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Abstract
Alongside a construction boom in bullfight stadiums, there is a thriving world of bullfight video production in ethnic minority regions of Southwest China. Drawing on fieldwork with Miao videographers, shopkeepers, and fans in Guizhou, as well as conversations with Sani Yi bull owners and visits to stadiums and video shops in Yunnan, this essay traces the bullfight from the stadium to the screen. Animals, videos, and videographers move within and across the periphery of the Chinese nation. In so doing, the production and circulation of bullfights and their videos assert a minority past-time and peripheral network as central to the lived experience of ethnic minority modernity. They enable the strategic employment of local expressive forms, the recognition of common interests, and the emergence of a minority, transperipheral public comprised of the people involved and invested in this ethnic practice and its popular representation.
Acknowledgments
Feedback from the Emory East Asian Studies writing group, organized by Julia Bullock, was vital for formulating my ideas in this work. I thank John Alexander, Zeynep Gürsel, and Brent Luvaas for their critical readings of drafts, and Chen Xueli for introducing me to the bullfight community in Shilin. I also thank Xiao Wen for permission to use stills from his bullfight videos. Initial arguments were developed in talks given at Concordia University, Emory University, University of Southern California, Lund University, and the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Time for research and writing was generously provided by Emory University, Morphomata International Centre for Advanced Studies (University of Cologne), and the University of Technology, Sydney.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The animals came from the Guizhou, Guangxi, and Yunnan provinces in the country's southwest, and Shandong and Shanghai to the north and east. This is reported at http://www.zhaizou.com/tiyu/45000.html. See also http://travel.sohu.com/20160802/n462168202.shtml (both sites accessed March 18, 2018).
2 A media release on the stadium construction plans was posted to the prefectural government news site in May 2016 (http://www.qdn.cn/html/2016/kl_0512/145818.shtml). The formal announcement of Kaili as the “National City of Bullfighting Culture” came on May 22, 2016. See http://gzkl.wenming.cn/jjkl/201605/t20160524_2551559.shtml (both sites accessed March 18, 2018).
3 Much recent Chinese scholarship on bullfights is focused on detailing the cultural meanings of bullfights, such as Liu Citation2014 on bullfights as an expression of Chinese aesthetic philosophy of harmony between man and nature; Tao Citation2016 on bullfights in Dong minority communities; and Liu, Xu, and Wang Citation2014 on the role of bullfights in fostering social relations and alliances. All of these articles address questions of tourism development and its socioeconomic impact on bullfights as a cultural tradition and frame their arguments for the protection of bullfights within the rubric of cultural heritage preservation, which has been widely promoted by the Chinese state since the early 2000s (see Blumenfield and Silverman, eds., Citation2013; Oakes Citation2012 and Citation2016). Jinhua, in Zhejiang province on China’s east coast, also has a bullfighting tradition linked to local temple fairs that has now been granted UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status (see Hu Citation2014 and also http://www.zjnu.edu.cn/english/2018/0111/c10051a231209/page.htm, accessed September 1, 2018). Interestingly, Jinhua was never mentioned to me by anyone in Kaili or Shilin as a place with bullfights and from photographs I viewed online, Jinhua bullfights seem mostly to involve cattle, not buffalo.
4 See these reports on bullfights by AFP News in 2014 from Guizhou (https://youtu.be/I7wkVhYmNKk) and by New China TV in 2013 from Yunnan (https://youtu.be/grdRUtK0FfM) (both sites accessed March 18, 2018). On tourism, the Chinese state, and cultural heritage politics, see Blumenfield and Silverman, eds. Citation2013; Chio Citation2014; Oakes Citation2012 and Citation2016; Tenzin Jinba Citation2014; Yeh 2013.
5 This is the narrative employed in a 2011 Millennium Development Fund project, “Cultural Mapping in Congjiang [Guizhou],” in which one of the key results was the construction of a new bullfighting arena in a local village as part of the cultural revival of Miao traditions. See http://www.mdgfund.org/node/2066. See http://www.eguizhou.gov.cn/2014-07/24/content_17917724.htm for an example of the focus on ethnic minority festivals for tourism in Qiandongnan (both sites accessed March 18, 2018).
6 I have seen bullfights advertised across Qiandongnan prefecture in southeast Guizhou, in both ethnic Miao and Dong regions, as well as in bordering areas of northwest Guangxi in ethnic Zhuang and Yao communities.
7 This essay contributes a critical media ethnography perspective to the by now substantial anthropological literature on the cultural politics of China’s ethnic minority communities (e.g. Chio Citation2014; Davis Citation2005; Harrell Citation2001; Tenzin Jinba 2014; Mueggler Citation2001; Schein Citation2000; Yeh Citation2013). It also adds to growing scholarship on media production and consumption in China’s ethnic minority regions (e.g. Barnett Citation2015; Ingram Citation2011; Morcom Citation2008; C. Warner 2013).
8 Sani Yi in the Shilin region of Yunnan province are officially considered a subgroup within the broader Yi ethnic minority classification in China today; see Swain Citation2001 for a more detailed discussion of Sani Yi notions of native place and historical identity.
9 A significant body of literature on the borderlands between China and Southeast Asian nations (Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma) addresses transnational connections between ethnic groups in the region. See S. Davis Citation2005; Michaud and Forsyth, eds., Citation2011; Sturgeon Citation2007. The idea of “Zomia,” as developed by James Scott (Citation2009), also addresses historical and current connections between different groups in the area.
10 Bullfights are not unique to China. They take place across Southeast Asia during festivals in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, India, and Indonesia, and fights featuring bovines are popular events in South Korea, parts of Switzerland, and Japanese island communities (see Cohen Citation2014, 546; on Japanese bullfighting, see Ishii Citation2006, Klien Citation2011, Kuwahara, Ozaki, and Nishimura 2007; see also Chris Marker’s Citation1994 short film, Bullfight in Okinawa). For a detailed comparative history, see this report (downloaded on August 11, 2017): http://www.coreedaoz.com/attachments/On_Bullfighting__Belt_Wrestling.pdf
11 Some scholars and local bullfight fans in Guizhou argue that the more accurate Chinese name for bullfights should be 牛打架 (niudajia), which more literally translates as bulls fighting and more accurately describes bullfights in China (and other parts of Asia). Liu Citation2014 analyzes the differences between the two terms, dou niu and niudajia, contending that dou niu reflects Western philosophical perspectives of the distinction between man and animal, whereas niudajia is more indicative of Chinese notions of unity between man and nature.
12 For an anthropological analysis of Spanish bullfights and their implications for human-animal relations, see Brandes Citation2009. Cockfights, of course, have been central to the interpretive anthropological imagination arguably since the publication of Geertz’s now canonical essay (Citation1995 [1972]).
13 Kaili is a county-level municipal administrative region; the name refers both to the city itself and the surrounding townships and villages under its jurisdiction. In this article, I use Kaili to refer to the city area, and local place names to identify surrounding areas. Sources: http://www.kaili.gov.cn/zjkl/kljj/201611/t20161108_1313298.html (accessed August 11, 2017) and http://www.kaili.gov.cn/zjkl/kljj/201702/t20170227_1952212.html (accessed March 18, 2018).
14 Source: http://www.shilin.gov.cn/slgk/ (accessed March 18, 2018).
15 The application of “indigenous” as a term for China’s ethnic minority groups is contentious, particularly in terms of transnational indigenous activism (see Hathaway Citation2016).
16 In a related context for the Hui minority in China, Erie (2016) has shown how Hui gift-giving practices operate by means of minjian (unofficial) autonomy made possible through a careful negotiation of Islamic law, postsocialist conditions, and social norms.
17 Names of videographers reflect the Chinese language conventions used during fieldwork. Videographers frequently include their names in their videos, so anonymity was not requested.
18 The website 东方斗牛网 (East Asian Bullfighting Web) posts flyers for bullfights in Guizhou and Yunnan. See http://dfdnw.com/news/5.html (accessed March 18, 2018).
19 A popular program is 牛在江湖 Niu Zai Jianghu, on Qiandongnan Television. The title of the program is difficult to translate because 江湖 (jiang hu) can refer literally to rivers and lakes, and is originally related to Chinese martial arts literature as well as to a community existing outside mainstream or dominant society. In more contemporary usage the phrase suggests wandering “around the country” (on the untranslatability of jianghu see Yuen Wai, 2012). Episodes available here: http://list.youku.com/albumlist/show?id=22951157&ascending=1&page=1
20 Copyright was an issue for videographers in that they did not want people copying and reselling their videos without permission; many videographers thus burned their names/business names onto the video image so as to create a permanent visual stamp on the videos. However, whenever I asked about using audio or other materials downloaded from the Internet in their own videos, no one expressed any concern over this.
21 Both Guizhou and Yunnan consistently fall in the bottom third of national statistics on rural disposable income levels. See http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2015/indexeh.htm (accessed March 18, 2018).
22 On new technology uptake and the idea of “necessary convergence” in the case of mobile phones in China, see Wallis Citation2013.
23 Zhang and Zito’s idea of the distinct moments of “live performance and materialized objectification” draws on what Mazzarella has described as the “dual relation: a relation of simultaneous self-distancing and self-recognition” inherent in all processes of mediation (2004, 357).
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Jenny Chio
Jenny Chio is a cultural anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker. Her current research investigates vernacular media and ethnic minority politics in China. She has published an ethnography of ethnic tourism in Guizhou and Guangxi, entitled A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China (2014, U Washington Press), and directed an ethnographic film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness (2013, Berkeley Media). Her writing has also appeared in Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Critique of Anthropology, and Visual Anthropology Review.