Filmreihe Donnerstagskino: Ethnologische Themen der Zeit
Film by Jenny Chio, United States/Australia/China, 2013, 70'; Language: Chinese, English subtitles.
Peasant Family Happiness
In her award-winning film, Jenny Chio depicts the everyday experience of “doing” ethnic tourism in two rural villages in contemporary South China: Ping’an in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Upper Jidao in Guizhou province. In these villages, residents negotiate between the day-to-day consequences of tourist arrivals and idealised projections of who they are. Questions of “authenticity” are rendered secondary to, yet not entirely subsumed by, market imperatives. Culture and identity remain important for sustaining the community, but in ways that reveal just how much labor goes into creating leisure experiences.
Jenny Chio is a cultural anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker based in the US. Currently, she is engaged in a multi-sited research project on the lived experience of modernity in China's countryside. Jenny Chio will be present at the event to reflect with you on her film and answer your questions.
