By Mai Lam, Class of 2025 & Nashan Zhao, Class of 2028
On March 20, the Center for the Study of Contemporary China (DKU CSCC), in collaboration with the Environment Research Center (ERC), hosted a screening of Underneath the Rubber Trees, a thought-provoking documentary by Qu Song. The film follows the life of Teacher He (He Guiying), a member of the Jinuo ethnic group in Yunnan, China, to explore the complexities of cultural and environmental transformation in the region. The film offers an intimate look at the Jinuo ethnic group, where 80% of the population relies on latex production for their livelihoods. It sheds light on the physical toll of this labor, the environmental consequences of large-scale rubber cultivation, and, perhaps most strikingly, the cultural transformations driven by economic pressures and mobilization.
One of the film’s most compelling themes is culture as performance. In a particularly revealing scene, Teacher He and her family sing and dance for Han Chinese tour guides, who sit, eat, and record the spectacle on their phones. Watching this unfold, it evokes comparisons to The White Lotus—specifically, its first season’s critique of how Native Hawaiian traditions are commodified as background entertainment for wealthy vacationers. Similarly, the Jinuo performers in the film appear detached from their own traditions. Their performance no longer feels like an expression of cultural pride but rather an economic necessity—an unspoken agreement to entertain in exchange for maintaining good relations with tourists.
Another moment that stood out was Teacher He’s reflection on the role of Han Chinese in shaping the Jinuo’s present-day reality. She expresses gratitude toward what she calls the “Red Han” for having “rescued” her people from being Indigenous and leading them to a “better life.” This sentiment raises difficult questions about the relationship between economic development and cultural erasure. Her framing of Han tourism as the only viable path to prosperity echoes a broader historical pattern—one where Indigenous communities are often led to believe that assimilation is the only way forward.
Watching Underneath the Rubber Trees encourages the audience to reflect on their own position as a viewer. The ability to critique or question these dynamics is, in itself, a privilege. For those of us whose livelihoods do not depend on tourism or external economic forces, it is easy to condemn the commodification of culture. But for the Jinuo, these performances are often not a choice but a means of survival.
The post-screening discussion made it clear that Underneath the Rubber Trees does not offer easy answers. Instead, it forces us to sit with uncomfortable realities. What does it mean to “preserve” culture when economic survival demands adaptation? At what point does assimilation become coercion? And how do we, as outsiders, engage with these narratives without imposing our own biases?
Ultimately, the film is a powerful reminder that modernization and cultural survival are not mutually exclusive, but they are often in tension with one another. Underneath the Rubber Trees invites us to grapple with these complexities, acknowledge the forces shaping communities like the Jinuo, and question how labor, culture, and identity continue to evolve in an era of globalization.
