tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post396500636743965789..comments2023-10-22T18:25:39.688+08:00Comments on The View from Taiwan: Paper on Parade: Tourism as a territorial strategy: the case of China and TaiwanMichael Turtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-60944215747218709152014-04-28T18:37:06.824+08:002014-04-28T18:37:06.824+08:00I am interested in the idea that the claim that Ta...I am interested in the idea that the claim that Taiwan has preserved a "purer" Chinese culture is actually pro-China propaganda.<br /><br />Living in the Mainland, I had always imagined that it was the Taiwanese themselves of all stripes who like to make this claim. Apparently I was wrong. Ji Xianghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03406727999722525339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-64518411949298185552014-04-27T00:47:47.521+08:002014-04-27T00:47:47.521+08:00Is there anything in that paper that isn't a j...Is there anything in that paper that isn't a jargoned-up statement of the bleedin' obvious? We all know what Chinese tourists are like, so this paper tells us nothing we didn't already know. <br />Mike Faganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08745281285031316740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-29943059601537796572014-04-24T11:55:58.993+08:002014-04-24T11:55:58.993+08:00This is a great article, and a good summary by Mic...This is a great article, and a good summary by Michael. It is certainly correct that the article demolishes the core assumption behind much previous research and political speechifying on this topic, namely that PRC-to-Taiwan tourism will proceed along a, "normative trajectory of reconciliation or greater mutual understanding" (a prospect laughable to most TWese or those who have observed PRC tour groups here and spoken to TWese about them). <br /><br />However, there is one crucial aspect of the article which you touched upon briefly that I think could have stressed a little more. That is how the PRC group tour 'experience' is structured in such a way that, "commission-based group tour shopping, previously uncommon in Taiwan, has become the dominant model, and ... this along with the territorial ideology of ‘‘One China’’ is producing an effect of PRC stateness for PRC tourists." As the paper demonstrates, the <i>actual genre</i> of hop-on hop-off tourism, with minimal local contact, itself occludes differences between Taiwan and the PRC <i>such that they are rendered near invisible</i> to PRC visitors. (As such, the tour experience not only panders to PRC tourists' existing 'One China' preconceptions, but counter-intuitively <i>reinforces</i> them.) It is not simply the number of PRC tourists at Sun Moon Lake that lead to, "PRC tourists themselves... feeling as if they were still in China," but also the style in which they encounter that place.<br /><br />As such, local (and Hong Kong) tourism operators are also partly to blame for remaking these spaces as 'Chinese'. Perhaps most disturbing is how, as Ian writes, "the Taiwanese travel industry is collaborating in the touristic performance of Taiwan as a part of China," by self-policing the language of tour guides (e.g. adopting PRC terminology such as 'neidi' 內地) and warning PRC clients to avoid Falun Gong demonstrators. This might provide some indication of the direction things could go in other industries should the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement pass in its current form.<br /><br />One other quick comment re: independent PRC tourists. My own limited experience is that individual travellers gain a much deeper appreciation of Taiwan's distinct merits, and of the cultural and historical differences obscured by 'One China' ideology. Just last week a Taiwanese friend told me how a PRC acquaintance visiting Tainan was so taken up by the post-Sunflower atmosphere that he started chanting Taiwan Independence slogans in the middle of the BBQ restaurant where they were having dinner. I've also encountered occassional, less public, expressions of sympathy for Taiwanese self-determination from independent PRC visitors.Scottnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-58421205951025019452014-04-24T01:21:11.649+08:002014-04-24T01:21:11.649+08:00Hi Michael, thanks so much for your excellent revi...Hi Michael, thanks so much for your excellent review!<br /><br />A few quick replies:<br /><br />1. You're right to highlight the line about "unintended effect of alienation". Yes, unintended for whom, exactly? And I'm curious, what kind of effects of 'alienation' or identification is Chinese tourism producing for you here, apart from the obvious? <br /><br />2. Yes, more research will be forthcoming on independent tourists, once I find some time away from the Sunflower proliferation. Would be great to get your comments on a draft when it's ready.<br /><br />3. As meaningless as social science divisions may seem, my graduate training has been in Geography, not Anthropology (even if this piece in the ethnographic tradition, and owes a debt to the latter discipline). So, I'm probably better called a 'geographer'. And, here in Taiwan at Academia Sinica, I'm affiliated at the Institute of Sociology. Does this make me a sociologist too? Who knows. I wish it didn't matter.<br /><br />4. I've posted the paper to my personal page on academia.edu, so unless Annals publisher Elsevier takes it down, this link is better than the Google Drive one in your post. Please replace if it's convenient for you: https://www.academia.edu/6802148/Tourism_as_a_territorial_strategy_The_case_of_China_and_Taiwan<br /><br /><br />Thanks again for the review!<br /><br />IanAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18288939135626255068noreply@blogger.com