation states. This article focuses on the formation process and social role of hill stations in relation to environmental change in particular. Then it discusses their transformation in the post-colonial era. For hill stations, a cool climate caused by high altitude was especially important. In coastal colonial cities, it was extremely difficult to maintain a Western lifestyle because of the hot, humid climate. The Western colonizers could maintain their own lifestyle only under the cool conditions at the hill stations. Hill stations were indispensable to the management of a colony as a device to maintain a Western lifestyle and also to uphold the colonizers’ identity as Westerners. It has been shown that the Western colonizers had marginal characteristics in terms of adaptation to tropical environments. Hill stations began with the “discovery of scenery,” like that the British found in the picturesque landscapes of lake districts in mountainous areas of colonies. The natural environment once discovered was altered into quasi-Western landscapes by afforestation and addition of some particular facilities. At present, this hybrid landscape is still reproduced by the formerly colonized people. Consequently hill stations have become exotic locales to everyone, both foreign and domestic, and attract tourists with their marginal characteristics and exoticism.