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Telling the Transcultural

China in French Tourist Industry Discourse: From Orientalist Imaginary to Chinese Postmodernity

Florent VILLARD
p. 138-153

Abstracts

This article discusses the contradictory representations of an imaginary China as invented by the French tourist industry discourse: on the one hand the traditional Orientalist representation of a mythic, reified and timeless China, and on the other hand, the increasingly obvious assessment of China as modern and contemporary. The fact that the tourist industry evokes a contemporary, ambitious and active China, tends, however, to deconstruct the Orientalist imaginary of a timeless China which they themselves describe. Tourist industry discourse negotiates this contradiction by insisting on a post-modern dimension. As they adapt their products to new Chinese realities, the travel agents present an “Oriental post-modernity” -a world where an eternal, both contemporary and a-historic, present prevails - instead of a “lost Orient”. They sell the utopian dream of a harmonious world, a seamless modernity which would not have “melted into air” local cultures and traditional practices.

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References

Bibliographical reference

Florent VILLARD, “China in French Tourist Industry Discourse: From Orientalist Imaginary to Chinese Postmodernity”Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化, 1 | 2006, 138-153.

Electronic reference

Florent VILLARD, “China in French Tourist Industry Discourse: From Orientalist Imaginary to Chinese Postmodernity”Transtext(e)s Transcultures 跨文本跨文化 [Online], 1 | 2006, Online since 13 September 2009, connection on 29 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/193; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/transtexts.193

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About the author

Florent VILLARD

Florent Villard is Maître de conférences at the University of Lyon 3. His doctorate on the Chinese theoretician Qu Qiubai (1899-1935) was completed in 2004. His current research focuses on language and nationalism, and cultural history.

By this author

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Copyright

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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