MCLC: Wencheng mega-drama

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: Wencheng mega-drama
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"… a state-scripted narrative in which the Chinese, embodied by Princess
Wencheng of the 7th century, ‘civilise’ the Tibetans and bring harmony to
Tibet."

Reminds me of Wu Feng in Taiwan.

Paul

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Source: 
http://www.savetibet.org/multi-million-dollar-propaganda-spectacle-opens-in
-a-lhasa-under-lockdown/

Multi-million dollar propaganda spectacle opens in a Lhasa under lockdown

The stage is set in Lhasa for the controversial Princess Wencheng
mega-drama, beginning August 1. Woeser posted this image
<http://woeser.middle-way.net/2013/07/blog-post_9773.html> of a replica
Potala on her blog.

A multi-million dollar drama about a Chinese princess is being staged in
Lhasa from August 1 in a bid by the authorities to increase high-end
tourism and assert China’s propaganda message of its ownership of
Tibet.The Princess Wencheng spectacle will be staged with a cast of nearly
600 on a stage nearly 100 metres long, in a fake Potala Palace that faces
the real Potala, former home of the Dalai Lama. It will be performed at a
time when Lhasa is under military lockdown with snipers visible on
rooftops and its citizens subject to intense surveillance and ideological
campaigns.

The drama, which will be re-enacted 180 times annually according to the
Chinese official media, is a state-scripted narrative in which the
Chinese, embodied by Princess Wencheng of the 7th century, ‘civilise’ the
Tibetans and bring harmony to Tibet.

Leading Tibetan writer and blogger Woeser, who posted images of the new
fake Potala on her blog, said: “In reality this is a project to rewrite
history, to ‘wipe out’ the historical memory and culture of a people. […]
This is a ‘win win’ project that can both make money and be a tool for
brainwashing people with propaganda.” (Posted on Woeser’s blog on July
20,http://woeser.middle-way.net/2013/07/blog-post_9773.html). According to
Woeser, official media stated that a total of more than $120 million had
been invested in the project.

The controversial Princess Wencheng drama is opening amid a tourist boom
in Tibet, with Lhasa the main focus, particularly since the arrival of the
railway in 2006 linking Tibet with China. As the number of
self-immolations by Tibetans exceeds 120, indicating the depth of Tibetan
anguish at Chinese oppression, the Chinese authorities are seeking to
brand Tibet as an exotic, ‘Shangri La’ destination.

The Princess Wencheng drama is part of China’s ambitious plans to bring
large numbers of Chinese and international tourists to state-owned scenic
sites and cultural icons of Tibet to receive a story scripted and
delivered by the state and its state trained guides. It is unclear whether
the dialogue will be in Tibetan or Chinese, and the numbers of Tibetans
and Chinese in the cast and production team are also not known.

According to new statistics published in the state media, 3.43 million
tourists travelled to the Tibet Autonomous Region in the first six months
of this year, an increase of 21.8 per cent from the same period last year.
More than 95 per cent of tourists to Tibet are Chinese. (China Daily,
Tibet reports strong surge in tourist numbers
<http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/travel/2013-07/23/content_16817336.htm>).
By 2015, the Chinese authorities plan to attract 15 million domestic
tourists to central Tibet annually (China Daily, Tibet receives record
number of tourists 
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2012-12/07/content_15996305.htm>).

The Chinese Princess Wencheng Gongzhu travelled to Tibet in the 7th
century to be one of the five wives of Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo, who
introduced Buddhism in Tibet. Princess Wencheng brought a dowry of
precious Buddhist gifts to Lhasa, notably the Jowo Rinpoche statue. The
story of Princess Wencheng’s marriage to Songtsen Gampo (who also had a
Nepalese wife, Bhrikuti Devi, who he married before Wencheng) has been
used as a basis for numerous songs, operas, films and paintings in China
since 1950. According to Tibetologist Robert Barnett, “Hers is the main
story used officially in modern China to describe the Sino-Tibetan
relationship. Most if not all of this cultural production is
state-sponsored.” (‘Lhasa: Streets with Memories’ by Robert Barnett,
Columbia University Press, 2010).

According to the Tibetan writer Woeser, who lives in Beijing, Party cadres
organized the first ‘Symposium on the Princess Wencheng’ in Lhasa
recently, in which officials presented proposals for building Princess
Wencheng themed gardens and plays. Academics, artists and journalists were
invited to the symposium to discuss how to use the historical reference of
Princess Wencheng’s story as a centre-piece for promoting ‘national unity
between Han and Tibetans’. (Invisible Tibet,
http://woeser.middle-way.net/2013/07/blog-post_9773.html).

Gabriel Lafitte, an Australian scholar who has researched the dynamics
behind the tourism boom in Tibet, said: “In order to stage this spectacle
in Lhasa, a story cherished by Tibetans has been turned inside out. The
disconnect between the message of China the benevolent civilizer and the
daily experience of Tibetans in Lhasa, living under the gun, is dissonant.
The staging of the mandatory harmony between Tibetans and Han is a major
nation-building infrastructure investment, scripted entirely by central
leaders in Beijing.” (Gabriel Lafitte’s blog is at: www.rukor.org
<http://www.rukor.org/>).

Fifteen years after the Ninth TAR Five-Year-Plan announced tourism as a
“pillar industry”, Lhasa has been transformed into a major destination.
Analysts report that much of the revenue from tourism leaves the region to
go back into China.[1] The dramatic increase in tourism since the opening
of the railway has been especially acute at Lhasa’s historic cultural
sites, such as the Potala Palace, the Jokhang Temple in the Barkhor area,
and the Dalai Lama’s former summer palace, the Norbulingka. These sites
also have a deeper significance to the Tibetan people because of their
connection to the Dalai Lama and Tibet before the Chinese invasion — the
Potala, established by the Fifth Dalai Lama, was the political and
religious center of Tibetan theocracy. Tibetan writer Woeser has described
it as the “soul of a race”. The stage for the new Princess Wencheng
production has been constructed in a fake Potala Palace built across the
river from the original, positioned facing north towards the Dalai Lama’s
former home.

While the Chinese authorities are marketing Tibet as a tourist destination
based on the spiritual attractions of its Buddhist culture and landscape,
Beijing has tightened its control over Tibetan religious expression and
practice. Tibetan Buddhism is an integral element of Tibetan identity and
Tibetan nationalism, and is therefore perceived as a potential threat to
the authority of the state and ‘unity’ of the PRC. The authorities’
commodification of Tibetan culture and promotion of ‘Tibet chic’ coincides
with a trend towards increasing repression of Tibetan cultural identity
and a crackdown of unprecedented depth and scope.

Bhuchung Tsering, Interim President of the International Campaign for
Tibet, said: “Irrespective of how tourists might view a mega-production of
this scale, if the Princess Wencheng opera is used to appropriate and
re-invent Tibetan history and heritage to meet the political needs of
current Chinese rulers, there is no way the Tibetan people will approve of
it. Tibetans are familiar with the story of “Gyasa Bhelsa,” the opera
about the Chinese and Nepalese princesses depicting marital alliances
between Tibet and her two neighboring kingdoms.”

In a reflection of this development, in China’s new national Tourism Law,
which comes into force on October 1, 2013, there is almost no mention of
host communities, designated in the Tourism Law not as people but as
places. Article 41 states tour guides must “respect the customs and
religious beliefs” not of local Tibetans, but “of the tourists”. (Rukor,
Engineering Tibet for the mass tourist gaze
<http://rukor.org/chinas-new-imaginary-of-tibet/>).

There was a trial performance of the Princess Wencheng drama on July 20
before the opening on August 1 in Lhasa, according to the Lhasa Evening
News on July 22 
(http://www.lasa-eveningnews.com.cn/epaper/uniflows/html/2013/07/22/03/03_2
4.htm). The Lhasa Evening News announced that the drama has roughly the
same plot as an earlier performance in the Beijing National Grand Theater,
and that ticket prices range from over a hundred yuan to more than a
thousand yuan, indicating that the authorities are seeking to attract
wealthier tourists.

* ICT is publishing a major new report on tourism in Tibet in September.
Advance copies will be available to press prior to publication.

________________________________________
[1] Development economist Andrew Fischer wrote in 2005: “Most of the
tourists visiting the TAR are Chinese nationals and they mostly stay in
Chinese-owned and -run hotels on the west side of Lhasa, close to an
abundant supply of Chinese restaurants and entertainment centers, complete
with Chinese brothels and Chinese sex workers, who obviously service the
military personnel and cadres stationed there as well. It is likely that
much of the revenue that such tourism generates is channeled through such
venues and eventually out of the province altogether. Under such
conditions, the tourism industry will have a difficult time functioning as
a self-sustaining pillar industry that accumulates capital and profits in
the TAR, rather than servicing as another drain from which incoming
resources flow back out of the province almost as fast as they enter.”
(‘State Growth and Social Exclusion in Tibet’, Andrew Fischer, NIAS Press,
2005, cited in ICT report ‘Tracking the Steel Dragon
<http://www.savetibet.org/tracking-the-steel-dragon/>’).