TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - The Love-Suicide Mystique of Naxi: Experiential Tourism and Existential Authenticity
JO  - Front. Hist. China
A1  - Du, C.
SP  - 486
EP  - 512
VL  - 10
IS  - 3
N2  - Love-suicide (xunqing) 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. © 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1673-3401
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3868/s020-004-015-0023-1
ID  - ref1
ER  -