oriental orientalism

Highly dubious, relentlessly stylized, marginally informative and weirdly compelling photospread of China’s minority groups, including “ethnic Russians.” But they can’t be ethnic. They’re white...

It does conclude with a group portrait of the “ethnic Han”, which is at least consistent.

Comments

[Splintered Sunrise]

And yet they are.

[Splintered Sunrise]

It's all a bit reminiscent of that show on CCTV where the hip young woman from the big city goes west to meet the minorities. Leaves me with the impression that China is a bit like Ireland, with most of the population and development on the east coast, and the further west you go the sparser the population and the odder the people.

Very disappointed the tableau of the Wa didn't include any severed heads. The British in Burma would probably have made that the centrepiece.

[jamie]

I never made the association with the Wild Wa. But thinking about it, the PRC armed and sponsored the Wa rebellion against the Burmese government until the early nineties, so there's going to be a bit more respect. Also, there's the fact that the Wa live partly on the Yunnan side of the border among the Han so there's a good reason to lay off the headhunting side of things. You need at least a body of water between you and anyone you plan to disposess on that basis.

[Madam Miaow]

Wot, no Hakka?

[Phil]

There are some weird tableaux in there. About halfway through the photographer seems to have got tired of the standard tableau-with-backdrop and decided to play around with having the backdrop in shot, but the effect is just to make the 'real' background look equally artificial (see the Tu and the Oroqen) . And what is going on in the Bonan picture? It's like Umma Gumma.

I like the way they left the Han till last - And finally...

[jamie]

"Wot, no Hakka?"

Nope: The hakka aren't an ethnic group. They're Han refugees from various internal conflicts over the centuries.