Paper short abstract:

This paper deals with the interpretation of symbolic forms in different artistic genres in Hmong ethnic community in central China. The interpretations embody the poetics and politics in art interventions within this minority ethnic community.

Paper long abstract:

In this article I aim to employ two distinct discourses, resonance and wonder, firstly proposed by historians to examine aesthetic pursuits, to re-interpret Hmong creation myths as recorded in ethnographic museums in Xiangxi Tujia and Hmong Autonomous Prefecture. By reviewing these two concepts, I intend to elucidate the specific ways of traditionalization in the symbolic forms in interest.

The first type of pursuit is materialized in an ethnographic museum with creation myths as a crucial part of exhibition. It exports ideologies as well as defines a unique ethnic culture through reconstructing creation myths. The origin tales contained in both textual and material cultures reflect subtle ideologies of differentiating self/others and the understanding of locality, history and memory, which are key terms in the current indigenous aesthetics about Hmong identity. This process fits the first model of wonder within museum ethnography, which aims at creating a distance between the constructed meaning and the targeted audience.

The second type of pursuit is embodied in an exhibition of the stronghold of the last generation of 'The King of the Hmong', Long Yun-Fei. Through demonstrating the idiosyncracies of this historical character, the decoration traditions of his family house become the artistic symbols which signifies Hmong identity. This process conforms with the second model of resonance within museum ethnography, which aims at provoking imagination of local history as part of a construction process of nationalism in China.