Contemporary studies on Tibet and Sino-Tibetan relations almost always strike a contentious tone. With rare exceptions, most writings on modern Tibet often come with a particular set of political polemics. Without the frames of human rights, religious repression, the Dalai Lama and Free Tibet, it seems impossible to write a book on Tibet. This is why Tenzin Jinba's book on politics of ethnic tourism in a Tibetan region in China offers such a refreshing read, with its nuanced portrayal of identity complexities along the Sino-Tibetan border.
In the Land of the Eastern Queendom is a book about a controversy in ethnic tourism promotion among the Gyarong people, which is a subgroup of Tibetans in Danba county, Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province. What is special about the Gyarong people in Danba is their multiple dimension of marginality. Marginal to Tibet proper is that Danba is part of Kham, historically outside the administration of the Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa. Also marginal to Khampa Tibetans, the local Gyarong people speak a different set of languages that are not intelligible to other Tibetan groups. Furthermore, Khampa Tibetans often question the Tibetan “authenticity” of Gyarong people because of their cultural similarity to the Han Chinese and their proclaimed history of matriarchal political structure, which contradicts the conventional image of Khampa Tibetans as masculine and martial.
It is in this setting of marginality that Tenzin describes a dispute between the Suopo Township with a neighbouring township over the historical location of the Eastern Queendom's capital, where in ancient times legendary Queens ruled over a matriarchal domain. The dispute is certainly not about historical authenticity of the Eastern Queendom per se; but rather, such historical “authenticity” is manipulated and pursued by various local elites for its monetary value in China's ethnic tourism industry. Through a close examination of power play among local elites, Tenzin interrogates the gender and ethnicity dimensions of the Eastern Queendom dispute, as well as the “banality” of local politics that is strikingly “non-ethnic.” The latter even prompts the author to acknowledge in the Preface that he expects some critiques of his portrayal of the locals as not ethnic or Tibetan enough (p. xiv).
This is a relatively short book. After a brief introduction, chapter one provides the general setting of the Eastern Queendom dispute and the Danba Gyarong people's distinctive ethnic characteristics. Particularly interesting here is Tenzin's discussion of the Gyarong people's complicated ethnolinguistic map and the controversial history of ethnic categorization of the Gyarong people as Zangzu (Tibetan) by the Chinese government. In the book, Tenzin distinguishes the Chinese official ethnic identification of Zangzu from the commonly used term Tibetan, which reflects the author's sensitivity towards ethnic identity construction. Tenzin also depicts the phenomenon of ethnic encountering of the Gyarong people with other Tibetans and Han Chinese, and the resulting ambiguities in their identification with the Tibetan nationality and the Chinese state. At several places in the book, Tenzin talks about how other Tibetans view the Gyarong people as pro-Han and pro-Chinese government. He also mentions that during the 2008 ethnic riots throughout Tibetan areas in China no such uprisings occurred in Danba, and that most Gyarong people condemned the Tibetan rebels for demanding independence (p. 111). Such a complex presentation of the Gyarong people contradicts the conventional discourse in the West about repression and resistance among the Tibetans in China. However, Tenzin stops short of delving into the details of how political attitudes towards the Tibetan independence movement and the Chinese government developed among the Gyarong people, which is a bit unsatisfying.
Chapters two and three deal with the gender dimension of the Eastern Queendom dispute. Chapter two provides a theoretical lens to understand how ethnic minorities in China are sexualized as either hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine in the domestic political discourse on gender and ethnicity. Focusing extensively on the cases of Mongols and Mosuo, chapter two seems a little out of place in the book, adding little that is substantially new to our understanding of the relationship between gender and ethnicity in China. Chapter three, on the other hand, is quite refreshing as Tenzin describes a phenomenon of self-feminization among the men in Suopo Township as part of a strategic choice to promote Eastern Queendom, where women are supposed to be absolute rulers and men are their subordinates. Through such a process, men gain economic and symbolic power by “selling” women's “superior” status (p. 67). Yet, local men can assert their masculinity by highlighting their gender equality norm so as to elevate themselves to higher social status than other Tibetan and Han communities where women tend to have lower status (p. 69).
Chapter four and five offer a glimpse into the grassroots politics of Suopo Township and the functioning of a local tourism association. What is remarkable is that the local politics Tenzin describes is so similar to conventional accounts on local politics in “China proper.” For example, Gyarong people tend to believe that the central government in Beijing is “just” while accusing local government of corruption and abuse, which are common phenomena throughout China. Perhaps this is a result of the general Sinicization of the Gyarong people, but the reader cannot help but wonder how and when such Sinicized political views spread to Danba and became internalized by the locals.
All in all, Tenzin's book makes a refreshing contribution to our understanding of the complexities of gender and ethnicity along the Sino-Tibetan border regions.
