In the Baise prefecture of the Guangxi province in Southern China, there are two Zhuang minority song fairs separated by a distance of only 60 kilometers. Both are held at caves, both feature worship practices in reverence of Zhuang deities prominent to their area, and both use antiphonal, multipart singing. These two fairs at Guangyang Mountain and Ganzhuang Mountain were very similar to each other prior to the Cultural Revolution. However, the official promotion of Ganzhuang Mountain as the home of the first Zhuang ancestor, begun in 2003 and consummated in 2004, has created a dramatic disjunction between these two song fairs. The present differences between these two fairs permit an analysis of elements of change that have recently affected Zhuang music culture. While there are several aspects of these changes that could be examined, in this essay we limit the analysis to government-sponsored tourism. The comparison between the two song fairs is used in this case to provide the perspectives of full involvement in, and absence of, government-sponsored tourism to better understand positive and negative effects inside of a given cultural context. To address those positive and negative aspects, we re-posit the questions asked by Carol Rubenstein: “What genre of culture was being formed and shown, and to what end, and at whose expense, and for whose benefit and purposes?” (1992). Information for this paper is taken from experience and research conducted by Qin Jin Dun, a native Zhuang who grew up near the Ganzhuang Mountain Song Fair, as well as fieldwork around the Baise prefecture, including visits to these two song fairs by John Widman during the 2010–2011 academic year.
It is an understatement to say that the decade after the Cultural Revolution saw a dramatic shift in government policy towards China's minorities. In the few years that followed the removal of the Gang of Four, directives switched from the systematic removal of the “Four Olds”1 to the restoration of previous ideals of cultural promotion. A central speech by Huang Zhen outlined several goals: bringing back artists suppressed by the Gang of Four; giving minorities autonomy concerning their performing arts; applying Party policy, especially toward cultural forms of expression, while maintaining variety; building up the cultural enterprises of the minority areas without leaving out remote areas; and promoting unity among all of the nationalities (taken from a summary by Mackerras 1984:192). These policies and accompanying actions allowed much of the previous traditional activity to resume. At the same time, government involvement at all levels was increased in Zhuang traditional activity. While the Ganzhuang Mountain Song Fair saw little of this involvement, other processes emerged during the period following the Cultural Revolution that would inspire involvement at the precinct level of government. Researchers were beginning to discover legendary texts around Tianyang County regarding the origin of the world in relation to the Zhuang ancestral figure Buluotuo (Holm 2004:1). These discoveries, combined with the increased emphasis on tourism, especially as a way to simultaneously promote culture and economy, came together with the opening of the Buluotuo Cultural Festival at Ganzhuang Mountain in 2004. Since its opening, the Buluotuo Cultural Festival has taken place annually at the same time and place as the song fair and has increased its participation level from 50,000 before 2004 to nearly 200,000 participants in 2009 (Zhang and Zhang 2010). A great number of events have been added to the song fair, including academic forums discussing various aspects of Buluotuo and the cultures surrounding this ancestral figure. The landscape around Ganzhuang Mountain has also been modernized with walkways, monuments, and a refurbished temple. To better understand what kind of impact this modification has had on the traditional practices at Ganzhuang Mountain, we turn to a brief analysis of the relationship of the song fair with indigenous Zhuang culture followed by descriptions of visits taken during the spring of 2011 to the Guangyang and Ganzhuang Mountain Song Fairs.