The two autobiographies of the Dalai Lama contain a wide range of descriptions, visualizations and judgments about Tibet and Tibetans, the PRC and Chinese and others. Members of different groups...Show moreThe two autobiographies of the Dalai Lama contain a wide range of descriptions, visualizations and judgments about Tibet and Tibetans, the PRC and Chinese and others. Members of different groups come to judgments and valorize the other depending on their own point of view. According to researchers, Tibetan exile leaders have deliberately adopted and adapted images, including pre-1959 images that existed in the West, to entice public support for the Tibetan cause, yet there is little research into the use of images by the Dalai Lama. Using discourse analysis I will examine how the Dalai Lama uses images in My Land and My People and Freedom in Exile and argue that images such as myths, clichés and Western stereotypes are used to emphasize the uniqueness, victimhood and respectfulness of Tibet and Tibetans, whereas he uses negative images to describe the PRC and the Chinese. Analysis of the results confirms earlier research that people make use of preconceived images when describing others, while the Dalai Lama’s words are indeed beneficial to Tibetans and could in that way have convinced people for supporting the Tibetan cause. Broader research into his actions, as well as into his other work could provide more clarity in this, while research into his work and public performance meant for a Tibetan audience could give an idea whether he uses different imagery when describing the other and the self than in work catering to an international audience.Show less
In 2001, the Chinese government officially recognized Zhongdian County in Yunnan Province as Shangri-La, which is a fictional concept that signifies paradise introduced by the British author James...Show moreIn 2001, the Chinese government officially recognized Zhongdian County in Yunnan Province as Shangri-La, which is a fictional concept that signifies paradise introduced by the British author James Hilton (1933). Ever since the region has been renamed, some visitors have started to express that Shangri-La County has transformed into a theme park and has lost its authenticity. The current essay explored, by using Bryman’s (2004) theory of Disneyization as a framework, whether it can be said that the name change into Shangri-La has changed the region into a theme park. The resources of this research were scholarly literature, travel blogs and TripAdvisor reviews about Shangri-La. Of the four principles mentioned in Disneyization, that all describe a trend common to a theme park, the principles of theming, hybrid consumption and merchandising were all found to be take place in the Shangri-La region. Only performative labor, as defined in the theory, was considerably less present in Shangri-La County. However, in regard to how Chinese theme parks (like Yunnan Ethnic Folk Village) function, such as the lack of smiling service, the principle of performative labor may still apply to Shangri-La. Thus, the result indicates that Shangri-La is comparable to a theme park and that how the theory of Disneyization is defined currently has no universal validity because it takes no cultural differences in account. Furthermore, in view of Jean Baudrillard’s (1994) account of postmodernism, Shangri-La is similar to a theme park in that they both create a hyper-reality in which a highly similar but ‘unreal’ reality is experienced by visitors through the processes of simulation or simulacrum. In this sense, the Shangri-La narrative has bestowed a frame by which tourists started to percept and experience the region’s authenticity. However, considering that Western tourists are predominantly the ones seeking authenticity in Shangri-La – may it be an authentic setting or an authentic self – it is their confrontation with the touristic environments like Dukezong that sways them to evaluate the region as a theme park. The voices of the local population and Chinese tourists were not brought into account in the current research; future research should therefore explore deeper how these groups’ experience the changes in Shangri-La County.Show less