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Ethnic Cultural Theme Parks in China and

Japan
Toward an Anthropology of Intentional Tradition
The production of “constructed culture” as a feature of the urban landscape
accelerates the consumption of such artifacts in everyday life, and prepares
residents to consume similar artifacts in tourist destinations. The dream of living
in a theme park is realized through intentional tradition as a model for urban
planning.
Intentional traditions are not limited to theme parks and cities (such as Las Vegas)
that are rebuilt as theme parks, but can be seen as the future of traditional (or
post-traditional) culture.

The act of producing intentional tradition represents a mode of

“detraditionalization” in Giddens’ perspective: “A detraditionalizing social order
is one in which the population becomes more active and reflexive, although the
meaning of 'reflexive' should be properly understood. Where the past has lost its
hold, or becomes one 'reason' among others for doing what one does, pre-existing
habits are only a limited guide to action; while the future, open to numerous
'scenarios', becomes of compelling interest (Giddens, 1994, 92-93).” Theme parks
compete with each other and with other types of destination for scarce tourist cash
flows. The ability of cultural theme parks to innovate traditions—to attempt to
manage their future—is crucial to their competitive position. So too, the workers
in these theme parks use intentional traditions to innovate their own ethnic
markers and construct cultural practices that offer them a future in the tourism
industry: the world’s largest industry. And these ethnic markers and cultural
practices are highly competitive as valued tokens in the economy and society of
ethnic minority locales around China. In Japan, foreign-themed parks reinforce
the islanders’ sense of belonging to the wider world. These offer local experiences
of far-away traditions, experiences that are added to their visitors’ reflexive
construction of their sense of self and national identity.

Originally published in Japanese:

2004. “Ethnic Cultural Theme Parks in China and Japan:Toward an Anthropology of Intentional Tradition.”
In Tourism as a Complex Phenomenon. Nobukiyo Eguchi, ed. Kyoto: Koyoshobo.

The author wishes to thank Professor Eguchi for his support and insights. Prof. Tamar Gordon at RPI

secured the funding for the research/video project to China and Japan, and directed the documentary

video outcome: Global Villages

Photo Credits: Erich Schienke

Introduction

This essay will explore four sites: the Chinese theme parks at the Overseas China Town in
Shenzhen and the Ethnic Village (minzucun) park in Kunming; and the Japanese theme parks of
Huis Ten Bosch near Nagasaki, and Parque España in Mie[i]. Each of these parks could have
an entire article devoted to an ethnographic description, so this article will not pretend to fully
explore the parks as ethnographic sites. The ethnography of the parks here supports notions of
value in the study of tourism as a global cultural practice. The author will propose a set of
problems from the literature on the anthropology of tourism, and look to these sites as
resources to explore these problems. For example, legitimacy, as this is sought by the producers
and accepted by the consumers is one of the problem for ethnic cultural theme parks. Unlike
amusement parks, where the experience is designed to be imaginative, ethnic cultural theme
parks are representational—they claim to show the authentic cultural practices of the people who
perform these, or they claim to have recreated locations that actually exist somewhere else (e.g.,
Huis ten Bosch). As Stanley notes: “… once the notion of ethnographic representation
becomes central, there is a stress on authenticity in all aspects of enactment (Stanley 1998,
171).” Legitimacy includes issues of cultural authority and ethnic identity. The problem remains,
how do the theme parks establish their cultural content as “authentic”?

The second problem is that of regionality within the parks. Here the term “regionality”
does not refer to geographical region, but rather to what Erving Goffman (1974) described as the
basic “frames” for activity in any social setting. The “front” region represented the area of
public display and attention to public norms for behavior. The “back” region represented more
private or intimate behaviors that would be shielded from viewing from the “front” region
(1959, 106). Bathing, dressing, sleeping, sexuality, and certain modes of relaxation would be
performed in an area outside of the attention of strangers or the need to attend to normalized
behaviors. While the front region can include both social behaviors and a dramatic staging
(1974, 124) of social behaviors, where there is no actual “stage,” the assumption is that front
region behavior is linked to the individual’s socialized self, rather than some simulation of
this[ii]. One important difference between ethnic cultural theme parks and entertainment theme
parks (for example, Disneyland) could once be found in the former’s attempt to represent an
authentic back region for the villages they assembled, and the latter’s construction of a
consumer space with only front regions. This seems to be changing, with ethnic cultural theme
parks abandoning the attempt at a display of “real life” (in all its regions) in favor of staged
cultural display.

The third problem is how theme park cultural production relates to cultural production
back in ethnic locales. Also, how does globalized cultural production and consumption affect
the experience of ethnic cultural theme parks? What does this mean for the role of ethnic
cultural theme parks in the management of national cultural and local ethnic diversity? What
separates the culture generated by theme parks from either the cultural production in the ethnic
homelands or cultural production and consumption in urban zones? Does this new cultural
production mark a shift in how nations and ethnic groups negotiate cultural heritage
management?
Sites under study in China and Japan

Today, more than 300 million persons visit one or more of China’s 3000 theme parks every
year (source: US Department of Commerce). Themed destinations have become an economic
force and a cultural phenomenon in China. Over the past decades, Japan has also witnessed
growth in investment in its themed destination sites, with new ventures in nearly every
prefecture. While most of these destinations are amusement parks built around thrill rides (See
also: Brouws and Caron, 2001), other parks offer cultural experiences instead of physical thrills.

The Overseas China Town (OCT) development in Shenzhen, Guangdong offers, in one
locale, a schematic model for intentional culture production and consumption. Within a
walking distance there are four theme parks—Splendid China, China Folklore Villages, Window
on the World, and Happy Valley—that span the spectrum of content from static miniature
replica to expansive, dynamic thrill rides (picture Tobu World Square, Tokyo Disneyland,
Osaka Universal Studios, and the Akan National Park Ainu Village built side-by-side). The
common thread among three of the parks is the presence of ethnically coded (Chinese/global
ethnic minority) entertainers[iii]. The fourth park offers 1/15 th scale replicas of notable places
in China (including Tibet). In Kunming, the provincial government has constructed an
expansive theme park of the 25 ethnic minority groups of Yunnan. These are only a few of the
ethnic cultural theme parks now open in China.

In Japan, where the number of officially recognized minority ethnic groups and the
number of ethnic minority individuals are significantly fewer than those found in China, recent
theme park developments have explored extra-national locales, such as Holland and Spain. The
Dutch city destination resort of Huis ten Bosch in Kyushu is remarkable for its investment in
full-scale verisimilitude[iv]. Actual-sized buildings built with actual, imported materials, offers
the Japanese tourist a high degree of simulated Europeanness. The Spanish destination park of
Parque España in Mie, not far from Ise Jingu, was originally designed as a European
destination similar to Huis ten Bosch. Large market spaces (agora) from major Spanish cities
form the main park, with various entertainments woven around these. In part the original
design was never completed, and more recent additions have abandoned the “Spanish” theme
for amusement zones and rides (Caron, 1999). Still, the park continues to portray itself as a
Spanish cultural destination.

Intentional Traditions

The cultural productions managed in themed destinations offer anthropologists new

objects of cultural study. In particular these sites are excellent examples of what I will term
“intentional tradition.” Intentional tradition[v] marks the attempt (usually by state organizations
or by corporations) to produce authentic, traditional practices and locales as consciously constructed
artifacts. This process contrasts with heritage management efforts to isolate and preserve
historical, traditional practices and their locales.

In part, these new locales are created because they produce new sources for what
Bourdieu (1984) called “cultural capital.” Historical sites, preserved as such, are certainly
important sources of cultural capital, but the amount of this they provide is fixed, determined
by their historical significance. Nations and locales mine this fixed asset by developing the
historical site as a unique tourist destination (See MacCannell, 44-45).

Themed destinations break with the historical logic by creating their own uniqueness
outside of any history, from an invented cultural production. Disney parks are prime examples.
Now cloned from the California “original” (or rather the “non-original”) to Florida, Paris,
Tokyo, and soon, Hong Kong; these parks have “visioneered” an acutely ahistorical cultural
artifact. This artifact is bound neither by history nor location. As an example, the Shenzhen
Splendid China theme park was copied in Florida, not far from Disneyworld[vi]. What was
perhaps unexpected is how ethnic cultural theme parks have managed to copy the Disney
example and invent new cultural capital through the same sort of cultural alchemy.

Consuming “Constructed Culture”

The production of intentional tradition at ethnic cultural theme parks creates practices that may
not, in the past, have been accepted by audiences as “traditional” practices. But today, their
audiences quite readily accept these traditional artifacts, even though they represent at best a
sort of “constructed culture.” In fact, this constructed cultural output is actually preferred by what
Mike Featherstone (and others) have called “post-tourists;” “Here we have typical sites for
what have been referred to as 'post-tourists', people who adopt a postmodern de-centred
orientation towards tourist experiences. Post-tourists have no time for authenticity and revel in
the constructed simulational nature of contemporary tourism, which they know is only a game”
(Featherstone 1991, 102).

The intentional traditions of ethnic cultural theme parks are—to their producers and
consumers alike—traditional enough to offer an authentic experience. The seriousness of the
intentions (signaled mainly by budget and attention to high production value) is now sufficient
to legitimate the authenticity of the resulting practice. This means that their content is not
legitimated by historical use, but rather, by the intentions of the producer. The claim made here
is that anthropologists can no longer look at the content of ethnic theme parks as either a copy
of some carefully borrowed traditional practice or as merely fantasy entertainment with no
legitimate claim to traditional authority. Today, these parks are building cultural traditions the
way Disney builds fantasies.

Intentional tradition mines the front region cultural practices of tourist destinations
world-wide to construct cultural practices that the “post-tourist” in China, Japan, and
elsewhere, apparently desires and pays to consume. But do these practices inform the ethnic
identities of the performers or the consumers? Is there a corresponding “intentional ethnicity?”
It may be worthwhile remembering that tourism has been the largest industry in the world for
some years now. State tourism organizations in nations across the globe are investing in new
destinations. Ethnic groups that achieve state recognition in this arena find that their
relationship to the state and their internal group dynamics may be profoundly affected (Wood
1984, 1997). Once the groups have been selected by the state to participate in ventures such as
ethnic cultural theme parks, the process of intentional tradition determines which of the
markers (MacCannell, 74) are selected as ethnic icons. For example, in the Wa village at
Chinese Folklore Villages and the Ethnic Villages in Kunming, the bleached skulls of buffalo
are prominently displayed. Dances, songs, costumes—the whole repertoire of the ethnic theme
park village becomes a set of ethnic markers. These markers are not simply externally applied
to the performers, but are created through a dialogic process between the cultural performers
and the managers, and also between the performers and their audience. Picard (1995, 1996) has
noted this effect in Bali. Oakes (1997) noted that tourism in China—in response to the official
recognition that the state provides to the fifty-five ethnic minorities, and the state’s ability to
open up regions for international tourism—is a primary engine for ethnic groups to acquire and
manage local identities.

Professional ethnic cultural performers returning from their contracted labor in theme
parks in Beijing, Shenzhen, or Kunming, bring back more than the financial savings they have
earned. Having danced in the theme park village shows running every hour or so, their
performances achieve a level of professionalism far beyond that available back in the ethnic
locale, where a dance might occur once a year, or even once in a lifetime (for a wedding
ceremonial). Their dances from the parks are sometimes recreated to attract tourists to their
home villages (Kirshenblatt-Gimblet 1998, 61). And having represented local ethnic identity in
front of thousands, they achieve a status as a performer of traditional culture—however, their
“tradition” is now informed by the intentional tradition practices from the theme park.

Intentional traditions treat cultural production as a form of expression removed from

history as their primary source of legitimation. Instead, the resulting “tradition” is presented in
terms of its aesthetic quality and how it measures up with other practices, local or global.
Theme parks are free to—and expected to—borrow from and innovate off of other theme
parks around the world. And when the park’s theme is “traditional culture” the resulting
practices often blend elements from a variety of sources, with little regard for the constraints of
the historical communities that might also claim authority over the tradition.

One example of intentional tradition is the “ethnic” dances in the Chinese Folklore
Villages in Shenzhen. Each dance was choreographed by the park staff to contrast with the
other village dances so that the tourist would not see dances with similar styles in neighboring
village performances. Elsewhere, at the “Maori” village in Window of the World, Wa and
Uighur dancers learned their performances from Maori dancers from the Polynesian Cultural
Center in Hawaii, who visited Shenzhen in order to train the dancers. But there are no Maoris
in the Maori village. By 2002, in Huis ten Bosch, Romanian musicians and singers had replaced
Dutch entertainers as a cost-cutting measure[vii]. Most of the costumed paraders in the daily
grand parade in Parque España are local Japanese employees.
 Importantly, however, intentional traditions do not claim to provide a critique of the
traditions they remake, nor do they add any type of performance “frame” to these. They do
not parody or satirize the historical tradition. They simply acquire this and re-present it as
something they are authorized to innovate upon. While it might be easier to innovate a
tradition when representing someone else’s culture (as the Wa do in the “African” village in
Window on the World), there seem to be few barriers to innovating on regional ethnic cultural
traditions at these parks.

Competition with other parks is only one reason why cultural theme parks innovate
instead of borrowing from traditional authority. The ethnic performers are also competing with
one another in their villages and with other villages in the park to gain audience approval. And,
in China, the parks are viewed as national cultural centers that need to add something of value
as national cultural landscape. In Shenzhen, the Chinese Folklore Villages, Window on the
World, and Happy Valley theme parks each produce lavish evening performances, which
combine large professional casts, theatrical lighting, and orchestral music.
 In the summer of 2002 the Window on the World evening show tracked world history
from the Stone Age to the modern era. Over at Happy Valley, an “Aztec Carnival” was
performed on the edge of an enormous swimming pool (with the audience in the pool), while
at the Chinese Folklore Villages a parade of Chinese historical periods and theatrical forms
assembled into a grand finale of song and fireworks. Earlier in the evening, inside a theater,
Han actors put on costume extravaganza, based partly on ethnic styles and partly on globalized
dinner theater (e.g. learning from Las Vegas) models. These evening events increase the paid
attendance at the parks and cater to a market for short-time tourists who are bussed in after
their supper banquets elsewhere. The cultural workers from the ethnic villages are expected to
also work these evening shows, and some become headline performers. This is a step toward
long-term employment with the company.

The constructed aspects of cultural production in the parks means that the performers
become skilled in several styles of entertainment. “… the initial design and the development of
the company, this entire place, especially the nationality villages, is a result of the opening and
reforming policy in China,” noted one of the managers at the Chinese Folklore Villages in
Shenzhen. Formerly a dancer in one of the ethnic troupes, he had risen in the company to
become a choreographer and manager.

He also explained how the various entertainments fit together into a synthetic
experience: “I classify our nationality culture [productions] into three levels, because as
managers in the Folklore Villages we have to imagine the point of view of the audiences. The
first level consists of primitive aspects such as dance, singing, and costumes, and also includes
interactive activities. The second level involves professional modifications to some aspects of
these cultural productions. The third requires research in order to further [develop] creative
modifications through big shows and commercial packaging to build a perfect items of Chinese
culture.” These three levels are difficult to keep separate in practice, as the same employees
may perform at all three levels. Career advancement is keyed to developing one’s talent for
third-level performances.

This explanation of cultural production at the Chinese Folklore Villages fits entirely into
the mode of intentional tradition. Notice what is missing; there is no call for the preservation
of a borrowed traditional practice, no careful reproduction of an authorized performance, no
link back to any actual practice from the original homeland. Instead, the resulting performance
gains its effect through the improvements made using “professional modifications” to the
underlying “primitive” level.

At the end of each performance in the parks, the audience is invited to join into a dance,
or simply to touch the performers and pose for photographs. The performance has achieved
the threshold of its audience’s sense of authentic experience, and then invites the audience to
physically share this experience with the performers. This sharing resembles that moment of
cultural contact that ethnologists experience when they arrive in the field. Visitors are
encouraged to encounter other ethnic cultural groups as individuals, to touch them and acquire
a feeling of cultural understanding.

At Huis ten Bosch, the sense of contact is created by simply arriving at the park.
Checking into the Hotel Europa (or one of the other hotels) is physically like stepping into
Europe (except that the staff speaks Japanese). The rooms are European in scale, far larger than
most Japanese hotel rooms. Then a stroll out into the streets, over bricks imported from
Holland, reinforces the feeling of being outside of Japan.

One of the few Dutch employees of Huis ten Bosch was genuinely impressed by the
quality of the simulation that the manufactured cityscape offered to its visitors. “All this place
lacks are drugs and hookers” he remarked with a combination of humor and respect. This
comment actually touches on the main problematic for Huis ten Bosch: how to create a Dutch
destination experience without experiencing Dutch people. There are no crowds of imported
Hollanders adding human color to the shops and the streets, and only a few random European-
looking people to garnish the architectural ambiance. The Australian water-ski team is notably
blonde and young and adds a splash of excitement to the brick-lined canals. In 2002, the
summer nights were enlivened by imported Cuban band. A small group of Dutch college
students pursue their Japanese studies at an exchange program, but are not conspicuous to
other visitors (and, one would suspect might be disappointed to have arrived to study in Japan
only to be located in this consciously non-Japanese locale). The human interaction with the
park’s staff is no different than what one might find in other Japanese internal tourist
destinations, such as the hot springs at Noboribetsu. Here it is the architecture alone that
serves to displace the visitor, and by doing this, offer them an experience of being somewhere
else.

The visitor from Japan is surrounded by city marked by a blend of a familiar social
manners and exotic settings. The visitor from outside Japan, particularly one from Europe,
would face the opposite markers, as if wandering through a familiar city that has been
somehow occupied by an army of strangers. The Japanese visitor (the park’s main customer) is
freed to experience the location without the social hesitation (and even trepidation) that the
same tourist might feel on the streets of a European city—in Europe, that is—a mood that has
been consciously constructed by the management as the basis for the destination’s appeal.
 The intended appeal of the site is rather straightforward: the Tokyoite can visit “Europe”
for the weekend or longer after a short domestic flight with no jet lag and no other cultural
preparations. The promise of “Europe” can, in this case, be legitimated by the faithfulness of
the simulation. The destination is designed to saturate the visitor’s time for a weekend holiday
visit. Many visitors, we were told, rarely leave the expansive hotels, where outside the windows
is a cityscape constructed brick-by-brick on a European plan.

Regionality

Earlier versions of ethnic cultural display at world’s fairs and museums involved the
recreation of village life as this was (presumably) lived. This would include the display of back-
region activities. Facilities for cooking, sleeping, daily chores, and everyday activities were on
display. As the guidebook for the Java Village at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago
describes: “This village gives an exact reproduction of a village as found in the Preanger
Regencies, the western part of the Island. There are one hundred and twenty-five natives,
among which thirty-four are women; they show the life and industries of the common people
among which thirty-four are women; they show the life and industries of the common people
in Java. These temporary, “living” exhibits were complemented in tableaus of the everyday life
of tribal groups in natural history museums[viii].

The goal of the living exhibits was to represent what Malinowski once called the
“context of situation” of the daily lives of the people represented in the display. The people on
display were instructed to act “normally” as though they were back in their home villages. They
were encouraged to cook and eat, sleep and converse, play with their children, etc., as they
would have back in their village. They would also make craft objects to sell to visitors. Nudity,
as this was a feature of their everyday life, was transported as a feature of the “authentic”
display[ix].

The hallmark of ethnic cultural display at world’s fair exhibits was the display of back-
region behaviors—peeks into the real lives of other people. Historical parks, heritage sites, and
then cultural theme parks, such as the Polynesian Culture Center in Hawaii, relied on their
displays of back region activities to legitimate the notion that the “village” represented an
authentic place, moved, but unchanged from its “roots”. Over the past two decades, this
situation has changed considerably. Two reasons may explain this change. Firstly, back regions
are very difficult to stage, and vulnerable to doubts an suspicions by the audience. Secondly,
amusement theme parks (e.g. Disneyland) that do not stage back regions have been very
successful and cultural theme parks have attempted to copy this success.

Dean MacCannell argued that the “back-region” of tourist destinations is also “staged,”
and therefore not a real “back-region” in Goffman’s (1959, 128) terms. MacCannell asserted
that, “a mere experience may be mystified, but a touristic experience is always mystified. The lie
contained in the touristic experience, moreover, presents itself as a truthful revelation…. The
idea here is that a false back is more insidious and dangerous than a false front… (1976, 102)”.
MacCannell’s claim is that the display of a back region is structurally problematic for the site. It
cannot easily be accepted (by the audience) as a real back region. And once the audience feels
the back region is a lie, then the front region displays become vulnerable and the entire
operation loses its legitimacy[x].

Conversely, Disney-style theme parks attempt to present a seamless front region display.
Any preparation for a performance is done outside of the view of the consumer. Walls and
plantings keep the outside neighborhood from being visible within the park. The daily grand
parade simply appears from somewhere, runs its course and then disappears. Even the trash
barrels are emptied through an underground system. The performers are “on stage” any time
they are in the park. There are no “back-stage” tours allowed of Disney parks.
Disney-fied tradition

The parks under study in China and Japan represent new venues built in the past twenty
years. These parks have abandoned an attempt to portray the back region, and focus on
performances in a staged front region. The result is an experience of ethnic cultural display that
is constructed more like a “land” in Disneyland, and less like a “village” from somewhere. In
the Happy Valley theme park in Shenzhen, a Western-land townscape offers shows of gunplay
and heroics by a cast of costumed cowboys (played by Russian actors from an international
theatrical company, using a pre-recorded English voiceover) while across the park in an
enchanted valley scene with a waterfall, ethnic minority actors dance and sing. At the end of
each performance (cowboy or minority) the audience is encouraged to touch the actors and
smile at the camera.

In the Wa village in Kunming, the female dancers backstage prepared for their dance by
rolling up their blue jeans beneath their ethnic skirts so that their calves were bare. The skirts
were “real,” but so were the jeans, and both were emblems of other places; the skirts of the
village somewhere in Southwestern Yunnan and the jeans of the emerging cosmopolitan
cultural influence in Kunming. The stage setting was made to recall the village not the global
metropole, and so the jeans were hidden away (but not removed). The dances were from
festivals and from romanticized courtship, and the audience was invited to join in on a circle
dance at the end of the performance.

Intentional culture succeeds by avoiding displays of the everyday life of the

“villagers”[xi]. This is a lesson that Disney learned early on, and that other theme parks have
copied. At Parque España, the daily parade bursts from behind a set of gates, tours the
grounds and returns to their hidden back stage. By creating and displaying only performances
that can be accepted on their aesthetic merits, intentional cultural producers avoid the trap of
attempting to create an authentic back region.

Over at Huis ten Bosch, the visitors get to stay overnight in the park, although the park
concessions are mostly closed by 8 pm. The hotels then become the main source of evening
entertainment. The visible confidence and ease that the park visitors display in their
consumption of the front region Dutch cityscape and its commodities (there are many
shopping and dining opportunities) reminds the observer that this place is also a fully managed
theme park, and not an actual city. Just like Disneyland, Huis Ten Bosch sequesters away many
aspects of mundane city life (not just Amsterdam’s famous vices). Poverty, crime, garbage,
factories, illness, and death are not a part of this urban showcase. The visitors are not just
travelers who have arrived to complete some work (unless they came to get married, and there
are more than 700 weddings a year), they are here simply to be here, and to escape from their
actual city back home.

Intentional Tradition as the future of cultural production

Huis ten Bosch was built as a model for future Japanese cities, with new technologies for
sustainable development and a plan for 150,000 citizens (the park wall would be torn down,
and the city would become an actual town). The juxtaposition of city center and theme park
would compel the citizens to enjoy their urban lifestyle in a manner not possible in the overly
crowded streets of Tokyo or Osaka. The intentions of the government (central and provincial)
and the company were realized at a grand scale and enormous cost. However, the actual
combination of city and theme park in Kyushu is not Huis ten Bosch, but rather the Jerde
Group’s “Canal City” development in Hakata. This project rebuilds the city as a themed
environment offering “non-daily events in a metropolitan environment” in the “largest
privately developed project in Japan’s history” (source:
http://www.jerde.com/go/place/canalcity).
http://www.jerde.com/go/place/canalcity).

The production of “constructed culture” as a feature of the urban landscape accelerates

the consumption of such artifacts in everyday life, and prepares residents to consume similar
artifacts in tourist destinations. The dream of living in a theme park is realized through
intentional tradition as a model for urban planning.

Intentional traditions are not limited to theme parks and cities (such as Las Vegas) that
are rebuilt as theme parks, but can be seen as the future of traditional (or post-traditional)
culture. The act of producing intentional tradition represents a mode of “detraditionalization” in
Giddens’ perspective: “A detraditionalizing social order is one in which the population becomes
more active and reflexive, although the meaning of 'reflexive' should be properly understood.
Where the past has lost its hold, or becomes one 'reason' among others for doing what one
does, pre-existing habits are only a limited guide to action; while the future, open to numerous
'scenarios', becomes of compelling interest (Giddens, 1994, 92-93).” Theme parks compete
with each other and with other types of destination for scarce tourist cash flows. The ability of
cultural theme parks to innovate traditions—to attempt to manage their future—is crucial to
their competitive position. So too, the workers in these theme parks use intentional traditions
to innovate their own ethnic markers and construct cultural practices that offer them a future
in the tourism industry: the world’s largest industry. And these ethnic markers and cultural
practices are highly competitive as valued tokens in the economy and society of ethnic minority
locales around China. In Japan, foreign-themed parks reinforce the islanders’ sense of
belonging to the wider world. These offer local experiences of far-away traditions, experiences
that are added to their visitors’ reflexive construction of their sense of self and national identity.

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[i] The author visited these locales in 2002 while producing and filming a documentary video, Global Villages: The
Globalization of Ethnic Display. 61:36 minute DVD. Bruce Caron and Tamar Gordon, Producers. 2004. Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute and The New Media Studio: Troy, New York and Santa Barbara, California. The author would like to thank Professor
Nobukiyo Eguchi for his guidance and assistance over the years.

[ii] The spatial regionality of Goffman’s does not map easily into the psychological distinctions of “honne” and “tatemae” in
Japanese. However, one would suspect that back regions are areas where tatemae is not required.

[iii] The parks are managed by a partnership of government and corporate interests, but are well attuned to the political role they
might play. “In political terms, the Folk Culture Villages theme park embodies the essence of CCP [Chinese Communist Party]
policy towards democracy, religious freedom and support for ethnic cultures, designed to demonstrate to its own population and
the world the tolerance of Chinese socialism. The Tibetan lamasery and the Uighur mosque are religious buildings only in terms
of their original purpose and are now displayed as a political symbol as well as for the touristic gaze. The theme park
‘showcases’ the integration of the minorities into the one happy Chinese cultural family and the unity of the Chinese peoples
(Sofield and Lee, 1998).”

[iv] Huis ten Bosch has a larger “frame” as an actual cityscape, with a housing development, a full sewage treatment plant, and
other urban design infrastructure. The downturn of the Japanese economy in the 1990s reduced the market value of the real estate
venture significantly. It is important to consider Huis ten Bosch as a vision of an urban utopia and not simply a themed space.

[v] Intentional tradition is a term that is derived by analogy with “intentional community” which describes communities, such as
“communes” that are consciously constructed (See also: http://www.ic.org/). Intentional tradition also marks the production of
tradition in what Anthony Giddens calls the “post-traditional” age (1992, 74). Elsewhere he notes: “…as a direct result of
globalization, we can speak today of the emergence of a post-traditional social order. A post-traditional order is not one in
which tradition disappears—far from it. It is one in which tradition changes its status. Traditions have to explain themselves, to
become open to interrogation or discourse.” (1994, 5). Giddens describes (ibid., 29) modernity as a time of increasing
“institutional reflexivity.” Whereas in former, “traditional,” eras, everyday life was assembled without consideration for the
action of assembling this, in modernity, even “tradition” will be consciously constructed.

[vi] Its opening was marked by demonstrations about the issue of Tibet, and it never acquired a sufficient customer numbers. The
park languished financially for ten years before declaring bankruptcy and closing in December of 2003.

[vii] Huis ten Bosch declared bankruptcy in 2004, and defaulted on its nearly US $3 billion loan to the Industrial Bank of Japan.
The park remains open and attracts millions of visitors a year.

[viii] This practice has only recently been changed in major museums from the 1970s to the present. New exhibitions focus on
the articles of practice, and avoid the staged tableaus of “real life.” This new form of display was pioneered by the National
Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan [http://www.minpaku.ac.jp/] and was seen most recently by the newly opened (2004)
National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. [http://www.nmai.si.edu/].
[ix] At the 1939 New York World’s Fair, performers acting the roles of classical European painters would paint live nudes
(always women) lounging on sofas in full view of the audience, establishing the frame of “art” as another frame that allowed
nudity.

[x] The same holds for the new “reality television” programs. These programs are vulnerable to suspicions that their “unscripted”
dramas have been prearranged.

[xi] The back region is left back in the home village, and, of course, out in the dormitories where the cast members live. At Huis
ten Bosch, the Australian water skiing team, housed in nearby dormitories for months, decided as a group to break the rules that
the Japanese dormitory managers had set down for dormitory life; they set their own rules for visitations between the sexes,
alcohol in the rooms, smoking, and music. They recreated the “back region” they would have experienced in Australia.

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