Mountainous debate over Avatar name
- Source: Global Times
- [03:02 January 29 2010]
- Comments
View of the South Heaven Pillar in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in central Hunan Province, September 23 2006. Photo: IC
By Guo Qiang
Amid significant backlash across the nation, local officials at the scenic tourist resort of Zhangjiajie in southern China denied Thursday that they had renamed a mountain after the floating mountains in the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar.
They claimed that local villagers initiated the claims.
Nonetheless, the local populace is finding ways to cash in on the popularity of the wildly successful movie, which has set global earnings records and garnered more than $80 million in China, despite being pulled from many mainland theaters at its peak.
An "Avatar Office" has been set up to promote Avatar-themed tours, and some agencies have reportedly seen a 50 percent surge in tourists over the past few weeks.
According to reports earlier this week, Zhangjiajie officials had renamed the "South Heaven Pillar" in its national forest park as "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain," after the James Cameron movie became a worldwide hit.
The claims were widely criticized by the public and the media, with many accusing the local government of trying to sell a national treasure for money by using a foreign-made movie.
According to a poll conducted by ifeng.com, more than 84 percent of 46,164 respondents weren't in favor of the name change as of Thursday, and more than 68 percent guessed that the move wouldn't help boost the local tourism.
Local officials, in turn, pointed fingers at villagers for spreading the rumors.
"It's nothing but commercial hype," Zhangjiajie Tourism Bureau Director Ding Yunyong told the Global Times Thursday. "Villagers changed the name privately in order to capitalize on the fame. We don't oppose these non-governmental efforts, nor do we support them."
He added that "the root of the national culture can't be shaken." However, reports indicated that the government was singing a different tune prior to the controversy.
He Zhineng, deputy chief of the tourism bureau, suggested at a January 19 symposium titled "Promoting Zhangjiajie with the help of Avatar" that the city name Cameron as a honorary citizen, inviting the director and leading cast members to visit the city, the Beijing News reported.
Zhangjiajie Daily, a local official newspaper, also reported that the new Avatar Office has created an "Avatar year" for local tourism.
Office director Deng Daoli, who said he accompanied an Avatar photographer to South Heaven Pillar to shoot the scenery and landscape for three days in 2008, told the Global Times Thursday that the office was a non-governmental organization without any funding from the government.
Guo Wenbin, a Hunan resident who visits Zhangjiajie every summer, told the Global Times that she felt unconformable and awkward after the mountain was renamed and has had enough of the Avatar-related commercial hype.
"The beauty of Zhangjiajie lies in its natural and unearthly scenery, not artificial elements created recently," she said.
An editorial carried in the China Youth Daily rhetorically asked why officials simply don't change the name of the city to Pandora and invite Cameron to be its honorary mayor. That way, the paper said, the tourism bureau there could became a Hollywood institution.
