Some of New Mandala readers and contributors may be familiar with an article by Grant Evans entitled “Transformation of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, PRC” and included in the book Where China meets Southeast Asia (ISEAS, 2000). In that article, Evans referred to various tourist projects planned to be carried out in Jinghong, the capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, projects supported by local authorities and based on features taken from what is supposedly traditional Lue culture.
Since the 1990s, these projects have evolved into what seems now more like a compromise between tourist industry demands and the development of Buddhist education in the region: a huge temple compound located outside Jinghong City (not far from the place where the palace of the last Chao Paendin used to stand), and which will house the regional Buddhist school.
On November 3, the ceremony of inauguration of the main vihaan (ordination hall) of the new Wat Luang Sipsongpanna (the original, Lue name for Xishuangbanna), also known in Chinese as “Southern Theravada Culture Center”, took place. Several senior monks belonging to the Theravada, Tibetan and Han Chinese traditions took part in the short chanting ceremony which consecrated the vihaan, organized by the local Buddhist Association and attended by local authorities.
Access during that first day was restricted, and it wasn´t until November 4 and after that the Lue commoners were allowed to enter the temple in masse to make offerings. As several thousands of locals turned out to visit the site during the following days, local police had to limit access to the ordination hall and other areas of the temple. An entrance fee of 80 RMB (slightly more than 10 USD) will be charged to non-Lue visitors from now on.
The new temple-school-tourist spot is being built mainly with funds from a real estate company located in Liaoning province (Northeast China), which will run bussines within the complex for more than 50 years. The project is thus mainly conceived by local authorities and entrepreneurs as an investment to boost tourism in the region. Apart from the ordination hall, a big Buddha image (in the Thai walking-Buddha style) and a stupa are planned to be built behind the ordination hall and up the hill.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Grant Evans // Jan 3, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Thanks to Roger Casas for his update on this development in Jing Hong. The “compromise” sounds encouraging, at least compared with my more pessimistic conclusion about the creation of a ‘Dai Disneyland’ in the article of mine that he refers to.
Clearly, however, there remains a divergence between the Chinese view of what they are doing and the Dai view, and the Chinese were obviously surprised by the enthusiasm of the Dai for this cultural/religious centre built on the grounds of the old palace. It would be interesting to hear from Roger what the Dai think of this new place.
Also, for more general theoretical guidance, Joy Hendry’s book ‘The Orient Strikes Back: A Global View of Cultural Display’ (2000) gives some interesting pointers on the reception of such places by insiders and outsiders.
2 roger // Jan 13, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Many thanks to Grant Evans for the comments and the reference –and sorry for a late response. Regarding the supposed improvement represented by this “compromise” in relation to previous projects, I agree with what you said; nevertheless, I am not that optimistic about it. Several problems have arised during the construction of the temple, and more are bound to appear in the near future when the Buddhist school moves there; some monks involved in the project would admit that to build the temple-school they have no option but to rely on outside funding –and thus the project has arguably become yet another political and economic instrumentalization of local religion.
Apart from becoming a new symbol for the integration of Lue Buddhism into economic and educational national structures (exemplified by the compulsory inclusion of public school subjects in the curriculum, in order for it to obtain state recognition), and in relation to it, the temple is probably also another step in the transformation (or “reformation”) of local Buddhism into a tradition focused on “educational” or “monastic” elements, as opposed to the traditional role of monks in the performance of community rituals –a transformation surely based on Thai models. This may obviously serve to partially thwart the destructive effects that state schooling has upon ordination, but it also implies a reduction of the traditional social role of the Lue monk; that is, if the new school will serve to increase the social mobility of local monks (through an enhanced integration of the sangha in state structures, etc.), it will do so at the cost of modifying the relationship between the monks and the laity, transforming old monastic education into a kind of vocational training in which those elements of traditional knowledge not fundamental to achieve individual recognition will expectedly tend to be excluded and ultimately disappear from the system.
I would argue that such a process is still in its early phases in Sipsongpanna, and in fact local Buddhism remains a strongly community-embedded practice, as the massive attendance of locals to the inauguration of the new Wat Luang Muang Lue (another name for the temple which refers to the old denomination of the Sipsongpanna) shows –as it also shows what the Dai “think” of the new site, surely considered by locals to be a legitimate place for performing making-merit activities, in spite of the ongoing confusion surrounding the entrance fee (which by the way is more expensive than I first stated, around 15 USD per visitor), who is to be charged and who is not.
There are also of course those Lue who oppose or mistrust this and other developments in which the local Buddhist hierarchy is involved –but their discourse does not seem to have an articulate presence in Lue society –which can be read as another success of PRC administration–, and their only option is to keep aloof from such developments.
Anyway, these views may not be so accurate, and I would appreciate any further insight and comments that can be offered
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