"Alternative Mountaineering History" of Meili Snow Mountain
[Reported by Cheng Xiaolu, reporter from China News] "The name 'Meili Snow Mountain', which is now widely known, was a mislabeling in the 1950s... Locally, people call Meili Snow Mountain Kawagebo." Anthropology scholar , Guo Jing, the former director of the Yunnan Provincial Museum, wrote in the recently published new book "Climbing Story".
One mountain, two names, stems from the cognitive difference between "foreigners" and "locals".
The mountain disaster that happened on this snow-capped mountain has completely different perceptions from the perspective of different regions and cultures.
Recently, Guo Jing talked to "China News" about why he still kept asking questions 31 years after the Meili Mountain disaster, and why people still need to explore in the post-epidemic era: between different cultures, between man and nature, How to live in harmony?
The data picture shows the beautiful sunrise of Meili Snow Mountain in Deqin County, Yunnan.
(Photo by China News Agency reporter Ren Dong)
In January 1991, in the hinterland of the mountains at the border of Yunnan and Tibet, 17 members of the China-Japan joint mountaineering team disappeared on the way to the top of Meili Snow Mountain.
Seven years later, the remains of the climbers were discovered for the first time, and it was later confirmed that they were all killed in an avalanche.
This is the second most difficult mountain in the history of modern mountaineering.
Ten years later, mountaineering in Meili Snow Mountain was banned. This snow mountain, which is 2,000 meters lower than Mount Everest, has become the only mountain in the history of modern mountaineering that has not been climbed by humans.
In 2012, Guo Jing wrote "The Book of Snow Mountains", starting from the difficulty of Meili Mountain, telling the impact of foreign exploration and development activities on local culture.
Readers were shocked by the 500,000-word description of Tibetan culture in northwestern Yunnan, but Guo Jing felt that his writing was too "shallow" and the snowy mountains were too profound.
Ten years later, the 67-year-old scholar of national history and anthropology published the book "Climbing Story", focusing on the mountain disaster itself, conducted a more in-depth analysis of the ins and outs of the incident, and looked at the incident from a more dimensional perspective. disaster.
Now that human society has entered the post-epidemic era, how to understand each other between different cultures, how to live in harmony between different ethnic groups, and how human beings and nature coexist are still important issues for human survival and development.
Guo Jing hopes that by re-examining the tragedy 31 years ago, "hitting the stubborn stone that hinders people's mutual understanding".
Because, "Only in this way can a new era come."
The following is a transcript of Guo Jing's dialogue with China News.
Guo Jing has long been engaged in national history and anthropology research.
(Photo courtesy of the respondent/Reported by China News)
"China News": From "The Book of Snow Mountains" to "Climbing Story", you said that you want to "in this moment full of uncertainty, through the study of a mountain disaster, to explore the relationship between man and nature, culture and culture. the secrets of conflict and communication between nations, asking the meaning of free travel and its consequences.”
Do you have your answer now?
Guo Jing: Cultural research is actually to explore the mysteries of coexistence between culture and nature, and between culture and culture.
Each culture has its own set of logic for viewing the world, and thus establishes its own epistemology, which is based on the ecological and human environment in which the culture is located.
Therefore, there is an essential difference between culture and culture.
Therefore, cultural conflict is inevitable.
Since the Renaissance, Western civilization has gradually established a cultural consensus that highlights individual values. This consensus has been magnified by the vigorous development of exploration sports.
The so-called "vertical" mountaineering is the ultimate way to pursue personal value and travel freely.
But what is ignored by the public is that the locals who oppose mountaineering also have a set of consensus, that is, "Sacred Mountain should not be offended", and its ultimate expression is a "parallel" turning mountain.
Mountaineering holds the power of globalization and is powerful.
However, the once common "Sacred Mountain Belief" (covering Tibetans, Qiang, Naxi, Bai, Han, Sherpa, Indians, Japanese, etc.) has become increasingly marginalized and has become a pre-modern "superstition". In the narrative of history reduced to leftovers.
The conflict between "climbing" and "turning a mountain" is only an appearance. The deeper question is: What is the basis of "Sacred Mountain Belief"?
Is this local consensus worthwhile today?
We write "Alternative Mountaineering History" with this as a starting point.
"China News": If there is a conceptual conflict between foreign climbers and local mountaineers, then in the face of Kawagebo, in the two areas of "conquest" (vertical climbing) and "reverence" (parallel turning mountains) Besides the options, is there a third option?
Guo Jing: Last year, we held a series of lectures in Kunming to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Meili Mountain disaster. Duan Jianxin, Wang Yu, and Xiaolin all attended (Note: Duan Jianxin was the chef of the 1991 Sino-Japanese joint mountaineering team, because he stayed at the base camp. He survived without participating in the summit; Wang Yu is the son of Wang Jianhua, a Chinese member of the mountaineering team who died; Xiaolin's full name is Kobayashi Shangli, and he and many Japanese victims belonged to the Kyoto University mountaineering team. Search work), they communicated with Tibetan friends who attended the meeting.
We also planned the translation and publication of Xiaolin Shangli's books, and it was Deqin's Tibetan friends and the cultural department who contributed to this.
The translator is the Mongolian scholar Unil.
This shows that climbers and mountain climbers can reach mutual understanding and even cooperation after experiencing ordeals.
Cover of "Climbing Story".
(Photo courtesy of Yuefu Culture/Reported by China News)
"China News": You once explained the worldview behind the local mountain people's "parallel turning of mountains": the space of mountains is distributed in parallel, and each level of space cannot be crossed. Once crossed, disasters will occur.
Some readers have doubts about this. If traditional beliefs are formed based on long-term cognition, they should change with the development of reality.
Kobayashi Shangli gave an example in an interview: In the spring of 2004, he heard that some villagers had found the remains of mountaineers again, but he did not contact him or the village party secretary, but sold them to Japanese tourists.
In your observation, what changes have the residents under the snow-capped mountains had in recent years?
Guo Jing: The so-called traditional belief is a dynamic rather than a static concept.
Changes have been taking place since my investigation in Diqing in 1996.
The biggest change is that commercial tourism and production activities have brought about great changes in local rural life patterns, which have resulted in the weakening of community mutual aid, the over-exploitation of natural resources, and changes in beliefs and rituals.
The local "Sacred Mountain Belief" is essentially a comprehensive management system that adapts to the distribution of the three natural landscape resources of snow-capped mountains, forests and dry-hot valleys in the Kawagebo area, and limits human development activities by dividing the internal and external spaces.
"Faith" is at the heart of this system.
Although there were many cracks in the system under the severe shock, it did not disintegrate.
The key factor is that the faith is still there.
Criticisms from locals about mountaineering can be exemplified.
The villagers found the relics, which used to be kept at home, but later they were sold out, probably due to the influence of tourism.
I've investigated the historical story of an American plane that fell on a glacier, and everything I found at that time was handed over to the toast.
Now that the toast is gone, and tourists come, some people will sell it.
Some of the negative changes we are seeing now are not surprising or unique in the context of globalization.
But I always remind myself that what we see in front of us is only a fragment of the long history, and a complete picture will take several generations to emerge, so don’t rush to find a conclusion.
China News: In recent years, environmental issues such as climate warming and biodiversity have received attention.
You have carried out rural image recording projects in Yunnan very early, such as "Eye of the Village", database, Tibetan ecological image training, etc., which have played a huge role in protecting the ecological environment and national cultural diversity.
Nowadays, on video-based social platforms, some minority bloggers’ videos introducing the style of their hometowns are very popular.
What do you think of this mode of transmission?
Guo Jing: The dissemination of dynamic documentary images in New China has roughly gone through several stages:
1. Film documentary films (early 1950s-mid 1980s), the early stage was represented by minority socio-historical science documentaries, and the later stage was represented by a group of ethnographic films after the "Cultural Revolution".
2. Analogue video documentaries (late 1980s-late 1990s), represented by a number of documentaries produced by TV stations such as CCTV and the people.
3. Digital camera documentaries (from the late 1990s to the present), there are thousands of works, most of which are independently produced.
Fourth, mobile phone short video (nearly 10 years), it broke the official monopoly on film and television language, and provided the most important channel for the public to speak out.
The problem is that most of the works are confined within the framework of business and entertainment, and there is still a big gap between the spirit and ideas advocated by independent documentary images.
I haven't seen really inspiring, original work myself.
Maybe, but it was drowned out by the noise.
"China News": In 2003, when you were the director of the Yunnan Provincial Museum, you founded the "South of the Clouds" documentary video exhibition. At that time, you introduced that it "does not follow the mainstream discourse" and its purpose was to "promote dialogue and understanding between different groups of people." ".
The exhibition was later discontinued.
Did this form of recording social change continue?
Guo Jing: From 2003 to 2013, the documentary film exhibition "South of the Clouds" was held for five sessions.
Today, there are still some long-standing small screenings in various places, and we occasionally collaborate.
After the "Yunzhinan" team attached to the Baima Mountain Culture Research Center of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences was disbanded, the related activities did not stop.
The team members participated in the planning of two ethnographic video exhibitions in Guangxi Museum of Nationalities and China Museum of Nationalities. The community or rural video units in these two exhibitions inherited the tradition of "South of the Clouds", which were not seen in previous exhibitions at home and abroad. such units.
In addition, the video training for villagers that we started in 2000 was gradually replaced by the "Eye of the Village" team of the Shanshui Nature Conservation Center after 2007, and developed into the Yunnan Village Eyes Local Culture Research Center, which is still doing related public welfare activities. .
【Biography】
Guo Jing, born in 1955, holds a doctorate in ethnic history. Before retiring, he was a researcher at the History Research Institute of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, the former director of the Yunnan Provincial Museum, and the founder of the "South of the Clouds" documentary film exhibition.
He is the author of "Book of Snow Mountains", "Todd Ceremony of Samye Temple in Zhanang County, Tibet", "Chinese Mask Culture", etc. His video works include the series "The Legend of Kawagebo".
(Finish)