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ABSTRACT
This article explores local-historical ways of remembering trees, physically traceable or not, in the Chinese discourse of guji (古迹, ancient vestige), focusing on the city of Hangzhou during the Qing Dynasty (1636–1911). By analysing guji documentation of trees in five local gazetteers of the focal region and timeframe, I foreground a fourfold apparatus of meaning-making that effectuates the transformation of trees from natural existence to culturally significant heritage. That is, to frame and transmit trees as (1) rare or most beautiful jing (景landscape), (2) site of poetics, (3) site of memory, and (4) place name. These intersecting, subaltern ways of meaning-making and remembering help us further critique the culture-nature dualism rooted in Western Cartesian epistemology, which still prevails in contemporary heritage research and practice in China and the wider world. It also allows us to see the culturalisation of nature within the framework of an alternative discourse of heritage from China. This nature-to-culture transformation, I argue, is not just adding ‘intangible cultural values in natural heritage’ or making ‘intangible natural heritage’; it is constructing natural existence as what is analogous to cultural or cultural landscape heritage.
Acknowledgments
Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the Third Young Scholars’ Forum in Chinese Studies (May 2016, Hong Kong) and the Workshop on East Asian Cultural Heritage Protection and Research (December 2016, Shanghai). I sincerely thank the Institute of Chinese Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the International Centre for Studies of Chinese Civilisation, Fudan University for their thoughtful organisation and generous conference funding. I am also very thankful to the attendants of the two events, to name but a few, Dr. Lai Guolong, Prof. Li Jun, Prof. Chen Zhenghong, Dr. Yiu Chun Chong, for their valuable comments and questions concerning this study. Furthermore, I am indebted to the two anonymous reviewers, Prof. Michael Herzfeld, Prof. Russell Leong, Dr. Wang Hanying and Associate Prof. Jiang Yulan, and the editor Prof. Laurajane Smith for their constructive comments and advices of revision to improve this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The interview was conducted in English by Hou Song and Xie Jieyi in Hangzhou on 6 November 2013. It is later published in Chinese as Smith, Laurajane, Song Hou and Jieyi Xie. 2014. ‘Reflection and reconstruction: Rethinking heritage and museum – An interview with Prof. Laurajane Smith’, Southeastern Culture (2): 11–16. The words of Smith cited here is from the English transcription of the interview done by Xie Jieyi. I gratefully acknowledged her help.
2. Also available is a Qiantang County Gazetteer compiled during the Guangxu reign (1875–1908). However, the text lacks a guji volume or chapter.
3. Zhang is an old-fashioned Chinese measurement of length or height. One zhang is equal to 3.33 meters approximately.
4. Kangxi Hangzhou gazetteer, Vol. 5, Chap. 2, Kangxi edition; Qiantang Gazetteer, Vol. 33. Both of them are accessed via the Zhongguo Shuzi Fangzhi Ku (Chinese Digital Local Gazetteer Database). The English translation from Chinese is mine. In the remainder of this paper, all the examples to be analysed follow this case in terms of access to original text, translation into English.
5. Qiantang Gazetteer, Vol. 33.
6. Kangxi Hangzhou Gazetteer, Vol. 5, Chap. 1, Kangxi edition.
7. Renhe Gazetteer, Vol. 3, Chap. 2, Kangxi edition.
8. Qiantang Gazetteer, Vol. 33, Kangxi edition. Apart from these five pieces of writing, an excerpt from Wu Bentai’s Western Steam Gazetteer is also there.
9. See http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1334/documents/, and http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/422/ documents/.
10. Qiantang Gazetteer, Vol. 33.
11. See the Regulation for the Protection of Ancient and Renowned Trees in Urbanity, Article Three, issued by the then Ministry of Construction, PRC in 1 September 2000. http://www.mohurd.gov.cn/fjms/fjmszcfb/200611/t20061101_157014.html.
12. Qinglong Hangzhou Gazetteer, Vol. 24. A similar, but slightly less detailed recording of this juniper is found in the Kangxi Hangzhou gazetteer.
13. Li is a Chinese measurement of length. One li is equal to 500 meters.
14. The Xianchun Gazetteer, occasionally referred to as the Xianchun Lin’an Gazetteer, was a very renowned local gazetteer of Hangzhou, which was compiled during the Xianchun reign (1265–1274) of the Southern Song Dynasty.
15. Qianlong Hangzhou Gazetteer, Vol. 25; the Qianlong edition. Guangxu Hangzhou Gazetteer, Vol. 31; the Republic China edition.
16. Qiantang Gazetteer, Vol. 33.
17. Qiantang Gazetteer, Vol. 33.
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Song Hou
Song Hou, PhD (Zhejiang University), is a Yunshan Junior Scholar and postdoctoral fellow at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. His research cuts across heritage studies, discourse studies and translation studies, focusing especially on local, historical discourses of Chinese heritage, and heritage and memory in translational contexts. His recent research publications appear in Critical Discourse Studies, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies and Translation Studies, among other journals.
