Chinese tourism to Britain will surprise some
- By Heiko Khoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 11, 2013
Construction investment driven by red tourism exceeded 8 billion yuan by 2011, and associated infrastructure projects included building 127 highways, 106 new railway stations and several new airports. The red tourism industry employs over 900 thousand workers directly and 3.7 million indirectly.
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A Chinese tour group from the Central University of Finance and Economics Marxism Studies Institute stand at the grave of Karl Marx. [Courtesy of Heiko Khoo] |
Red tourism accounts for 20 percent of China's internal tourism. Surveys in 2007 showed that over 90 percent of respondents considered the tours to be "good" or "very good." It is an innovative and intelligent means to strengthen historical consciousness about the ideas of Marxism and the struggle for communism. Red tours are also designed to inspire young people, in an informal setting, to fight for socialist ideals and values.
In the early Soviet Union, Nadezhda Krupskaya developed new ways to integrate education with the environment, workplaces, institutions and everyday surroundings. Chinese people can apply such methods today, to deepen their knowledge about their local history, politics and culture. Memories of the older generations can form a vibrant and living testimony that influences the thinking of the younger generation, and contextualizes China's triumph and turmoil since 1949. Young children might want to record these peoples' histories on their mobile phones and store them online for posterity.
The few Western media reports on China's red tourism industry, mock the idea as absurd nostalgia, a communist Disneyland, or ideological indoctrination. This depiction reveals the ignorance of these journalists. In my own experience, visitors from China's mainland often have a deeper knowledge of history than British, North American or European tourists. So, for example, when I take mixed nation groups to the headquarters in exile of the 1871 Paris Commune, it is often the case that only the Chinese guests present, know about the Commune. It is the same story at the former headquarters of the International Working Men's Association founded in 1864. The song of the International used to be known by workers throughout the world. Now, Chinese people seem to be almost the only people who can sing it.
In Germany, 30 percent of visitors to the Karl Marx House, located in Marx's birthplace in Trier, are Chinese. In France, the entire economy of the town of Montargis, located 60 miles south of Paris, has been transformed by a huge influx of red tourism from China. This was the place where Deng Xiaoping and hundreds of future Chinese revolutionaries lived and worked before 1920.
Soon we can expect Chinese tourists to flock to the grave of Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery and to visit the sites where Marx and his family lived in London's Soho and Chalk Farm. The houses of Friedrich Engels, who lived in Manchester, and in London's Primrose Hill, will also be on the red tourism trail.
Communist party members might also like to see where Vladimir Lenin lived and where he edited the newspaper Iskra. Also of interest may be the famous Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, where Lenin started to learn spoken English by listening to orators. Chinese tourists will be keen to see the place where Dr. Sun Yat-sen lived in London, and where Sun was held captive at the Chinese legation in 1896. I am still trying to identify where Zhou Enlai stayed when he came to London in January 1920. At that time, Zhou wrote several articles about a miners' strike in England, which helped shape his views on the role of the working class in revolutionary change.
It would show some tact and cultural sensitivity if London's Mayor Boris Johnson were to commission an English and Chinese plaque, worded sensitively, that could be placed next to the site of two controversial monuments of Chinese interest in London. They are: the monument to Major-General Charles George Gordon, also known as "Chinese Gordon," who was charged with crushing the Taiping Rebellion in the 1860s; and the monument to the Royal Marines, who repressed the Boxer Rebellion of 1889-1901. Unfortunately, the scenes depicted on the Royal Marines' frieze glorify the slaughter of Chinese people. So perhaps Chinese tourism will help British people to reflect better on their own history.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm
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