From Reindeer to MTV: Indigenous Performers and the Russia-China Border

For the northeast Asian indigenous people today known as Nanai in Russia and Hezhe in China, the inter-state border which has long divided them remains a key referent in discourses of local identity. Yet this paper suggests that for all the discussion of the Nanai/Hezhe as a “cross-border” minority, the border between them is in fact sustained by the paradoxical fact that many pay little attention to it. Through examining the life stories of arguably the most famous Nanai and Hezhe – singers and actors named Kola Beldy and Han Geng – the Russia-China border is revealed not only as a firm and strictlypoliced line in physical space, but also as a gap between worlds of possibility and projected aspiration. Beldy and Han’s cases show that many borderland dwellers live with their backs to the border, subtly reinforcing the inter-state divide in everyday ways at least as powerful as official sovereignty regimes.