Cross-Cultural Misconceptions: Application of World Heritage

Concepts in Scenic and Historic Interest Areas in China

Feng Han

Introduction
Scenic and Historic Interest Areas form a designated national park system in China.
These areas, predominantly nature-dominated, as the most attractive and popular
tourism destinations, are characterised by outstanding natural qualities as well as
cultural qualities. They are also significant components of the world park system due
to their great contribution to the World Heritage. By the end of 2003, 15 of the
China’s 29 World Heritage Sites are also Scenic and Historic Interest Areas or are
located in these areas.

Recently, the management of Scenic and Historic Interest Areas, especially in the
World Heritage Sites, appears to be following the tendency towards globalisation
values. This has raised hot debates (Huang and Wu; ChinaYouth 2002; Wang(a)
2003; Wang(b) 2003). Main debates focus on the State policies that are basically
derived from the criteria of Natural Heritage in World Heritage Convention: the
removal of local inhabitants and the demolition and strict restriction of man-made
structures within the properties (Guo 2003; Mingxing 2003; CNWH 2004). These
policies are strongly opposed by local communities and even local governments,
because such policies are not consistent with the traditional Chinese attitude to
Nature.

The Traditional Chinese View of Nature

The traditional Chinese View of Nature has its philosophical origins in
Confucianism and Taoism and has continued to develop historically. The Chinese
have maintained a philosophical, humanist, and holistic attitude to the human-nature
relationship which is distinguished from the western human traditional detachment
from Nature (Moore 1967; Wang 1990; Li 1996; Zhou 1999). From the view of the
Chinese, Nature has never excluded human activities, instead, it is a place that
always embraces humans. Scenic and Historic Interest Areas, are the places where
the natural beauty and cultural elements are at “perfect oneness” and present the
Chinese perceptions of Nature, namely, beautiful, peaceful, full of human
spirituality, and embracing human beings (Figure 1 and Figure 2).

It is necessary to point out that, historically, wild Nature is not within the scope of the
Chinese appreciation. What they value is the part of Nature that has been
aesthetically sensed or has created cultural attachments. The Chinese believe artistic
re-built Nature is more beautiful than the original one, based on their tradition of great
aesthetic achievements. The Chinese have developed unique culture of landscape
poems, landscape gardens, and landscape paintings, where Nature as an assemblage of
isolated objects without connecting into a unified scene is more than 1,000 years
earlier than Western Countries. Thus, landscape has its specific meaning over time in
China. It is the renaming of Nature, which is characterized by Shanshui (mountain
and water), and especially, it refers to those ‘great’ or ‘scenic’ mountains and waters
embedding great moral and aesthetic values. Landscape is traditionally moral- and
aesthetic-centred in China. The interest of loving Nature and travelling in Nature
became the basic virtue of the good men since the Jin Dynasty1 (265~420A.D).

Distinguished from the West, the traditional Chinese View of Nature is marked by the
following characteristics (Lin 1935; Lin 1937; Zhang 1992; Wang 1998; Yang, Zhang
et al. 2001; Yu 2001; Shen 2002; Han 2003) :
1. It is humanistic rather than religious;
2. It is aesthetic rather than scientific;
3. There is great value and beauty embedded in Nature itself;
4. It is consistent with human moral and personality;
5. Nature is the extension of home; it is an enjoyable and inspiring place.
6. Artistic re-built Nature is more beautiful than the original one.
7. Nature aesthetics and practice are highly developed in China;
8. Travelling in Nature aims to be enjoyable, instead of solitude oriented.

1
It is widely accepted that landscape as an isolated objects without connecting into a unified scene
emerged from Jin Dynasty in China.
World Heritage Categories: Cross-cultural Misconceptions
The Detachment of Nature and Culture
From the above statements, it is not difficult to understand that the categories of world
heritage: Natural Heritage, Cultural Heritage, Mixed Heritage and Cultural
Landscape, are confusing concepts for the Chinese to apply in Scenic and Historic
Interest Areas where Nature and culture are highly integrated. Typically, many of
these sites are Associative Cultural Landscapes with different virtues of artistic or
cultural, moral or ethical associations without material evidence and easy to be
ignored by the outsider. Chinese consider it is artificial to set them into different
categories. Managers are usually mis-leaded by the policies of the Convention with
cross-cultural misunderstandings. Now they are guiding to separate Nature for
humans on these sites.

There is not one site considered purely natural according to our practice experiences
in the last twenty years. On the contrary, the cultural inventory in these natural-
appearing areas always amazed us with rich cultural virtues when we go through its
history. We are always surrounded by material culture or associative culture. A
common naturally-looking stone in deep mountain may remind us where Li Bai (one
of the greatest poets, Tong Dynasty 701—762AD) was drunk and lay and composed
his famous landscape poem. A flat platform with a beautiful view could be the place
where Bai Juyi (another great poet, Tong Dynasty 772-846AD) constructed his straw
study house and lived spiritually with Nature. When we are travelling in Nature, we
are with history and our ancestors without loneliness and solitude. The Chinese have
put too much emotion and energy into Nature through thousands of years and it is
such a tightly twined net that is impossible to separate Nature from culture (Lin 1937;
Feng 1990).

Cultural Landscape: A Problematic Concept

The term “Cultural Landscape” is also problematic for the Chinese. As mentioned,
landscape has its specific meanings in China. The Chinese would take it for granted
that landscape is cultural as they are humanly conceived images of Nature. So it is
unnecessary to put ‘cultural’ in front of ‘landscape’-even as “a useful tautology”
(O'Hare 1997,p47). The core of the concept of cultural landscape that is aimed at
broadening the view of the landscape towards settlement and all interfaces between
humans and Nature and beyond the aesthetic, the past, and "wilderness" in the West,
is not widely accepted by the Chinese because of the lack of theoretical understanding
of contemporary cultural landscape.

Aesthetic-centred landscape still dominates China. Human settlement such as ‘rice-

terraced mountains’ is beyond the Chinese cultural images of Scenic and Historic
Interest Areas, although sometimes they are regarded as ‘pastoral landscape’ (figure
3). Further, today they are against another ecological movement in China called
“return the terraces back to the forest”. What is happening in China is just like what
happened in Australia in the 1970s when National Parks authorities sought to create
"pristine" wilderness areas by eradicating the traces of humans (O'Hare 1997,p29).
Battles between ‘natural’ and cultural ideologies continue.

Cultural Tradition Vs Science and Globalisation in China

The Influence of Cultural Tradition
The influence of cultural tradition on today’s Chinese is profound and culture is
usually inherited unconsciously. For example, Chinese housewives are never afraid to
slaughter fresh animals for cooking, children in kindergartens recite Tang Poems
loudly without realizing they are one thousand years old, and we take it for granted to
travel in natural areas and build our houses there just to enjoy the beautiful scenery
like our ancestors. They are cultural traditions and hard to resist for the Chinese. In
Scenic and Historic Interest Areas, three characteristics can be outlined based on
Chinese traditions: first, the tourists seek beautiful scenery with little ecological
awareness in natural areas; second, adding and creating cultural identities in natural
areas to attract tourists; third, numerous miles of roads are constructed to provide
access to remote areas and tourist facilities are built to satisfy tourists’ comfort and
enjoyment (Figure 4 and Figure 5). This has caused huge impact in these areas (BRN
2002).

Such impacts are frequently attributed to the great pressure of tourism market instead
of cultural traditions. However, nature, for the Chinese, except the religionist, is an
enjoyable place for entertainment. Historically, people gathered there, having parties,
composing those well-known poems while drinking wine and appreciating beautiful
scenery since the Jin Dynasty (265~420A.D) (Kubin 1990; Wang 1990). It is not
understandable for the Chinese to go there to experience solitude as a temporary
visitor, as Westerners do. Nature is an open-air home. This perspective, while
maintaining the philosophical spirit of the Chinese View of Nature---‘being in
harmony and oneness with Nature’, has been vulgarised through history. Today we
occupy Nature and take it for granted unconsciously.

The great artistic achievement of natural aesthetics also has a profound influence. The
Chinese love humanising Nature more than any other nations for they believe that
rebuilt Nature is more beautiful than the original. In one of my investigation, among
100 visitors 92 percent responded that they always feel a site lacks spirit if they are
pure or wild natural areas without any cultural evidence (Han 2004). This important
cultural preference of the Chinese tourists has resulted in today’s many man-made
structures and altered- landscapes in Scenic and Historic Interest Areas.

Contemporary Environmental Science and Globalisation

Since China re-opened to the world in 1978, contemporary environmental science and
ideas rapidly spread into China. Sustainability is one of the most important concepts
developed since the mid-1970s in the West. The world heritage movement focuses the
sustainability of the valuable properties we inherit from history.

However, the concept of sustainability has contemporary western environmental

philosophical foundations. The re-thinking of the relationship of human beings with
the natural environment over the last thirty years reflected a widespread perception in
the 1960s that the late twentieth century faced a serious environmental crisis. The
practice has been going forward accompanied by lively theoretical debate, from
challenging traditional Western anthropocentrism to the concepts of wilderness,
ecological restoration and cultural landscape. The set of categories of the World
Heritage, from Natural Heritage, Cultural Heritage, to Mixed Heritage, and to the
most recent Cultural Landscape Heritage, is consistent with current trends integrate
Nature and culture, based on the cultural diversity around the world, instead of the
detachment of Nature and culture. But in China, the practice of World Heritage Sites
in Scenic and Historic Interest Areas appears to exhibit opposite trends, as a result of
implementing the Convention. Nature is beginning to be detached from culture. The
influence of globalisation is obvious, especially the spread of the concept of
wilderness and “pristine nature”.

Conflicts
However, the global influence is mainly limited within management authorities and
governments, instead of the local communities and visitors. Some management
policies, which are mis-applied from the Convention by management authorities due
to cross-cultural misunderstanding, have resulted in two unfortunate consequences in
Scenic and Historic Interest Areas in China. One is the removal of local inhabitants
from these areas which results in the rapid disappearance of the diversity of living
culture; the other, is the restriction of new man-made structures in these areas, which
is strongly against the Chinese traditional cultural activities. Both of these policies are
under the name of Natural Heritage preservation and they are leading to the danger of
static culture in these sites. They are creating cultural crises while dealing with
ecological crises. Battles between government and local communities, management
authorities and visitor, essentially, are battles between international universal value
and traditional cultural value.

Case 1: Demolition in Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area

The case of the Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area is a typical example. It
is a hotly debated case and calls for deep thought. It is one of the most popular Scenic
& Historic Interest Areas in China, with a large annual visitation of more than 5
million (XHN 2003). It was designated as World Natural Heritage by UNESCO in
1992. In 1998, it was severely criticized by the Centre/IUCN mission in the State of
Conservation Report because it was “overrun with tourist facilities, having a
considerable impact on the aesthetic qualities of the site” (UNESCO 1998) . The
Mission was also sharply critical of increasing agricultural farming and urbanization
caused by rapidly developing tourism (XHN 2003). It seemed Wulingyuan was in
danger as a World Heritage Site. In order to meet UNESCO’s requirement of World
Natural Heritage, the Central and Provincial Governments of China decided to
demolish 340,000m2 of recently built facilities and artificial scenic spots to respond to
the Committee’s critics in the five years beginning in 2001; and to remove or resettle
1791 people from 546 families from 2001 to 2003 in order to restore the natural
ecosystem (XHN 2003).
This demolition and removal project is strongly resisted by local government and
communities. Besides its huge financial budget (about 1 billion Yuan), it is also
criticised as ‘erasing history’, albeit recent. There is also deep confusion in the local
farmers and children’s eyes (Figure 6). They cannot understand why they should
move out of the land where they have lived for generations and why their existence is
an ‘ecological and visual impact on the nature’. They are also worried about how to
survive in a new strange world out of this mountain with limited financial
compensation from government (Figure 7). But all this is happening under the name
of “World Heritage”.

Case 2 Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area: An Artificial

Natural "Earthly Fairyland"
Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area is another World Natural
Heritage Site designated in 1992, which is especially famous for its beautiful colours
of water. Jiuzhaigou is doing its best to create an "earthly fairyland" or "fairy-tale
world" with beautiful natural scenery, which seems never to have been touched by
humans. It is a new Chinese interpretation of the Western “wildness” concept.

Jiuzhaigou was once polluted due to the loss of vegetation and pollution accompanied
by large visitation annually (more than 1 million). The eco-restoration involved
complete removal of tourist accommodations in the valley and now hotel
constructions are strictly restricted to areas outside of the property. The management
effort to restore the ecosystem, and the model of partnership between authorities and
the local people was commended by the Bureau of World Heritage Committee
(UNESCO 1998). Now this model is strongly recommended by the Central
Government of China and all other sites are requested to learn from its experience.

The price of the removal of all tourism facilities and the prohibition of grazing of the
local minorities is the disappearance of culture. Traditional local life formed in five
thousand years ago has been totally changed. It was once a living cultural landscape
with nine minority villages living in this valley (the meaning of name of Jiuzaigou
Valley) on their own customs, grazing and farming generations by generations. Now
they still live in this site but their existence has become a tourist gaze, the tourists’
image of minorities and herdsmen. They stopped their traditional life of living in
Nature, in return for the high economic benefits from the local government. Tourism
has eliminated the need for the natural resources ‘exploitation’ that they formerly
lived on.

Comments and Arguments

Both cases are happening in World Natural Heritage Sites and relate to ecological
restoration, which is usually undertaken when Nature is threatened or damaged and
pollution and natural resource deterioration exist. If we treat these environmental
impacts accompanied by tourism just as an ecological disaster, this interpretation is
too shallow (Naess 1973). There are deep philosophical ethics underlying these
surface phenomena. Essentially, the debates are not between preservers and
developers; rather, they are between the different values of Nature. This raises issues
which are “concerned with describing the values carried by the non-human natural
world and prescribing an appropriate ethical response to ensure preservation or
restoration of those values” (Light and Rolston 2003). This paper, however, argues
that the issues are more complex and we need to think as we act, and we should
therefore reflect about “why we do” before “what we do”.

While the local people are losing their homeland, we are losing our living culture; we
are creating ‘dead culture’ (museums) while we are killing living culture. It also
relates to severe ethical issues. The poor local people are removed, possibly because
they are regarded as low ‘uncivilized’ people. Their existence interferes with the
aesthetic and ecological quality for some ‘civilized’ ‘nature seeking’ people. The
Wulingyuan locals have been removed from the site or resettled to new sites which
are “out of the view of tourists”(XHN 2003; Zhang 2003). It could be supposed that if
the Jiuzhaigou people were not minorities protected by special policies, and did not
have tourism values, they would be removed as well. Unfortunately, this
‘ethnocentric’ western wilderness concept (Callicott 2000) is rapidly pervading the
management of World Heritage Sites in China. Now whenever we begin to talk about
the site management, the first reaction of local authorities is ‘cleansing the local
people out of the property’. In many ways, this is tragic.
The restriction of human construction in natural areas is also against the Chinese
traditional cultural activities in Nature. Nature is culturally and socially constructed
and there is no ‘right culture’ or ‘wrong culture’. Culture can be guided but cannot be
restricted. It is evident that a huge lift which creates three world records (biggest,
fastest, and highest) has just been built at the same time as the big demolition in
Wulingyuan (Figure 8). It is equivalent to The Great Wall as a man-made structure in
natural area if we disregard aesthetic and historic preference. It is perhaps ridiculous
for the outsiders, but it is naturally accepted by the common Chinese people.

The World Heritage, to some extension, is towards a commercial and political

movement in China. It comes into a strange circle that almost all applications are
companied by huge local government invested demolition to meet the Convention’s
criteria. This results in that the heritages are commercially used as ‘golden tourism
brand’ for short-term gain to make the investment back once the application is
successful. While the governments actively apply for the World Heritage status, the
local communities, such as those living in Zhouzhuang near Shanghai, do not want to
be cleansed out and sacrifice their lives for the World Heritage. They claim that
‘World Heritage application is politics for the local leaders, but for us, we want life,
we want to live better” and the local leader complained that “we are struggling with
the local communities” (ChinaYouth 2002).

Many policies applies in China are against the central spirit of the Convention.
Heritage is a living concept, such as cultural landscape, where history and meanings
can be read and interpreted as texts (O'Hare 1997; Armstrong 2001). While we pass
on ‘yesterday’ to our generation, we have to think what of ‘today’ can be passed on.
When culture and ethics encounter universal science and globalisation, there emerge
most difficult issues. There are a range of values that we need to be “more sensitive
about who counts and why” (Light and Rolston 2003). There is no conclusion in this
paper; rather, it calls urgent attention to the cultural diversity and sustainability to
keep the vitality of cultural landscape.

Figures:
Figure 1: Traditional image of living in Nature.
Figure 2: Culture being in oneness with Nature
Figure 3: Rice terraces in deep high mountain.
Figure 4: New-constructed road in Wulingyuan.
Figure 5: New-constructed scenic spot in Wulingyuan.
Figure 6: Deep confusion in children’s eyes.
Figure 7: Living on the land
Figure 8: New lift in Wulingyuan

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