The Red Memorial Landscape Narratives And Its Influences On National Identity

In recent years,traditional Chinese beliefs have been negatively impacted by western culture and issues related to morality and social values,resulting crisis of citizens' national identity.In 2016,the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government addressed these issues by encouraging the study of the revolutionary spirit of China through red tourism so as to strengthen the national identity and build the spiritual home.In this context,this study investigated the red memorial landscape narratives and its influences on national identity by focusing on the Geleshan Martyrs Memorial Park in Chongqing city,southwest China.First,this study employed grounded theory to build a theoretical framework describing the relations among "tourists","red memorial landscape" and "national identity";Second,case studies were used to analyze types,strategies and processes of the red memorial landscape narratives where landscape science,narratology and geography meet;Third,the study used empirical research design employing focus group and questionnaires to collect data from 486 respondents visiting the site.The data was then processed with descriptive statistical analysis,exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis,respectively.The findings were as following:First,case studies revealed three types of landscape narratives,including memorial sites,memorial architectures and historical museums,while narrative strategies may include point narrative,sequential narrative and hybrid narrative.As observed in Geleshan Martyrs Memorial Park,types of narrative and strategies help transform the social space into cultural space.When the Hongyan history together with its value and significance became the focus of landscape narratives,this processes help reducing the negative impacts of leisure and entertainment activities to the national identity at the actual arena.Second,empirical evidences indicated that the tourists' perceptions on red memorial landscape narratives were better than that of traditional interpretation system.This finding suggested that red memorial landscape narratives may work better to help tourists having cognitive experiences like critical thoughts,criticism,self-reflection,recall and comparison,and arousing emotional experiences such as gratitude,regrets,fear and grief,as evidenced by the fact that majority of respondents have a strong sense of national identity.Third,exploratory factor analysis showed that memorial landscape narrative and interpretation system narrative were main narrative medias during red memorial landscape narratives.In field trip,many tourists believed that monuments(m=3.92),memorial sculpture(m=3.92),museums(m=3.89)were great medias to narrate Hoyang historical stories,which could affect better than traditional interpretation system(m=3.58)for tourists' understanding of Hongyan history.The ranking of cognitive experiences suggested that the visitation to the actual site,in the first place,helped visitors critically think about martyrs' sacrifices to the founding of the P.R.of China(m=4.29)and value of the Hongyan Spirit in contemporary society(m=4.19);At the same time,these authentic arena also offered an good opportunity for criticizing persecution of innocents(m=4.12),sympathizing victims of the war(m=4.11),and recalling martyrs like Jiang Zhujun(m=4.06).The ranking of emotional experiences showed that visiting these memorial landscape helped tourists respect for great men(m=4.34)and martyrs(m=4.29);Besides,many tourists grieved by torture of revolutionaries(m=4.21)and martyrs sacrifice(m=4.20)and some regretted for understanding of Hongyan spirit before visiting(m=3.89)and fear confession by torture(m=3.69).National identity was the core of red tourism in China,including identifying with the Chinese nation(m=4.41),Chinese culture(m=4.38),the Communist Party of China(m=4.35)and socialism with Chinese characteristics(m=4.34)and motherland(m=4.30).Forth,confirmatory factor analysis found that cognitive experience and emotional experience are two main channels for landscape perception to enhance national identity.This indicated that tourists' perception for Hongyan history could improved tourists' cognitive experience and emotional experience,so as to strengthen their national identity.These results confirmed the feasibility of the theoretical framework,which was red memorial landscape could enhance tourists' national identity by improving their cognitive experience and emotional experience under the effect of landscape narrative.To sum up,the study measured tourists' perception,authenticity experience and national identity from landscape perception,cognitive experience,emotional experience and national identity,which explored the impact of the narrative effect of red memorial landscape on the strengthening of citizen's national identity.The conclusion was conducive to provide a research model for the academic study of strengthening national identity by developing red tourism in China.It also expected to promote theories and practices development in narrative geography.