October 23, 2010 was Academia Sinica’s annual open day, held since 1998. On the day, large numbers of visitors are attracted and popular science lectures, academic seminars, research achievement exhibitions  and “ collect stamps and exchange for souvenir activities” are held suitable for different age groups and levels. 

To allow visitors to have  fun we  planned the “The unique Charm of the costume of the minorities of Southwestern China,” in which visitors were given an opportunity  to try on the special costumes of the minorities of Southwestern China and have their photograph taken against the background of a Wa nationality village. The aim was to give visitors a photographic record of a fun time at IHP and, through the experience of wearing the costumes, get to know the costumes developed by the minorities of southwestern China using their wisdom and aesthetics. Five costumes were chosen that were distinctive and also not too time-consuming to wear and take off: female special occasion costume of the Jingpo nationality of Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous prefecture, female costume of the Miao of Western Hunan, female costume of the Wa nationality of Lincang area of the China-Myanmar border, a Dai nationality female costume cut to show off the female figure  and a costume worn by Wa nationality warriors during the ox-slaughtering ritual designed to show of their power.
 
 
A member of staff helps a visitor try on a Miao silver headdress
 

First left and second left are Wa nationality male and female costumes, third left is a Jingpo female costume for special occasions and on the left is a Dai nationality female costume 
The Jingpo nationality female costume for special occasions was black, white and red. In the photograph above we can see the wearer in a black top, the front and back and shoulders of which have a large number of silver baubles, silver pieces and a red tube skirt, with a shoulder band across her shoulder and a headdress woven from wool. This exotic set of garments was the “most requested’ on the day, with even young men and three year olds trying it on. Quite few people asked when tiring on the costume“These clothes are really heavy. Did the women really wear these every day? “We would explain that these clothes and adornments were worn on special occasions because Jingpo women believed that the more silver decorations the wore the more attractive and capable she would appear. This costume had a large number of large silver baubles and metal pieces and gave a “ding, ding” sound when the wearer walked, complementing their elegant beauty and the festive atmosphere. 

A young man also looked lovely in the Jingpo costume
 
A three year old girl in Jingpo women’s costume

The, some curious members of the public asked why we provided garments of the minorities of Chinas southwest and not those of Taiwan’s indigenous tribes. The answer lies in the turbulent history of modern China and the intrepid efforts of the Institute’s early researchers.

Two years ago my colleague Miss Wu Pei-hua made a documentary “80 years—in search of the tracks of the Institute of History & Philology.” This 60-minute documentary described how, after being established in Guangzhou in 1928, the IHP was forced by the chaos of war to relocate nine times before finding a permanent home on the sit of today’s Academia Sinica in Nangang, Taipei in December 1954. However, Despite the turbulent times the Institute’s researchers carved out a new academic path that differed from tradition, while learning from the past and setting an example for the future. We all know that Taiwan has 14 indigenous tribes. The nine tribes we were familiar with before were the product of the surveys conducted as part of the Japanese colonial government’s attempts to understand the “savages of the island.” In China 1928-46 a group of people carried out research into  border nationalities that  gradually recognized  the four man yi barbarian peoples as ‘minorities’ within China’s borders. These well-organized personnel were the Institute’s early researchers Ling Chun-sheng, Rui Yi-fu and Tao Yun-kui etc..

In the 1930s, a time when traveling was arduous IHP researchers deeply believed in taking science as the standard, with progress the objective and, when conducting field work, understood the importance truth and objectivity, following a spirit of “no speculation without foundation. The times they lived the filled them with nationalistic feelings and they believed that research had to be carried out in person. On 13 investigation and sample collecting trips took researchers to Hunan, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Guizhou, Burma and Sichuan etc, carrying out investigation of 27 nationalities including the Tibetan, Naxi, Miao, Jingpo, De-ang, Lahu and the Dai, filming/photographing daily life scenes, rituals and festivals, village scenery and costumes and physical characteristics of the peoples that they did not have time to observe in detail during the long trips to allow later detailed observation.

The images of the minorities of southwestern China made by these early researchers are the products of daring investigation carried out in remote border lands by these researchers and these records have been painstaking protected by all IHP staff over the years. 
  
 

Scenes showing the hardships early Institute of History & Philology researchers faced when they investigated the nationalities of China’s southwest

During the chaos of Anti-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War period the Institute of History & Philology was often on the move and this information was filed and stored in boxes. Even though the information that researchers collected during fieldwork was not printed and some films were even lost, most of it was carried with researchers as they moved and eventually was transported across the ”black ditch” to Taiwan. The yellowed black and white photographs show how the nationalities of China’s southwest lived. As modernization changes the culture of these nationalities the way of life recorded in these images is now a thing of the past. My job is to digitize the valuable information relating to the history and culture of China’s nationalities collected during field work. The research achievements of early ethnographers have been published in the three volume “China’s nationalities and their culture,” “The Miao of Western Hunan Investigation report,” “The Customs of Western Sichuan 1929 Investigation record,” “The Miao nationality of Southern Sichuan Investigation Journal.” Precious materials in the form of 5660 photographs, 1279 nationalities’ cultural artifacts and 872 books of nationality documents have also been left. After digitization of the images collected by early researchers we will place them in the minorities of Southwest China databank.

To allow users to understand the context of this ethnographic material we have established the Ethno Cunzhai portal website, hoping that introduction and discussion of topics such as “Reproduction of China’s borders” “The relationship of ethnic culture, people and land,” “Changes before and after nationalization” and “Introduction to the minorities of Southwest China” …..can help people find topics relating to the minorities of southwest China that they are interested in, then visit the Minorities o Southwest China databank to acquire a better understanding of these minorities through images. Perhaps some will ask: Why should we pay attention to those minorities on the border of China who we will not encounter more than a few times in a lifetime? However, what the Ethno Cun Zhai website pays attention to is the formation of a country and national identity, interaction between different groups and changes in identity. The minorities of Southwest China may seem distant to people but if we mention Day Yu Controls the Flood, the desire of revenge of Gou Jian King of Yue, female general Fan Lihua it is likely that everyone’s collective memory will be awakened. The “minorities of Southwest China” did not appear from nowhere. They were the product of modern China’s nationalism. The ancestors of these minorities were the Qunrong nomads of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the five nomadic tribes from the North that invaded central China in the Wei, Jin, and North-South dynasties and other barbarian people from north, south, east and west that we are familiar with from our history books. They were not people from ”Zhongyuan” central plains of China, they were the ancestors of the border people the Qiang.
The Qing Dynasty, that ruled for 300 years, longer than any other, was founded by Nurhaci who was a non-Han Jurchens. In its early days this minority dynasty was powerful and vigorous in contrast to the late Ming Dynasty but, from the reign of the Yongzheng emperor, the dynasty quickly absorbed Confucian culture and carried out large-scale reform in the southwestern border area, abolishing the tu si system and dispatching official, using Confucian rituals and Han customs to replace local customs and habits.  The collision between different cultures, ethics and values sometimes even led to social problems. For example, suicide for love become common amongst the young men and women of the Naxi nationality of Lijiang. Many young couples wanted to leave the human world behind and go to the kingdom of love on top of Jade Dragon Mountain where they would live happily ever after.
For related pictures and text visit「CCC collection：Lumanlisha」http://digitalarchives.tw/Theme/CCC/CCC1/CCC1_05.jsp

The tragic story of suicide for love contains the contradictions and conflicts between the ideologies and social systems of two different cultures. The way minorities absorbed Han culture and became Sinicized is worth pondering and will also help us to observe and understand the world around us. Just like in Taiwan, when the process of Taiwan’s development cannot be discussed without starting from the source of China’s culture. In the process of contact between different cultures and modernization, the advance of civilization as seemingly unstoppable, the people moving from one milestone to the next. This archiving the images of the minorities of China’s southwest is not about passive preservation, it is about viewing to allow people, who perhaps have nostalgic feelings, to understand their culture better. Anthropologists habitually go to other places to carry out field work and this allows them to reconsider their own culture. Perhaps we can’t have such in-depth realization and view as the early researchers. The Ethno Cun Zhai website attempts to tell us the exotic habits and customs of the minorities of Southwestern China in the process of the Sinicization through images, text and sound. Viewing/listening is in fact a way of understanding ourselves better.