The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) forecasts that 1.6 billion people will travel as tourists by the year 2020 – a figure that adds up to nearly twice as many visitors as the 700 million registered in 2004. And big name attractions such as the Eiffel Tower and the Statue Of Liberty attract millions annually, providing their host cities with not only an influx of visitors, but that much loved tourist dollar.
Yet some might be impatient with this fascination for the past. And the argument goes something like this. Such attractions, whilst providing an undeniable thrill to the tourist, actually tell us very little about the lives of the current inhabitants. Indeed, these 21st century urbanites are perhaps both blessed and disadvantaged through location. Is it their lot in life to live in the shadow of these monuments or do they throw caution to the wind and blithely cast historical shackles aside?
After all, these modernists would argue, what does visiting the Pyramids of Giza tell us about the current artistic aspirations of the Egyptian people? Can viewing the Colosseum impart information about the current flux of Italian society?
So do these arguments carry weight? And what has been the real fall out of this modernist push? Well the documented stories are easy to find – of cultures all but disappearing under the weight of modernity. However there also exists evidence to the contrary. Of cultures successfully blending a reverence for history with current artistic expression and economic prosperity.
And we need only travel to one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world to see this at work. In an article entitled New versus old: China versus the West writer Li Xia noted that ‘in order to advance social development and human progress, the fine traditions of older generations that absorbed the essence and discarded the dross of former civilizations, should be emulated’. In saying so, she was alluding to the creation of a new China: one able to look at its past for inspiration and guidance but also one that had firmly grasped the reigns of 21st century realities.
Historically however, China has had its fair share of tumultuous times. In the 20th century alone China underwent two great revolutions – the May Fourth Movement and the Cultural Revolution. And the restrictions imposed by the rigors of communism severely curtailed artistic expression and cultural growth among China’s population.
Despite this, Chinese traditional culture has always emphasized the positive interplay between nature and humanity, particularly in artistic pursuits. According to Qian Mu, thought to be one of the world’s most influential experts in Chinese cultural studies, ‘the integration or oneness of man and nature is both a concept and a mode of subsistence in China’.
A perfect example of this symbiosis of the old and the new can be seen at work in the relationship between the traditional Chinese love of artistic beauty with its distinctly modern economic pragmatism, in the implementation of what has now come to be labelled an ‘ice-snow culture’.
Indeed the implementation of ice-snow culture in China is even seen as an important step in the progression of Sino-foreign exchange. An odd choice perhaps, but according to the respected news source China Today in an article entitled Tell the World about the Real Situation in New China Sino-foreign exchange currently governs a great deal of cultural practice, particularly as China works to establish a ‘brand-new friendship and peace seeking image’ that would contradict western notions of communist rule. This strategy came to widespread global prominence, the article noted, when China ‘carried out its policy of reform, opening to the outside world in the 1980s…and more channels for Sino-foreign exchange emerged.’
Prominent Asian news source Xinhua, in its assessment of the burgeoning ice snow culture, noted that these works aim not only to boost local economies but also to take Chinese art and culture to the global platform once again. A key event in this undertaking has been the annual ice and snow festival in the Chinese city Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, which has now become one of the premier events in the Chinese arts calendar. The first festival of its kind in China, it combines tourism, trade, science, culture, art and sports.
The art of ice-and-snow sculpture actually made its debut in Harbin thirty years ago, thanks to the intelligence of artists and their efforts to add colour and economic prosperity to the lives of the local residents by taking advantage of the northern winter weather. Drawing upon a centuries old tradition of incorporating the natural elements into their art, the artists create dazzling displays of art from the natural building blocks of snow and ice.
R Todd King, one of the western world’s foremost supporters of China’s ice-snow culture noted of the Harbin ice and snow festivals past and present that: ‘A key attraction of the ice festival two years ago was a copy of the Great Wall Of China…(while) this year’s key attraction was a copy of the Summer Palace in Beijing’ typifying the reverence for history so prevalent in the Chinese artistic aesthetic.
This annual festival has now become one of the world’s four largest ice and snow festivals, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec Winter Carnival and Norway’s Ski Festival.
The implementation of this globally renowned cultural event has played an active role in introducing Harbin to the rest of the country and the world, speeding up the city’s opening to the outside world, and promoting the city’s trade and economic cooperation with foreign countries.
The influential news agent Peoples Daily Online noted after the festival in 2000 that ‘Chinese and foreign visitors deeply felt the special charm of the Heilongjiang ice-and-snow culture, the black-soil culture and the north ethnic customs and culture’.
And according to noted travel writers Yu Jie and Xu Jing, thousands of visitors come Harbin each year not only to see the sculptures of ice and snow but also more importantly to “to take part in the various cultural, athletic, and commercial events” brought to the region.
This ‘rejuvenation’ of Northeast China through the implementation of strategies designed to combine Chinese culture, art and commerce has pushed both Harbin and China to both the domestic and global forefront of winter tourism. A city once described as a province with little cultural or economic significance, Harbin has fast become a cultural and artistic landmark in its own right.
The China Harbin Fair for Trade and Economic Cooperation which has been held in the region since 1990 and which, according to the influential US Commercial Service organisation attracted 1.22 million foreign exhibitors and visitors and generated more than $109.6 billion worth of business is ‘highly appreciated by businessmen from other domestic provinces and many countries and regions in the world.’
Such a fusion of the artistic and the economic has spurred China’s ever increasing global re-emergence, not only helping to solidify the nations fiscal security, but also acting as an important bridge towards other nations, for that essential cross exchange of ideas that any growing culture relies on.
And all because of a growing global partiality for ice-sculptures? Perhaps not only, but one could argue the phrase ‘small steps to a much better world’ suits this story perfectly.
