TY - JOUR
T1 - The Love-Suicide Mystique of Naxi : Experiential Tourism and Existential Authenticity
AU - Du, Chunmei
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Love-suicide (xunqing) is often hailed as a representative component of the Naxi culture. This article examines how representations of love-suicide have transformed from an obscure social taboo to an invaluable Naxi tradition in the last two decades. While Han and Naxi cultural elites aestheticize love-suicide as a cultural symbol of moral sublimity, tourists further transform the discourse into a simultaneously spiritual and erotic experience in which they seek and create their own existential authenticity. The apparent revival is not simply a result of Naxi political resistance to the external regime or a natural return to their "authentic" culture. It rather marks another tide of radical transformation in a multi-agent and highly commercialized global world within which both minority cultures and tourists' identities are transformed.
AB - Love-suicide (xunqing) is often hailed as a representative component of the Naxi culture. This article examines how representations of love-suicide have transformed from an obscure social taboo to an invaluable Naxi tradition in the last two decades. While Han and Naxi cultural elites aestheticize love-suicide as a cultural symbol of moral sublimity, tourists further transform the discourse into a simultaneously spiritual and erotic experience in which they seek and create their own existential authenticity. The apparent revival is not simply a result of Naxi political resistance to the external regime or a natural return to their "authentic" culture. It rather marks another tide of radical transformation in a multi-agent and highly commercialized global world within which both minority cultures and tourists' identities are transformed.
KW - ethnic tourism
KW - existential authenticity
KW - love-suicide
KW - Naxi
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84946909608&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://commons.ln.edu.hk/sw_master/7480
U2 - 10.3868/s020-004-015-0023-1
DO - 10.3868/s020-004-015-0023-1
M3 - Journal Article (refereed)
AN - SCOPUS:84946909608
VL - 10
SP - 486
EP - 512
JO - Frontiers of History in China
JF - Frontiers of History in China
SN - 1673-3401
IS - 3
ER -