‘Talking’ Landscape: The Culture Dynamics of Rushang (Confucian Entrepreneurs) in a Peripheral Migrant Hometown in Yunnan

Abstract

In a border region of Yunnan province, the Han people of Heshun, despite their hybrid origins, manipulate Confucian symbols to shape the landscape as a reference to the realities of local business competition and trading activities. The present paper analyses the dynamics of cross-border business culture in the migrant home village of Heshun, and explores the local interpretations of landscape and the prominent role it plays in local culture. The continued appeal to a Confucian culture reinforces flourishing cross-border activities. Confucian culture and merchant culture are intertwined in encultured ways through activities that accord with the requirements of a Han Chinese identity. The paper suggests that two ultimately conflicting ideologies, namely Confucianism and mercantilism, can be unified through the discourse of landscape, which acts as a means of transforming wealth into reputation.

Keywords:

• Landscape
• Local Autonomy
• Identity
• Culture
• Business

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was conducted under a grant from Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica and National Tsing Hau University.

Notes

1. This research is based on fieldwork in Heshun conducted between January and February 2001 and from October 2001 to March 2002, when I lived and worked there.

2. Heshun library was established at 1928, but can be traced back to the late Qing dynasty. It was reorganised from ‘xianxinshe’ (), which was formed in the late Qing dynasty. The members of the library at that time were successful Heshun businesses men who echoed the republican revolution. They met to study Western knowledge and discuss updated news. The books in the library came mainly from Burma. The businessmen set up an office in Burma that ordered newspapers, as well as raised funds among the Heshun migrants in Burma. During the republican period, ‘Heshun chongxinhui’ () took over xianxinshe . The goal was mainly to correct corruption in Heshun: after modernisation, some Heshun people, specifically rich businessmen and their offspring, had become addicted to gambling and drugs. Heshun chongxinhui propagated a new lifestyle. In 1938, the new library was constructed (Yin 1988, p. 9). During the period of my fieldwork, the library was the main tourist site and a concrete representation of ‘migrants’ hometown (qiaozxiang)’ to demonstrate a ‘great tradition of love of hometown and country’(aixiang aiguo youliangchuantong ( ); Yin 1988, p. 8). Heshun suddenly became an important tourist site for many different reasons. One important reason was the landscape—Heshun businessmen had invested considerable money in their houses and hometown landscape, and the area did look beautiful. The reason government invests a lot to promote Heshun as a tourist destination is also because the emigrants in Burma and their donations to China become more and more important.

3. A rich man may have three wives at the same time, known as the Hannai, Miannai and Baiyinai (or Han, Burmese and Dai) mistress. One of the village temples is a tuzhu temple of the type more commonly found in Bai villages and the Heshun people practise the Torch Festival of the Yi people. The first thing a newly rich businessman would do is rebuild his house, employing one of the many Bai carpenters who have settled in the village.

4. For example, the Liu genealogy claims that their ancestor was a Ming Dynasty general from Sichuan. Similar stories can be found in the Cun, Li, Yin and Jia genealogies, with these families all claiming that their ancestors came from Sichuan, Nanjing, Hunan etc.

5. Some of the jokes are about how the Heshun can never start eating because each defers to the other, or how twins cannot be born because neither wants to be the first out.