The purpose of this paper is to clarify how the Chinese government promotes and displays the Mu Palace as a tourist spot. The palace is located in the old town of Lijiang, which has been registered as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.
Section I examines the situation after the Ming period when the Mu Palace was constructed, and clarifies the historical transition occurring during this period by using such historical sources as the
Qianlong Lijiang Fu Zhi Lue (乾隆『麗江府志略』) and the
Guangxu Lijiang Fu Zhi Gao (光緒『麗江府志稿』), the records of some surveys conducted in the modern period, and related documents. In section Ⅱ, I analyze perceptions recorded by Huang Naizhen(黄乃鎮), who was the contemporary chief of the Lijiang prefecture cultural department and supervised the reconstruction of the Mu Palace from the planning stage to its eventual completion. I show what conceptions he had for the reconstruction. Moreover, I compare the historical fact that Mu native chieftains expanded their influence during the Ming period with the results of my on-site surveys in July 2009 and Ming sources such as the
Mushi Huangpu (『木氏宦譜』) and the
Huang Ming Enlun Lu (『皇明恩綸録』), in order to analyze how the present Mu Palace was reconstructed. Section 3 examines how the government displays the present Mu Palace to tourists through an analysis of the descriptions in academic papers, the
People’s Daily Online and other government websites.
From the above, it is clear that the rebuilding of the Mu Palace cannot be regarded as the reconstruction of a historical heritage site. In my opinion, the reconstruction can be considered as a ‘theme park’, which shows affinity with Chinese dynasties and demonstrates the historical legitimacy of the People’s Republic of China rule in this region. I cannot verify the proposition that the Naxi people, including the Mu native officials, had any affinity with Chinese dynasties. However, what I found was a strong desire on the part of the government to portray the Mu chieftains as being close to the Chinese dynasties. The reason for the Chinese government taking such an arbitrary attitude is that many elements of the history of the Mu family in the Ming period and the background to the construction of the Mu Palace do not demonstrate any affinity with a Chinese dynasty.This cannot necessarily be regarded as the ‘formula’ of the native official.
From the viewpoint of China’s policy on minorities, however, I think that it is much more natural to develop Han cultural heritages that already exist in Lijiang rather than to undertake ‘creation’ projects such as the one outlined above. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of developing the tourist industry, the cultures of minority people are valuable resources, and their development can contribute to local development. That is to say, this case illustrates the competition between nation-state building and market economy principles as regards cultural heritage sites in China.
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