Can Cultural Landscape be Reconstructed? - a case study of Gaozhuang Xishuangjing, Jinghong City, Yunnan Province, Southern part of China.

Abstract

Gaozhuang Xishuangjing (hereinafter referred to as Gaozhuang) is a newly constructed cultural tourism attraction and a landmark of Jinghong, which nests in the core spot of the tourism resort zone of Jinghong, close to the entrance of the city, and lies next to the Mekong river. It has its fame at home and abroad, which has received few awards and titles and been broadcast provincial and national over the past years. It has been attracting millions of tourists even during the pandemic situation. The influx of tourists over the past three years had almost broken ten million per year, which accounts for almost half of the whole influx of Jinghong city. However much the applause and honors it has awarded, there are critical voices such as ‘disynefication’ ‘Dongbei (Northeast region of China) night market’ ‘fake antique’ ‘social landscape not cultural’. Is it the case? Could Gaozhuang mode be a sustainable way to conserve cultural heritage and provide a possible for cultural conservation? Bearing these in mind, this dissertation is aimed to explore the answer to respond the main objective and question: Can cultural reconstruction be a way to conserve culture?

The scope of this dissertation centers on Jinghong city related to cultural heritage and elements, cultural resources, and how those local cultural features presented and reconstructed in Gaozhuang tourism attraction. It has applied qualitative methods focusing on primary data collection, using targeted groups and in-depth interviews (five different groups: local officers, tourists, neighboring villagers, local business people, other local residences), participation and non-participation observations and field survey. The secondary data collection covers cultural reconstruction concept, cultural landscape, cultural heritage assessment, cultural tourism, cultural conservation and management, cultural heritage interpretation, various journals, online and offline resources, official documents.

The key findings in one side suggests that Gaozhuang mode (cultural reconstruction) could be a possible way to conserve cultural heritage, and the detailed contents of these key findings are divided into three parts: 1) cultural elements in Gaozhuang; 2) cultural reconstruction of Gaozhuang; 3) authenticity issues of Gaozhuang. These three parts of information presents the positive impacts and influences that Gaozhuang plays a role in local to revive and spread local culture, to upgrade local tourism mode, to present a more traditional Dai landscape to public, to connect local community with other people and to boost the development of local. In another side, however, the collected data also exposes the inevitable problems of Gaozhuang towards to tourism management and impacts, and authenticity issues in social-cultural, economic and environmental that may challenge its sustainable development. Therefore, in the end, to cope with those problems, management and interpretation plannings are proposed in this dissertation for the future development of Gaozhuang. Gaozhuang’s success echoes that reconstructed culture cultural landscape can be the way to conserve heritage and also indicates the challenges needed to well-managed.

-