Authenticating newly constructed ancient towns in China: A critical discourse analysis

Newly constructed ancient towns (NCAT) in China are tourist attractions that are designed to reproduce and revitalize traditional Chinese culture. Past researches regarded NCATs as either commercial spaces or imitated heritage sites. The dynamic relationship between NCATs and the commonly accepted truths about history and culture is underexplored. This paper regards NCATs as a social force to reproduce history and culture, and investigates how invented traditions can be naturalized within NCATs. Authentication theory was applied to a case study of Gubei water town. Data was collected with methods of ethnography and netnography. Critical discourse analysis was adopted to analyze data. Results show that old materials and transplanted plants are proofs that were reassembled to naturalize and historicize invented traditions. This process of inventing traditions is concealed and converted by the discourse, believing that historical inheritance is inherently determined by natural powers. Purposefully-invented traditions are thus authenticated as naturally-determined traditions. Tourists accept and spread the official interpretation as objective knowledge, despite that they know Gubei water town is newly constructed. Tourists value old materials because they provide a physical base affording individual imaginations of history. Tourism practices do not reflect but create the ‘truth’. Tourism developers should contemplate the values conveyed within tourist sites