| This is the result of a six-month ethnographic field research on the Tibetan cultural goods streets of the Wu-hou District in Chengdu city, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Through a long-term study of the Tibetan merchants, all kinds of customers, shops, the local community and the circulation of Tibetan Buddhist cultural goods, combining open-ended and structural questionnaires, participant observation, formal and informal interviews, conducting in-depth interviews and case studies of key informants; all this summing up to a multi-faceted ethnographic study. The research mainly focused on the following three aspects:Firstly, the history of the development of this Tibetan community, the survey of which are sketched owing to interviews with old residents and senior immigrated Tibetan merchants as well as to the collection of scattered documents and historical data records. Secondly, the adaptation and changes in the life of local Tibetan residents, including their daily life, the celebration of rituals and festivals, their religious belief, social relations, marriage conditions, etc. Gathering background information on the establishment, subsistence and development of local shops. Thirdly, the operational mechanism of the circulation of cultural and religious goods and of the shops, exploring the process of commercialization and industrialization, the classification of commodities, the managers and customers, the type of marketing and exchange. In the process of the transformation between the nature of a commodity and a gift, the commercialization of a religious good reflects the dialectical unity between the sacred and the secular.The present work purports to engage in a dialogue with core theoretical fields of anthropology:Economic anthropology when it comes to the reciprocal offering of gifts and the dialectical relationship between the gift, goods and money, mainly looking at Marcel Mauss, Marshall Sahlins, Maurice Godlier, Gregory, Yunxiang Yan, Mayfair Yang and others; in the field of cultural studies the focal point was on Toby Miller's Cultural Policy and David Hesmodhlgh's Cultural Industry Analysis; as for Tourism anthropology the starting point was the glocalization perspective on tourism described by Nelson Graburn, Dean Mac Cannell, John Urry and others; and the Asian Buddhism paradigm is based on the Burma Theravada ethnography by Melford Spiro and the monistic economy analysis by Jacques Gernet. Combining the results of the ethnographic study of Chengdu's Tibetan cultural goods street, especially the analysis of the process of commercialization and industrialization of Tibetan Buddhist cultural goods, and comparing this to the secularization of the Burmese society and the belief in fate of the Han society in order to reveal the mediating mechanism of a lively Tibetan Buddhist culture and how it is able to survive and thrive through the commercialization of its religious goods.Secondly, through the analysis of the circulation process and exchange ways of Tibetan Buddhist cultural merchandise emerge two kinds of exchange during two stages, namely the commodity during the first stage and the gift during the second stage, followed by the analysis of how a transformation from Tibetan Buddhist cultural commodities into gifts is operated in three ways:through offerings, giving alms, and souvenirs, thus bringing to light the commercialization of Tibetan Buddhist cultural objects, the growing importance of gifts for the market and the mutually beneficial relationships produced through gifts, together forming the core driving force of the booming development of Chengdu's Tibetan cultural quarter.Thirdly, the analysis of the consumer groups of Tibetan Buddhist cultural products shows that the Tibetan cultural goods street opened an enormous market of ethnic tourism development; the reciprocal integration of the cultural industry and the tourism industry not only produces economic benefits, but has a deeper and more far-reaching meaning in providing a display of ethnic culture, the reproduction and protection of traditional culture, the protection of urban multiculturalism, encouraging intercultural exchange, promoting social harmony, etc.Finally, summing up and concluding:the commercialization and marketization (secularization) of religious goods has not diminished the sacred character of the religion, on the contrary, it has expanded its influence and has become an effective way of ensuring its continuing existence in the context of modern society, as religious rituals and beliefs still form an indispensable part of the life of this urban Tibetan society. |
