Introduction

The Southern Metropolis Magazine (Nan du Zhoukan) in China published an investigative report on the Qiang ethnic minority after the massive earthquake in Sichuan Province in May 2008. The earthquake was catastrophic for this ancient ethnic group, killing 30,000 of their population, or about one-tenth of the Qiang. Among the dead were 40 people who were officially designated as cultural masters by the local and national governments, including all six Qiang music and dance experts. The national government has vowed to invest $1.5 billion to salvage Qiang culture, including building Jina Qiang Village. However, there is just one hitch: many residents of the Jina Qiang Village are not actually Qiang. National public radio (NPR) in the USA interviewed village residents who openly admitted that they actually belonged to the Han majority, but were following orders from the local government to change their ethnic group to Qiang (Lim, 2008). One of the villagers told NPR that ‘it was a government decision; we only did what we were told’, including the alteration of their identification cards to Qiang ethnicity. At refugee camps for earthquake survivors, there were actually classes on how to become Qiang. Rows of shy, smiling Han women learned the distinctive Qiang embroidery in a large Qiang cultural center. For these residents, learning the Qiang culture will help develop tourism here in the future and being an ‘authentic’ Qiang is a necessary step for the village to become a sanctioned tourist site. However, the NPR staff observed that many of the women attending the class had only the sketchiest idea about Qiang culture. When asked what the difference is between Han and Qiang, these women answered warily that ‘there are so many differences. We don't really know what they are; that's why we’re studying them’.