About Matsu

I harbor an inclination to think about culture (especially in modernity) in terms of image versus identity. It seems that the modern tourism discourse is overly interested in image and would invariably prefer to frame destinations in a pure and especially ‘attractive’ set of images. On the other hand, local identity would be better considered in terms of experience. What experiences are going on, collectively, in a community? Is it not, in this context, where identity is being revitalized, reproduced or even transformed. The irony of an image/identity dichotomy, however, is that as those experiences within that community are taking place there are already certain participants or observers taking photographs, writing, or otherwise representing events by employing certain mechanisms of image-making. So the real question of identity would seem to not be in the image itself but in its making.

So what would be the fundamentals of a politics of image and identity? Must one be a member of a particular community in order to be qualified to make certain representations? Or can one resort to her or his credentials – as a journalist, a sociologist or a policy maker? Perhaps the qualifications would have something to do with participation, understandings or even social roles. No matter what it may be, every image has its politics, whether it be officially ordained or stealthily procured. And none is without its implications.

I am thinking about Matsu right now and some experiences that I had there during 2002 to 2004. I had met some people who invited me to the islands to have a look around, to join in some meetings and festivals and maybe, to paint. For many years the islands had been a focal point of military tensions between China and the Republic of China on Taiwan. But as relationships were improving, tourism was being considered as the new economic base to replace the military economy as troops were being radically reduced.

Some good people in Matsu were becoming very interested in ensuring that the community’s traditional culture could at worst, be ‘preserved’ and at best, become an important tourism resource (or attraction) for the islands. We decided that a series of site visits, community discussion forums and other locally based activities could be a good set of catalysts for a potential public mural featuring local culture instead of the ubiquitous military and political slogans dotting the landscape.

And it worked out wonderfully. I spent a lot of time there, and I wanted to spend more. The old stone walls of the original buildings and those surrounding fields are amazing. The traditional festivals and local lifestyle are colorful and contrast the surely lonely and isolated reality of these remote islands. The sea defines this place as it does all islands – Matsu is the name of the goddess/protector of the seafarers.

I went about meeting people, talking about this and that. I was interested in how the general sentiment was that life on Matsu was ‘nothing special’ and certainly ‘out of touch’ with the modernity and prosperity of Taipei. I knew then that the pride of culture is also its shame… of not being something else, of not being cosmopolitan (the extreme absence of culture).

There was, no doubt, an extreme reservation about letting me, an outsider and a foreigner no less, have his way with paint and brush in a public space where no murals had ever been painted concerning culture – only military slogans were found. By the time I finished the mural (or at least, stopped painting) in February 2003, what was left on the wall was a set of representations, of my impressions of that wonderful place and time. I had proceeded from an expression of pure emotion, to a set of experiences with people, to the representation of their images and back again to something more abstract.

The mural features impressions of the walls of Matsu, the town of ‘Niou Jiao’ (Bull’s Horns) where it is located, the winds and clouds and boats, and Matsu the goddess and most visibly, a Sword Lion in the center. But the beauty of the mural is not in its representative capacity. Any outsider looking at it for the first time would be unlikely to have the background knowledge necessary to interpret it visually. Instead it is abstract enough, with the right colors, to complement the community surrounding it. It is subtle enough to pay homage to the stories that only some people know. It is the result of a happening and as such, has earned its place to rest.

The mural in Matsu is not so much a cultural representation as it is an inscription of events. It belongs to the community. It is set of markings that connote, rather than denote, the effects of an experience. It symbolizes events in the construction of culture rather than in its representation.

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don't get me wrong. i am not attempting to compartmentalize the world into work, leisure and tourism - and if it seems that i am, it is only to establish a talking point from which to explore and contrast certain standing opinions within that academic field. and the majority view where i live now is that

1) leisure and tourism are synonymous, or leisure is a minor footnote to the tourism discourse, and;
2) tourism is a universal panacea to peripheral and/or failing primary and secondary economies.

the possibility that tourism poses any threat whatsoever is a total non-issue since the ramifications would be almost unthinkable.

consider the ICOMOS international cultural tourism charter and the UNESCO world heritage list. these organizations are interested in protecting important heritage sites and the cultures in which they are situated by registering them. in fact, they are as interested in protecting these from the damaging weight of tourism as much as they are against war, earthquake and other disasters. read, tourism is a 'slow disaster'. however, certain destinations applaud the winning of UNESCO recognition as a shot in the arm for local tourism and milk it for all it is worth as an addition to the destination image, branding and promotional portfolio.

the ideal of community action and involvement and the responsibility of government to establish good policy for the protection and well being of the community is overlooked. local residents are left out in the cold to fend for themselves and when tourism is involved, are expected to eat the scraps left under the table by visiting tourists. and are told to be glad about it. and if the community is lucky enough to have anything at all going well for them, whether it be a pristine beach, a mountain, an old relic or a cultural tradition then it is free game for the 'tourism industry', an elite few, to direct its tour busses.

in an age of chronic economic and environmental problems, it still seems amazing to me that governments should act by initiating even bigger projects to counteract 'damage'. that government should be bailing out wall street and that it would bail out the planet if it could find a way is utterly unbelievable to me. especially with all the 'medical' metaphors hovering around the problem (a patient with clogged arteries, etc.).

it seems like we have forgotten about the old waste hierarchy -- reduce, reuse, recycle. and in the current situation it would be wise for all of us to start by reducing our needs and wants.

leisure and tourism

anyway, we should keep up with the times and do our best to talk about ourselves in a way that makes others think we are somehow important and ‘worth knowing of’. in this sense i offer something of a personal introduction, a foreign national at a university here in korea, i work as a visiting professor and i have been ‘visiting’ for four years now! my interests are related to leisure and tourism. not so much the industries but what they might potentially be doing to us. in other words what do the notions of leisure and tourism mean to us individually and socially.

quite simply my thesis is that outside of our chosen professions, our work, leisure pursuits make a powerful contribution to our identity and tourism poses the greatest threat. community leisure programs work to facilitate its members’ personal and social development. a camping trip for the family or a sports day for the company serves to build social relationships or they offer an opportunity for the individual to revitalize herself. on the other hand, tourism facilitates the experiences of others in our community by reducing it to a destination offering a handful of various stereotypical experiences and scenic views.

this more or less debatable attitude – leisure and identity versus tourism and image – may not be a foolproof universal generalization but it seems to me to be the best starting point for discussion of the subject. in other words, leisure is fundamentally good whereas tourism is fundamentally risky at best. this dualism could be as easily reversed by pointing out that a community’s leisure base is provincial and isolated and limited by its own cultural quirks. and that tourism is like a great diplomatic enterprise that fosters interpersonal communication between groups that can lead to innovation and the like. that would be a more optimistic outlook. to the reader should forgive primalamerica’s pessimism.

leisure programs are fundamentally concerned with the improvement of social life in the community. but tourism development seems to whitewash the destination using slogans and imagery that promise only the best in terms of natural and cultural heritage experiences. consider the vocabulary. in leisure the social context is referred to as the ‘community’ whereas in tourism it is referred to as the ‘destination’. the community is a place where people live, a destination is a place where tourists visit. tourism does its best to take all but the most photogenic ‘out of the picture’. in leisure, the beauty is not only skin deep.

so in leisure we seek social benefits and in tourism the focus is economic. tourism is a universal panacea for failing agricultural and manufacturing economies and it seems that the demise of the base is the rallying call for tourism. come and see our failure! our isolation! our lack! it is the abundance of lack that makes a destination attractive.

greetings from primalamerica

greetings from primalamerica. it would seem that everyone is doing the blog thing now and by 2008 is might already be a thing of the past. but then again, that is the story of my life. i dont get around to doing anything until it is too late, until it has already been done, until it is a thing of the past. and it is worse whenever i go to look at what others have done.

can we all be heroes? writers? painters? is there more to be done? sung? said?

rather, it seems to me, it is not necessary to do anything new or original, but it is necessary to do something. we should all be tinkering with the world we live in. and it should be done in a way that has nothing to do with making it work