Background

Nestled in the valley below the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, the Naxi people live in the historic town of Lijiang and its surrounding villages.  The Naxi are one of Yunnan’s 24 ethic minority people, and for centuries had their own kingdom in northwestern Yunnan.  The Old Town of Lijiang was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

While working to preserve Lijiang’s distinct cultural heritage, UNESCO also recognized vulnerabilities.  These included:
• an intravenous drug-use problem, present since the late 1980’s,
• a proliferation of karaoke bars and massage parlors, which tend to be associated with a growing commercial sex industry, and
• an increasing number of Naxi youth from the countryside drawn to the town, who had little knowledge of risk behaviors.

Until recently, local authorities in Lijiang avoided discussing HIV/AIDS and drug related problems.  Understandable because since Lijiang’s inscription as a World Heritage Site local officials have focused their attention on how best to preserve Lijiang’s unique cultural heritage in the midst of a growing tourism industry. 
 
In March 2004, the local officials of Lijiang Naxi Autonomous Municipality welcomed the UNESCO Culture Unit to work with them to expand UNESCO’s Radio Project for HIV/AIDS, Trafficking and Drug Prevention among Highland Minorities in the Greater Mekong Subregion to Lijiang using the Naxi language. Lijiang’s Deputy Mayor assigned the Lijiang Old Town District Women’s Federation to oversee and organize the project in partnership with the Lijiang Municipal Radio Station.

Research Training

The first step was to create a good research team.  In July 2004, UNESCO trained a team in qualitative research methodologies and the basics of HIV/AIDS, drugs and human trafficking.  Funding was provided by the UNDP-SEAHIV Programme.  The researchers, drawn from local Lijiang institutes and organizations, carried out their fieldwork during fall 2004 at three sites: 
(1) Lijiang Old Town
(2) Lijiang New Town, and
(3) Shu He, a nearby historic town which is a satellite of the World Heritage inscription and a growing tourist destination.

The research teams completed their fieldwork by late December 2004.  In early January 2005, the Lijiang Women’s Federation convened a meeting in Lijiang to evaluate their conclusions, and present their findings to UNESCO.   The research results strongly confirmed the need for Lijiang authorities to provide clear and accurate information about HIV/AIDS and its prevention to Naxi youth and young people.

During the fieldwork, the researchers interviewed former drug users, relatives of drug users, commercial sex workers and families of HIV positive young people.  The research not only gathered information, but changed the perceptions of the researchers. The researchers discovered much about Lijiang they did not know. In the process they found themselves becoming more committed to doing something to help.  Several researchers wrote statements expressing their response to the fieldwork (click here).

Language Training

Although the Naxi have a traditional ritual pictographic script, it cannot be used to write a modern radio drama.  Fortunately, in the early 1950’s, Chinese linguists designed a Romanized script which was used for producing newspapers and books in Naxi.  Two authors fluent in reading and writing this Naxi script wrote the radio drama, drawing upon the content of the research findings.  However, a new problem emerged.  The potential actors and actresses who would perform the drama could not read Romanized Naxi. 

In order to solve this new problem, the Lijiang Radio Station organized a two week training during June and July 2005 to teach a pool of 25 potential actors and actresses how to read and write the Romanized script.  This training was supported by UNESCO within the framework of the Culture Unit’s programme on “Documentation and revitalization of endangered languages in the Upper Mekong and Myanmar”. 

The Next Step – Production

The authors have completed writing a very emotionally charged script entitled “The Sigh of the Snow Mountain”.  After it has undergone final revisions, the radio station will begin the production.