In my experience, many discussions on Chinese tourism and tourists are characterized by misunderstanding and reductionism. There are, of course, exceptions to this general muddle. Wolfgang Arlt of Stralsund University of Applied Sciences has pursued a long-term study of Chinese outbound tourism (see www.china-outbound.com), and, of course, Alan A. Lew of Northern Arizona University keeps scholars updated through his insightful web pages and the Asia tourism forum.

Pal Nyiri’s book, however, provides something different. Neatly sidestepping the commercial challenges facing countries receiving Chinese tourists, he takes readers right to the heart of the matter as only an anthropologist can. By focusing on power, identity, and tradition within the context of the tourist (taking an openly acknowledged lead from Dean MacCannell’s oeuvre), Nyiri continually draws our attention to what matters: the paradox of how Chinese tourists respond to scenic spots and the desire of the Chinese state to maintain exclusive authority in interpreting and representing Chinese culture.

The book comprises four chapters with a very instructive introduction that takes to task existing analytical frameworks for tourism, which tend to sublimate European tourists over “othered” resident populations who are either grateful for the tourists or submissively waiting to have their cultures altered (yes, I am being ironic).
Nyiri starts by setting several contexts, starting with insights into Maoist cultural politics of tourism and tourists. After Mao’s death, negative views about bourgeois use of leisure faded, and the government saw the potential of domestic tourism and started promoting it through glossy brochures that provide, along with multisited ethnography, the data for Nyiri’s first stage of analysis.

Chapter 2 contains the fieldwork findings. It is apparent just how ruthless the authorities are in constructing and maintaining identity and how voracious the petty entrepreneurs are in hawking their wares and, in a sense, shaping the tourist experience. The main thrust of the chapter, however, is encapsulated on page 49 in a discussion of “delimitation and development”: “The agenda [standardizing the vista, ejecting local people, and designating tourist routes] reflects a view of tourism as a means of modernization and ‘civilization’ … as an official explained … villagers ‘don’t understand how to develop tourism. … If they open their villages by themselves it will be a mess.’ ” Nyiri goes on to state, “According to … officials, locals could be used as a resource, but in a strictly regimented fashion. Their interaction with tourists had to be controlled, lest they subvert development” (p. 50).

In chapter 3, Nyiri suggests why domestic tourism in China is so very different from that in the West. Drawing on the literature in chapter 1 and field experiences in chapter 2, Nyiri makes a very elegant case in proposing two causes. First, Chinese authorities have appropriated domestic tourism as part of the nation-building project (and perhaps as a way of undermining troublesome ethnics) and therefore retain tight control over tourist routes and spots. Second, tourism emerged in the post-Enlightenment West as an educative, self-improvement project. Also in chapter 3, Nyiri reveals another fascinating discourse on what has come to be known as the State–Economy–Culture triangle (p. 97), which provides a lens through which to view the zeitgeist of any particular society.

In the final chapter, which is very brief, Nyiri introduces migration into the equation in an attempt to separate modes of mobility from tourism. I am not so sure this is such a great idea. In a book of such limited size, and with such a clear focus, this issue should have been integrated into the context-setting first chapter or omitted. Also introduced is a very thoughtful analysis (frustratingly brief) of how Europe is constructed as a destination by official Chinese tour-guide books (pp. 105–106). In a sense then, this last chapter is the weakest but only in that it fails to reprise and draw together the analysis put forward in earlier chapters.

I found this to be a useful insight into the complexities of the sociopolitical quagmire that is global tourism and a useful addition to the canon on tourists and tourism. Anthropologists cannot ignore tourism, and those not familiar with this particular intellectual terrain will find this book a useful introduction.
[illustrated, notes, bibliography, index.]