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The Farmhouse Joy (nongjiale) Movement in China's Ethnic Minority Villages

The Farmhouse Joy (nongjiale) Movement in China's Ethnic Minority Villages In China, establishments known as ‘Farmhouse Joy restaurants’ (nongjiale) which originally emerged around the suburbs of big cities and were associated with the foodstuffs of ethnic majority Han Chinese farmers, have now, as a result of a variety of development projects and local initiatives, emerged in ethnic minority and other remote villages located deep in the mountains. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in villages in Hubei and Yunnan provinces, this study examines how a new conception of ‘original ecology’ has played a dynamic role in the transformation of these nongjiale in ethnic and remote areas. This transformation results from a new symbolic synthesis and rapprochement between what are commonly understood to be ‘farmers' foods’, desires to experience an original ecology and understandings of ethnicity in China, a synthetic construction clearly aimed at attracting urbanite consumption. Important differences have emerged between villages participating in this process of synthesis. Those villages with strong claims to ethnic minority status have to carefully convert what are in fact ethnic foods into what are seen as ethnically unmarked ‘farmers' foods' in their nongjiale, while villages without such ethnic backgrounds paradoxically have to construct artificial ethnic symbols by mechanisms of imitation or pretence. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Taylor & Francis

The Farmhouse Joy (nongjiale) Movement in China's Ethnic Minority Villages

Wu, Xu
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology , Volume 15 (2): 20 – Mar 15, 2014
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The Farmhouse Joy (nongjiale) Movement in China's Ethnic Minority Villages

Abstract

In China, establishments known as ‘Farmhouse Joy restaurants’ (nongjiale) which originally emerged around the suburbs of big cities and were associated with the foodstuffs of ethnic majority Han Chinese farmers, have now, as a result of a variety of development projects and local initiatives, emerged in ethnic minority and other remote villages located deep in the mountains. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in villages in Hubei and Yunnan provinces, this study examines how a new...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2014 The Australian National University
ISSN
1740-9314
eISSN
1444-2213
DOI
10.1080/14442213.2014.894556
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In China, establishments known as ‘Farmhouse Joy restaurants’ (nongjiale) which originally emerged around the suburbs of big cities and were associated with the foodstuffs of ethnic majority Han Chinese farmers, have now, as a result of a variety of development projects and local initiatives, emerged in ethnic minority and other remote villages located deep in the mountains. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in villages in Hubei and Yunnan provinces, this study examines how a new conception of ‘original ecology’ has played a dynamic role in the transformation of these nongjiale in ethnic and remote areas. This transformation results from a new symbolic synthesis and rapprochement between what are commonly understood to be ‘farmers' foods’, desires to experience an original ecology and understandings of ethnicity in China, a synthetic construction clearly aimed at attracting urbanite consumption. Important differences have emerged between villages participating in this process of synthesis. Those villages with strong claims to ethnic minority status have to carefully convert what are in fact ethnic foods into what are seen as ethnically unmarked ‘farmers' foods' in their nongjiale, while villages without such ethnic backgrounds paradoxically have to construct artificial ethnic symbols by mechanisms of imitation or pretence.

Journal

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology – Taylor & Francis

Published: Mar 15, 2014

Keywords: Food; Minority Ethnicity; Rurality; Tourism; Consumption; Original Ecology

References

  • Ethnic Classification and Culture: The Case of the Tujia in Hubei, China
  • On the ‘Raw’ and the ‘Cooked’ Barbarians of Imperial China
  • Participant Intoxication and Self-other Dynamics in the Wa Context
  • Views about Food Prejudice and Stereotypes
  • Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/minority Identity
  • Revolution is a Dinner Party: Cultural Revolution Restaurants in Contemporary China
  • Sticky Rice, Fermented Fish, and the Course of a Kingdom: The Politics of Food in Northeast Thailand
  • Heritage as Improvement: Cultural Display and Contested Governance in Rural China
  • Food and Globalization
  • A Perspective on Disgust
  • A Theater for Eating, Looking, and Thinking: The Restaurant as Symbolic Space
  • From the Common Pot: Feasting with Equals in Chinese Society
  • Ethnic Foods' and Regional Identity: The Hezha Restaurants in Enshi