The Anthropological Study Of Landscape Signs In Hani Rice Terraces

Hani Rice Terraces had been shaped and built by ethnic groups who live in the area through their reproduction of the whole nature.Practical practices of mankind and social developments keep the landscape which reflects the relationship between man and man,man and nature changing.The process of landscape change means exactly the process of accumulation of human civilization.The landscape's characteristic of constantly changing makes it more difficult to know landscape and represent landscape.It's a crucial task to realize the protection and development of Hani Rice Terraces by representing the natural,social,historical and cultural connotations of the landscape of Hani Rice Terraces,and by assisting tourists in appreciating,understanding and respecting the cultural landscape.Images which could lead further action and understanding are called signs.Signs are static and dynamic.Not only written words but also human acts in tourism field could transfer into cultural signs.Landscape signs are the concentration of landscape representation and become part of landscape at the same time,acting as an indicative symbol of guidance on knowing,understand and appreciating the landscape and its social-cultural meanings.The significance of landscape signs lies in its functions to help mass tourists understand the profound and rich connotations of landscape.Therefore,the set-up of landscape signs is substantially a new form of writing culture.The discourses on the local social-cultural landscape aim at potential readers'(the tourists)acquaintance and recognition of the local culture by understanding these explanations.Landscape signs in Hani Rice Terraces could divide into four types,that is,the public signs which provide general information,the travel signs which provide specialized information,cultural performances which is characterized as stylized representation,everyday life which is represented fragmentarily.Accordingly,the four main types of issues exist in landscape signs are the inadequacy of explanation of the public signs,the mistakes and omissions of information of the travel signs,the misunderstanding of everyday life and the dissolvent of cultural sanctity by cultural performances.The more severe problem is that the ratio of mistakes in the public signs and the travel signs is unbelievably high.All of these facts obstruct landscape signs which are responsible for indicating and leading the tourists' cultural understanding failed to fulfill their designed purposes.In fact,the mistakes in landscape signs should not be taken as granted by people just because it is so common.Intensive discussion and analysis should be fully conducted on the phenomenon which is regarded as "common sense" by people.landscape signs work as a symbolic system knotting the local and the world,the traditional and the modern,the action and the representation.Setting up landscape signs correctly enjoys the same great importance to three groups,including the creators,the tourists and the villagers.However,the creators' misrecognition of landscape signs manifests in their obscure setting-up objectives,the disordered text,the casual disciplined interpretation and the mistakes occurred in processing cultural information.While landscape signs are designed without tourists' presence,the tourists have to drop reading and understanding the landscape signs and thus visual traps are producing more difficulties,groups of people in interaction try to realize cultural understanding and find themselves in predicament.Thus,only through correct landscape signs it could make the traditional villages show up properly,make sure the internal information which used to serve for the internal world alone more clearly expressed for the external world,and avoid interpretations of landscape without logics.Since knowledge and information that reflect the changing world definitely face the delayed effect and uncertainty in their dissemination,the innovation of dissemination methods therefore become very essential and creators' should try their best to create landscape sign correctly.All types of landscape signs contribute to the references,the expression and the delivery of information.Since the Terrace is featured by ecological diversity,long history,cultural pluralism and the harmony between man and nature,it's impossible to represent the Hani Rice Terraces through mere one type of signs or one group of people.As a matter of fact,it's very urgent to publish polyphonic representations by all the social actors together owning to the diversified actors(including the creators,the tourists and the villagers)involving into the totally new writing culture and the rhythmicity of mankind's practical practice.Only when complementary,comparison and corresponding relationships between four types of landscape signs are established,landscape signs in Hani Rice Terraces are truly functioning in assisting the tourists in understanding and interpreting the cultural landscape,and become a valuable method of knowledge production and knowledge spreading.