Gender and Internal Orientalism in China

Abstract

On a visit to the nearest city-Kaili-during my 1988 field year in southeast Guizhou,' I encountered an unexpected ritual. Or was it really so unexpected? In 1986, a new six-story building had been constructed to supplement the mildewed older structure that used to house the city's No. 1 Guest House. Kaili was, after all, the capital of the Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Southeast Guizhou province in China's southwest, and its mountainous and scenic but barely arable terrain inhabited by several minority groups meant that its best hope for economic development was the promotion of tourism.2 The new hotel complex was dubbed the Nationalities Guest House.3 Teenaged girls were recruited from the countryside to work as receptionists, waitresses, and chambermaids-and to stage culture. A representative sampling of different minorities, subgroups, and costume styles had been chosen and each employee was to wear her distinctive headdress at all times. Regular duties included not only the usual hotel drudgery, but also an occasional pose in full costume for foreign travelers' cameras, and performances of song and dance to visiting tour groups. The ritual I witnessed on this particular day, however, was another variant of packaged ethnic performance. Kaili has also been promoted