Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
drugstore capable of curing one hundred ills!”
11
In other words, not only do tigers threaten
people, but they are useful to people, at least when dead.
12
Going on, Mr. Lin asks the children “Have any of you ever seen a snake?” Needless to
say, the response of the children to the notion of a snake is less than positive; one wonders
why the authors bring up this particular example if not to attempt to provide a more balanced
view to the prevailing one of snakes as evil. But once again, it is the snake's usefulness that
is called upon to justify its protection. Mr. Lin explains, “Snakes can cure diseases with
the medicine produced from them, and they can also catch rats [which in turn, saves grain
for human consumption]. In southern China, we also like eating snake meat.”
13
Nowhere
in this lesson are messages of ecosystem integrity attempted or nonanthropocentric values
suggested.
Films are increasingly available and popular in China (on DVD), and while often por-
traying positive images of wildlife, they are not beyond reach of the powerful anthropo-
centric impulses that, in the end, justify the existence of wildlife in terms of usefulness for
mankind. In the mid-1990s, a group of Tibetans organized themselves into what became
known as the Wild Yak Brigade (
yemaoniu dui
) and briefly gained fame throughout China
for their efforts to protect chiru (Tibetan antelope) in the Kekexili Nature Reserve from
poaching. There was even a feature-length film produced in Hong Kong (but clearly with
the cooperation and blessing of the relevant Chinese authorities), depicting the activities
of this group, and particularly their martyred leader, Sonam Dorjie.
In real life, Sonam was a government official from Zhiduo County in southern Qing-
hai, who ultimately died at the hands of chiru poachers while on patrol. According to the
screenplay, whenever Sonam was either called upon to defend his interest in protecting
Kekexili, or simply expressed his attitudes voluntarily, he never failed to explicitly link
protection of the area with what he termed
kaifa
(“opening up, developing, exploiting”).
In one case, while visiting the tent of a poor nomad, Sonam is seen expressly telling the
old man that his life, and indeed those of all local pastoralists, will be greatly improved
once the great Kekexili has been developed. Although the film never makes explicit just
what the fictionalized Sonam had in mind, it clearly could not have been simply allow-
ing the Kekexili Nature Reserve to function as it had historically, as a de facto wilder-
ness area. Whether he had in mind further pastoral expansion, mining, or sustained use
of wildlife was left vague by the film. But it was clear in the film that Sonam explicitly
linked protection of the Kekexili Nature Reserve with an improvement in the economic
well-being of his constituents, and it was precisely this, rather than any chiru spared the
poachers' gun, that made him a hero. Whether or not wildlife conservation was central
to Sonam's martyrdom, it was clearly viewed by the filmmakers as a weak rationale for
idolizing their protagonist. Instead, the viewer was invited to regard Sonam almost as an
updated, ethnically Tibetan Lei Feng, doing good deeds out of the goodness of his heart
(which, if during the 1950s had meant selflessly serving the people, by the 1990s had
come to mean advancing economic development).
But the most persuasive evidence of the prevailing Chinese instrumentalist attitude toward
wildlife comes simply from the length of time, variety of modes, and continued interest
in its use for people's individual well-being. China has modernized faster and more thor-
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