Chin-Ee Ong

Projecting Post-colonial Conditions at Shanghai Expo 2010, China: Floppy Ears, Lofty Dreams and Macao’s Immutable Mobiles

Recent years have seen increased academic attention in urban studies on the flows of city artefacts and images. Conceptualised as ‘immutable mobiles’, the Macao Pavilion and its associated objects on show at Shanghai Expo 2010 are examined for the ways they encouraged and regulated uniformed flows of people and city images. Specifically, these immutable mobiles projected Macao’s lofty dreams of paradoxical affinity to and difference from mainland China—the city is a steadfast Special Administrative Region of China, but the immigration flow of Chinese citizens has been tightly regulated. This paper unpacks the ways in which urban actants articulate and perform such contradictory imaginings of the (im)mobilities of this post-colonial territory. Accordingly, it provides a basis for further study of post-colonial conditions in Macao, and adds to post-colonial research on mobilities in and of Chinese urban spaces.

Tourism destination image development: a lesson from Macau

Purpose – Drawing upon an analysis of resident and visitor survey data and Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) press releases in 2012, the purpose of this paper is to understand the tourism destination image for this tourist historic city produced by these three key stakeholder groups in Macau. Design/methodology/approach – This is achieved using a new stakeholder analysis tool, developed from previous studies, which compares the perspective of the MGTO, the city’s destination marketing organization, with that of its residents and visitors. This study examines the perceptions that residents and visitors have about the general images projected and generated in Macau. Findings – This research highlights the multiplicity of images and producers of images in Macau. Originality/value – The lesson from this case study is that public sector agencies need to acknowledge more clearly the tourism planning role of the host community in particular. The possibility of detecting disconnections and misalignments of s...

‘Cuteifying’ spaces and staging marine animals for Chinese middle-class consumption

ABSTRACT In this paper, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai is considered an aestheticised space for the growing Chinese middle class. Located within the booming and fast-urbanising Pearl River Delta, the theme park is a sizeable project consisting of rides, marine mammal enclosures and a well-equipped state-of-the-art circus. Utilising ethnography, including visitor interviews, and discourse analysis of websites, mobile apps and promotional materials, the theme park is found to deploy animal motifs in three key ways: as spectacular backdrops for amusement rides, as objects of biodiversity-based edutainment and as highly personified agents in visitor relations. Building on existing literature on decontextualised animal display – where emphasis on the provision of a natural habitat is replaced by simulated and actual proximity of animals to the visitors – I argue that the ‘out-of-situ’, cuteified and hyperreal stagings of Chimelongs animals have been shaped by two further China-specific processes. The first is the engagement with the theme park space as a sanitised and safe environment for a then one-child policy inspired child-centred visitation. The second refers to the retail-oriented consumerist experiences demonstrated by the new Chinese middle class. Both processes have brought about an aestheticising endeavour in line with the idealisation of other (Chinese) middle-class spaces, and have positioned Chinese theme parks as key nodes in our understanding of leisure and tourism spaces and of middle-class landscapes in contemporary China. Such an examination is made at a juncture where and when abuse of marine mammals is allegedly on the rise, and sheds light on the social processes shaping the popularity of such experiences in contemporary China.

Theming Asia: culture, nature and heritage in a transforming environment

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a special issue on Theme Parks in Asia with reflections on how the various theoretical ideas on theming and theme parks that are found in the social science literature can help us to understand the proliferation of theming and theme parks in contemporary Asia. How does theming create a specific spatial and social form that has meaning in a transforming Asia? We trace here the rising importance of theming in places of consumption, education, entertainment and everyday life and argue that further attention is needed to understand the transformation of ideas of culture, nature and heritage within the context of theme park development in Asia. We look at arguments that suggest that theming is part of human cognitive processes, that it creates a frame that gives the content a particular order and meaning; we also consider theming within the context of theories of Disneyization and the ‘experience economy’ in leisure and tourism to explore how ‘new’ experience-based consumerism, and the designing of coherent ‘imagineered’ spaces, plays a role in ordering our social worlds. We also examine how debates over the authenticity or superficiality of theme parks, and more generally in cultural display and preservation, can take on new twists in Asia. We do this by drawing on a review of postmodernist perspectives on themed parks to show how theme parks in Asia can be better understood through nuanced inquiries into the ways cultural, natural and heritage images and icons are cited, referenced and projected, departing from a simple ‘copy’ versus ‘original’ dichotomy. Finally, we position and introduce the papers included in this special issue and suggest further possible research into such a fertile research field.

Light festivals, policy mobilities and urban tourism

ABSTRACT Accounts on how creative strategies and paradigms have been copied and circulated from one city to another are not new in tourism studies. However, they are traditionally characterized by arguments of serial reproduction that tends to conceptualize the process of policy circulation like a linear adoption of exogenous prescriptions copied by another city. As such they tend to share a negative viewpoint on the results of this strategy of policy emulation. Yet, the emergence of light festival events at a global level does not conform to such theorization. Largely inspired by few ‘best practice’ cases, like Lyons Fête des Lumières, more than 100 light festivals are nowadays active around the world, experiencing a constant growth both in revenues and number of visitors. To examine how mechanisms, actors, concepts, strategies and artefacts related to the successful global circulations of light festivals, a ‘policy mobilities’ perspective has been adopted and semi-structured interviews were conducted with key personnel to track the relationships fostered through international networks of experts and lighting professionals. The results show how, even if the circulation of light festivals reflects a strategy of policy emulation, these events are not replicated in a serial and unproblematic way, but are selectively acknowledged and appropriated by local actors. This process of adaptation allows them to be successfully transplanted from one city to another, escaping the problem conventionally related to the ‘serial reproduction’ process. Yet, most of these events do not conform to models of tourism based on endogenous creative capital. Light festivals are often big-budget events, driven by commercial imperatives, characterized by a strong top-down approach and endorsed by international networks and agreement.

Simulacra and simulation: double simulation at a North Song Dynasty theme park

ABSTRACT This paper examines an unusual type of ‘cultural theme park’, one that is not based on simulating existing cultural diversity or historical places, but based in some senses on a ‘double simulation’. The theme park is based on an historical painting assumed to represent the North Song Dynasty period in Kaifeng, China; however, it is a representation that historians argue may never have existed. Utilising on-site interviews and participant observation, this paper traces the connections between the classic painting (清明上河图) and the actual historical landscape of Bianjing (the first simulation), and in so doing, unravels the links between the painting and the theme park (the second simulation) and the simulacra that are envisioned to form within the spaces of the theme park as a result of the interplay of simulations during theme park visits. The simulations and intended simulacra are ‘consumed’ to various degrees, suggesting that the representations of Kaifengs historical past and culture have been impactful and (in)authenticity has not been an issue. Moreover, the theme park has served to entertain and, in some cases, inspire through playful appropriations of Kaifengs past and culture. The resultant simulacra and its double simulations (in simulating both the real Bianjing and the neo-real landscape painting) contrast and simultaneously connect with rampant replications of the Occident in contemporary Chinese residential landscapes, townships and themed spaces.

The heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and tourism

Standing at 542 pages and thirteen chapters, this book is a substantial monograph concerned with the interface between heritage and tourism. The overarching aim is to investigate and describe the ‘ways in which tourists, managers, experts and politicians are moved to create, impart and remember a site’s disparate meanings’ (p. 9). Consequently, the author bypasses issues of local concerns but focuses on the commodification of these places from largely ‘external’ forces. To do this, Di Giovine first harnesses the conceptual vocabulary of Pierre Bourdieu to discuss heritage production and touristic production as fields where social actors and heritage actants contest and negotiate to craft, make sense of and bring about encounters with specific heritage places. Drawing upon a reading of history of the United Nations more generally and UNESCO specifically, through published UNESCO policy and operational documents, Di Giovine makes the bold and novel assertion that the World Heritage List is the direct consequence of the workings of what he calls ‘the fields of heritage production’ (p. 9). Along this intellectual trajectory, but moving outside the influence of a more unified global corpus of heritage experts and into a more entangled and porous landscape of tourism via his tour operator ethnography, Di Giovine seeks to highlight the messier and more contextualized consequences at tourism places resulting from the ‘fields of touristic production’ (p. 9). Central to Di Giovine’s arguments is the concept of ‘heritage-scape’, which is foregrounded in the book. Essentially an imagined community, Di Govine’s concept of the heritage-scape draws upon the works of Arjun Appadurai and cultural geographers, allowing him to achieve his broader aim of investigating the global placemaking endeavour of UNESCO. The concept also allows the author to highlight the work on and the work of World Heritage Sites. Using his position as a travel agency operator, Di Giovine’s work is successful in bringing to the fore the contingent, negotiated and at times marginalising nature of World Heritage inscription and the mass tourism that happens in World Heritage Sites in Southeast Asia. Of significance is his observation of the work of UNESCO beyond a designatory or list-making regime, and as a global ordering and placemaking process aimed at creating a peaceful transnational cultural utopia. What is less satisfactory is his analysis of UNESCO’s actors, actants and actions. Relying almost exclusively on published UNESCO documents, Di Giovine presents a UNESCO that is rather singular and unified: one that appears to be free from internal lobbying and contestation. As such, the book appears to portray a more unilinear picture of a unified and ‘powerful’ international agency shaping conflicting and ‘weaker’ local heritage places. The book also suffers from inadequate engagement with existing works drawing upon similar poststructuralist concepts and looking at the same heritage places. For instance, William Logan’s works on the changing landscapes of Southeast Asia in general and Tim Winter’s work on