In November 2007, Roger Casas sent in a report on the dedication of a new central temple outside of Jing Hong in Sipsongpanna. Roger introduced this temple and its dedication as something of a compromise between the desires of the local government to develop its “tourist industrial complex” and the desires of the local Sangha to expand its educational capacity (and also one suspects to have a big showy temple not unlike their colleagues in larger cities in China). The funding for this temple, as Roger reported, came from a Liaoning real estate company, who in return would be given the opportunity to run the temple for at least five decades. I was in Jing Hong in mid-June of this year, and thought that some New Mandala readers might be interested in a brief follow-up report over how this compromise might be working out.
To be succinct, not very well, at least not from the point of view of the monks or the local Dai-lue population.
I visited this temple during its construction and at the dedication as well, and most of the people that I talked with in 2007 were filled with a great deal of excitement over its construction. Dai folks that I met on the street, particularly during the festivities surrounding its dedication, commented to me that this would be “their” temple (it is sometimes referred to as wat long meuang lue). Yet even at this point there was some trepidation over the temple’s future.
A huge number of people attended the second day of the dedication (as Roger reported) to both make merit and see the completed temple. Almost all the Dai that I talked to that day reported that they had come to see the temple because they were certain that once the celebrations were over they would have to pay admission to enter the temple. This was curious, I thought, because in the contract signed by the local Buddhist Association with the “donor” (ie the Liaoning real estate company), it was specified very clearly that the Dai and other local Buddhists such as the Bulang would not have to pay to enter the temple. I understand that this part of the deal been upheld, but only just barely. Apparently folks claiming to be Dai-lue are often required to produce their national identity cards (which lists their nationality) in order to receive free admission. Most of them don’t carry these cards with them and so getting in has become something of a chore for the local Dai population.
It’s perhaps for this reason that on the days that I visited the temple, it was essentially empty of all but Chinese tourists.
While the wat is not quite the “Dai Disneyland” that Grant Evans referred to in 2001 (a phenomenon one can see in various minority parks around the city), it is not far off. It is a place filled with ersatz Dai-ness. Tourguides of various ethnicities dressed in “traditional” Dai clothing take Chinese tourists around, explaining the complexities of “Hinayana” Buddhism both in its Buddha images and its notions of making merit. These tourists can buy candles for making merit or coins for putting in the bowls of the stone “arahants” who line the mountain behind the viharn which leads to the 40 meter walking Buddha image (still under construction) from other men and women marked as Dai solely by their clothing. The grounds are filled with the sound of monks chanting in Pali at all times of day, provided by speakers hidden behind bushes around the complex.
Perhaps the greatest (and most offensive) moment of this faux Dainess is in the viharn where young Han men dressed in formal Dai outfits help the tourguides show the Han tourists how to pay respect to the image like Dai people do and then lead them to the stand where they can buy Buddhist trinkets. (I was unable to take a picture of this little operation because every time I pulled out my camera, a security guard would come over and tell me to put it away). I was told by some of the monks in the Buddhist Association that for a while the company running the operation was dressing young men up as monks in order to have them bless the tourists!
Indeed, I was told by a friend who is also a Dai tourguide that the Dai people don’t consider it to be a Dai temple.
So what are we to make of what is happening at the temple and the fact that portions of the local Dai-lue population do not consider this to be legitimately “their” temple? It is, I think, too early to declare this temple a lost cause for the Dai-lue people of Sipsongpanna. Chinese armies in the late imperial period would occupy Jing Hong for as much as several decades before getting chased out by malaria; it is only fifty years that the temple will be run by Chinese firms. It is also possible that the Sangha will be able to reassert more authority over the place. The monks of Sipsongpanna after all have been relatively adept over the years at fostering productive relations with the local government. Nonetheless, only time will tell if the deal to get this temple built was made with the devil or not.
Thomas Borchet is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Vermont
You call it a temple, so it is easy for a lot of wayward things to happen at a temple. If it were a monastery, things would be different.
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Fascinating. In material tradition and scale, it is “… a big showy temple not unlike…” those in “… larger cities in China”. This brand-new tradition (to the Dai-lue) may have been an influence from south of the border Thailand too with billions of baht worth of mega-Wats. The innovation here is partnership with a real estate company and we seem to have a creative hybridization of ‘place of worship’ with gated “Dai Disneyland” – a form that reflects the milieu that it is built in. Thanks Thomas for this.
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When I was in Eastern Shan State about a year ago, I met a monk who had just come back from the opening ceremony of a similar temple in Keng Hüng, I think it was, I don’t remember the exact name of the city in Yunnan.
He was conflicted about it. On the one hand, in an area where there had been a lot of damage to the Buddhist traditions, it seemed like a good thing to have a high-prestige place like it; on the other hand, it was clearly run as a business, by a company. He said the monks were real, but were paid to be there.
I suppose most everyone reading this blog knows that impersonating a monk is a rather serious offence.
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This thread reminds me of a Chinese temple i onced visited. it’s a mountain temple in Xiamen, Fujian. However, the temple i visited is totally different from this one— The Xiamen moutain temple (or manastery?)is just an ordinary, peaceful, quiet temple, not pretentious or grand or anything like this one featured here (although, yes, some people go there for touristic purpose.. most of the visitors are local Chinese ). I derived peace and enjoyed tranquil moments when i was there. I know this is impossible if u visit a temple that is explicitly put on show for commericial/business purpose.
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Interesting & thought-provoking article. Thanks, Thomas. I’m wondering where the tourists come from (Looking at the photos I can’t see any westerners, which is probably a Good Thing.), and how they are lured to the temple.
Presumably the Dai people do have their own local temples, since there is a local sangha mentioned, and I’m wondering what NM readers would think of the idea that, if the government is running a tourist promotion, it may be better to have the hordes tramping through a ‘fake’ temple than turning the real ones into tourist sites.
This whole ‘ethnic zoo’ thing is really repugnant. But it seems to be quite unstoppable. The tourist dollar is so attractive that the governments & business people go into a feeding frenzy, without looking at the possible consequences. This is not to say that tourism has to be an enterprise that is destructive to local cultural & environmental ecology. But top-down planning without consultation & real partnerships is, & there is so much evidence to show this, that it’s surprising that it is allowed to continue.
Forgive me if this is off-topic, but only slightly so: NM readers may be aware that the aboriginal people in Central Australia have campaigned for many years to stop the tourists from walking up Uluru, which is a sacred site, and is said to ‘belong’ to its ‘traditional owners’. Yet these ‘owners’ don’t seem to have the right to close the climb to tourists. They have no objection to people walking around the area, & even camping. The campaign has been to no avail, and recently it has been re-energised. The PM, who did at least make a long-desired official apology on behalf of all Australians to all indigenous Australians for the numerous atrocities they’ve had to endure, nevertheless clings to the belief that to climb or not to climb should be a matter of individual conscience for tourists, thus cutting the wishes of the ‘traditional owners’ completely out of the picture, & negating the notion of ownership. Tourists don’t go to Uluru to climb it – it’s not exacly Everest (& there’s another story!); they go there to see it & experience the feeling of being there – unlike anywhere else on earth. They would continue to go there if the climb were unavailable. The appalling state of aboriginal societies, a most insensitively-handled report & recommendations on which are said to have triggered off the renewal of the campaign, is quite obviously attributable to the loss of a sense of ownership & self-determination – I’m getting into cliches here, because it’s so well known.
Sidh, I like your “mega-wats”! Nice play on words, with a ‘power’ resonance.
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