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Frontiers of History in China

ISSN 1673-3401

ISSN 1673-3525(Online)

CN 11-5740/K

Postal Subscription Code 80-980

Front. Hist. China    2015, Vol. 10 Issue (3) : 486-512    https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-004-015-0023-1
research-article
The Love-Suicide Mystique of Naxi: Experiential Tourism and Existential Authenticity
Chunmei Du()
Department of History, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA
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Abstract

Love-suicide (xunqing 殉情) is often hailed as a representative component of the Naxi culture. This article examines how representations of love-suicide have transformed from an obscure social taboo to an invaluable Naxi tradition in the last two decades. While Han and Naxi cultural elites aestheticize love-suicide as a cultural symbol of moral sublimity, tourists further transform the discourse into a simultaneously spiritual and erotic experience in which they seek and create their own existential authenticity. The apparent revival is not simply a result of Naxi political resistance to the external regime or a natural return to their “authentic” culture. It rather marks another tide of radical transformation in a multi-agent and highly commercialized global world within which both minority cultures and tourists’ identities are transformed.

Keywords Naxi      love-suicide      existential authenticity      ethnic tourism     
Issue Date: 23 October 2015
 Cite this article:   
Chunmei Du. The Love-Suicide Mystique of Naxi: Experiential Tourism and Existential Authenticity[J]. Front. Hist. China, 2015, 10(3): 486-512.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fhc/EN/10.3868/s020-004-015-0023-1
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fhc/EN/Y2015/V10/I3/486
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