Práctica 6: Vibraciones torsionales amortiguadas

As concluded at the end of the previous section, managing and developing a heritage site needs to take visitors‟ experience into consideration. The visitor‟s experience is even more important when it comes to interpretation of heritage, especially for types of heritage that are associated with sensitive and dark history, like the Chinese gold mining heritage. The Chinese heritage in New Zealand generally portrays the hardships of the Chinese miners experienced during the gold mining era, and therefore it is often associated with stories of deprivation and discrimination. Even with careful interpretation visitors might find it depressing, especially the ones who have special connection with New Zealand‟s Chinese gold mining history and heritage. In order to be interpreted appropriately, the interests and motives of visitors need to be taken into account; this is particularly the case if the heritage is going to be promoted for tourism purposes. This section discusses the issues and challenges that are associated with interpreting the Chinese heritage in New Zealand.

There has been a renewed interest in revealing the forgotten and lost aspects of gold mining history, such as the danger of the activities, the failures of the gold rush and the experiences of destitution of some minority groups. This is referred to as „edgy interpretation‟ (Goodman, 2001; Frost 2005). The problem is to what degree this „edgy‟ approach should be incorporated into interpreting Chinese heritage in the New Zealand context. On the one hand, individuals may not be interested in presenting or

watching actions taken by „one‟s tribe‟, when such actions evoke feelings of shame (Poria, 2007). On the other hand, not all visitors want an authentic and historically accurate interpretation that may involve knowing about some party‟s suffering, as the true story may be too depressing for them, unless they are the ones who consider themselves as having a stake in the matters involving the site (Austin, 2002; McKercher & du Cros, 2002).

At Arrowtown Chinese settlement, the on-site interpretation aims to truthfully represent the history and to give facts. There are discriminatory quotations and

caricatures from old time newspapers, and few of the successful and individual stories of the Chinese miners are told. The focus of the information given to visitors seems to be rather portraying Chinese miners‟ unpleasant experiences and hard lives on the gold fields, which was the truth, and this is what is passed on the most to the visitors. The staff member of the Department of Conservation who works on the site during the summer season has confirmed this with his own experience of communicating with visitors. It is questionable how much the visitors enjoy visiting the Chinese settlement if it is the hardship, the discrimination and the suffering that is impressed on them the most, especially as it is suggested in literature that individuals may not be interested in receiving too much information that may negatively overwhelm them (McKercher & du Cros, 2002; Schouten, 1995).

The Chinese tour guides also have concerns that what is displayed on the panels may depress their Chinese clients. One guide pointed out that one of the panels is titled “invited but not welcomed” in both English and Chinese, with the picture of a Maori woman dragging an octopus that has an evil looking Chinese face at one corner. For the Chinese visitors who do not speak English, all they can read is „Chinese were not welcome‟, accompanied by that picture. It is not hard to imagine the Chinese visitors will not be positively impressed after visiting the settlement. These issues reflect the problem of representing truthful history by simply providing facts and the „ugly truth‟. To avoid this problem, Austin (2002) has suggested that there might be a need to give the visitors a „sanitised version‟ of the historical reality.

Providing a „sanitised version‟ does not necessarily mean leaving out the dark truth of the Chinese gold mining history of New Zealand. It rather means to find a more acceptable way of telling the truth so it can be easily consumed by visitors from all

backgrounds. Shantytown has been working toward focusing more on individual Chinese miners, rather than simply giving evidence and facts. They try to blend the unpleasant aspects of the Chinese gold mining history into the stories of individual Chinese miners. Instead of interpreting the Chinese as a big homogenous group who generally experienced hardship and unfair treatment, Shantytown introduces Chinese miners to visitors as a collection of individuals who had experienced their lives on the West Coast in different ways; some successfully stayed on or returned home and some were less successful. Some of the Chinese tour guides have also been applying this theory by trying to provide their clients a „sanitised version‟ when they introduce the Chinese gold mining history of New Zealand. As mentioned in the results

chapters, the Chinese tour guides also tell about the discrimination toward Chinese miners, but they rather focus on building some connections between their clients and the sites they are visiting by telling them the Chinese had come so far and so early to the country they are visiting and has made some contributions to the early

development of the country.

It is very important to understand that when visiting a heritage site visitors are looking for a beneficial and quality experience (McKercher & du Cros, 2002; Schouten, 1995). Providing only historical information, telling some stories and displaying artefacts is not enough to generate the desirable experiences that visitors are

potentially looking for. While literature stresses the importance of educating visitors about the significance of history, events, objects and people in order to generate greater appreciation and responsibility (e.g. Alderson & Low, 1996; Poria et al., 2009; Tilden, 1977), it needs to be understood that tourism is primarily about entertainment (McKercher & du Cros, 2002). Learning opportunities can be created through

entertainment, as a „fun‟ and enjoyable experience is more likely to generate a definite knowledge gain (Timothy & Boyd, 2003). Through studying the existing literature on visitor experiences at gold rush heritage sites it is found that there are, in fact, many visitors who are more interested in „seeing‟ than „learning‟ (Cegielski et al., 2001; Chen, 1998; M. Evans, 1991; Frost, 2003; Ham & Weiler, 2004; Marcel, 2005; Poria et al., 2004a). They regard the site as a background for general tourist activities, such as relaxing, shopping, enjoying a meal and spending time with family and friends. Apart from being able to generate emotional involvement and strengthen the links between visitors and the site (Poria et al., 2009), effective heritage interpretation

needs to be standardised, modified and commodified, so visitors can get a guaranteed experience easily and quickly (McKercher & du Cros, 2002). At the same time, it must be aimed at multiple levels, satisfying the visitors who want only the basics as well as the visitors who seek more complex meaning and understanding (Laing et al., 2007; Poria et al., 2009). This is because the visitor experience is affected by the time availability of potential visitors, and their characteristics, personal interests,

expectations and motives (Austin, 2002; Bonn et al., 2007; McKercher & du Cros, 2002; Warren & Taylor, 2001), and they may therefore look for different benefits or experiences at a heritage site.

At the moment, some of these important features are missing in the interpretation of New Zealand‟s Chinese heritage. At both Arrowtown and Shantytown, the Chinese settlement is restored or re-created to present how the Chinese miners lived and mined in the area. Re-creation and restoration of the original sites is a good way of helping visitors create a vivid picture of how Chinese miners lived and mined in that

particular period of time. The presentation of both Shantytown Chinatown and

Arrowtown Chinese settlement is relatively effective in terms of quality of restoration and sense of authenticity. The problem is that both sites are relatively small in size and limited in terms of the variety of interpretation provided; this is the same for the Chinese display at Lake District Museum, Lawrence Museum and Otago Settler‟s Museum. In general, the current interpretation of Chinese gold mining takes the form of displaying relics and objects, plus brief descriptions of the general history and some individual stories. Visitors can only look at the pictures, maps and read texts from display panels. The only multi-media involved is a self-playing video showed at Lawrence Museum. This form of interpretation is educational, but clearly missing on the point of being entertaining or perhaps engaging. Visitors are not really provided with opportunities to make connections with interpreters or have interaction with the sites. Even though many of the stories told are very interesting, with this sort of interpretation it is probably hard for visitors to have fun and have emotional involvement that helps build links between themselves and the sites, which are considered one of the important factors that generates a memorable and meaningful experience (Foley & Lennon, 1999; Poria et al., 2009).

opportunities on site to gain any further information if they are especially interested in certain aspects of Chinese gold mining. Participants at all three case study sites

reported that many visitors would like to see more demonstrations at the sites and to see more things happening. The research results reveal that current visitors are generally satisfied with what they have gained out of visiting New Zealand Chinese heritage sites, however they are not really getting they quality experience they could potentially get. This situation may change once Lawrence Chinese Camp

development project is completed. According to the concept plan, the site will be developed as a large Chinese heritage historical theme park that includes all the facilities that are capable of providing visitors fun and educational experiences. To improve the current interpretation of Chinese heritage sites is not an easy task, because of the limited resources the Chinese heritage sites have available, but it is still achievable. Some suggestions on how Chinese heritage sites can be better interpreted will be given in the Conclusion Chapter.