Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County is located in the southwest of the central Hunan Province. With a total population of 260,000, Jingzhou is home to 16 ethnic groups, of which Miao people and Dong people together account for over half of the total population.

In recent years, with the rapid social and economic development that China has experienced, local traditions and culture have been invaded by outside forces. Local people have scrapped the delicate traditional architecture of wooden houses built on stilts and lost interest in their traditional performing arts and rituals used to worship their ancestors.

Driven by the market economy, many young people have moved to cities to find employment where they have no opportunity to inherit their traditional culture. In cities, the majority of these young people accept a new lifestyle and gradually lose interest in traditional singing, dancing and clothing.

To make things worse, there are no professional researchers of the traditional singing and dancing of the Miao and Dong people in the region. Throughout history, both ethnic groups have passed on many of their cultural traditions visually only. Younger men and women have watched their elders perform and learned from the experience, with no written material to guide them. The younger generation's lack of interest in learning traditional art forms means that many could die out in a generation.

"For many unique stage arts, the death of the artist will equal the death of the art. Such a scenario will cause enormous losses to China's cultural heritage," said Professor Wu Bing'an from Liaoning University, an expert on folk customs.

Miscommunication

Yongning Village in southwestern Yunnan Province is the home of over 1,000 Mosuo families, who are a branch of the Naxi ethnic minority group and have kept a rare matrilineal custom alive. Mosuo brides do not leave their parents to form a new family after marriage. Instead, the husband visits the wife regularly.

In recent years, Lugu Lake beside the Mosuo community has been developed as a tourism destination. Attracted by the special marriage system of the Mosuo people, some tourists hold misunderstandings about local customs.

"Many male tourists half-jokingly ask whether they can visit us as a husband regularly and other tourists ask whether we have fathers," complained a Mosuo girl, who said these questions were insulting and irritating.

A local official said language and cultural differences had led to misunderstandings about the Mosuo people by the media, tourists and even scholars. He said many people who mistakenly believe that Mosuo people randomly have sex have come to Lugu Lake for a one-night stand, which is humiliating for Mosuo people.

Zhuo Huashan, a scholar from Hong Kong who lived in a Mosuo village for more than a year to study their society, believes that the main reason for the outside world's misreading of the Mosuo people is the backward economy and education of the region. This lack of economic and educational development has deprived Mosuo people of the right of speech. For a long time, Mosuo culture has been interpreted by scholars and writers while the Mosuo people's voice is rarely heard.

"Mosuo people have been studied by scholars from 20 countries, who have published their results in books. Meanwhile, the Mosuo people themselves cannot speak for themselves," said a Mosuo scholar of the Academy of Social Sciences of Yunnan Province.

Difficult balance

Taijiang County is primarily a Miao community as about 97 percent of its 144,000 population are Miao people. Its unique culture and beautiful scenery have made the county a famous tourism spot.

In the last few years, the local government has implemented a policy encouraging farmers to earn profits from the tourism industry. Following such a policy, Jiubai Village has made a name for its traditional silver crafts. It is a tradition in the village to manufacture diaphanous silver headgear, traditional ornaments for Miao women. Gong Daxiang, 65, makes silver crafts for sale only during the idle farming season. He can make 5,000-10,000 yuan a year from his crafts, which is quite remarkable compared to his income from farming.

Some of Gong's fellow villagers have expanded their business to other Miao tourism spots and provided tailor-made silverware for tourists and art collectors. According to the local government, these farmers can easily make 60,000 yuan per year from the silver business.

Vice Minister Dondrub believes that most ethnic minority regions suffer from backward economies but possess rich cultural resources, which can be the basis for economic growth in the tourism industry. Many ethnic minority areas in China have developed themselves into world-renowned tourism destinations, such as Lijiang in Yunnan and Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan.

However, Dondrub said considering the endangered situation of some ethnic cultures, China should make protection its top priority. He believes economic development should come only after the preservation of culture.

Despite Dondrub's comments, some ethnic minority regions have embarked on massive property development driven by commercial interests, at the cost of the destruction of indigenous culture. Meanwhile, under the banner of protecting minority culture, some officials in ethnic minority regions have asked to confine people of a primitive ethnic minority to living in a small area.

Dondrub said every ethnic group should enjoy the rights of economic development and a better standard of living. "It is inhuman to cut off one ethnic group from the outside world only to protect its unique culture," he said.