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Chinese Children in Ethnic Costume
Came From Han Majority
By LORETTA CHAO and JASON LEOW
August 14, 2008; Page A5
BEIJING -- In the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, a procession of children bore a large Chinese flag into the Bird's Nest stadium, each child wearing a costume representing one of China's ethnic minorities.
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See photos of China's ethnic minorities.
However, the children actually were members of the Han majority, an arts official said in an interview. Yuan Zhifeng, deputy director of Galaxy Children's Art Troupe, said the children were drawn from the all-Han Chinese troupe. "I assume they think the kids were very natural looking and nice," Ms. Yuan said.
Games organizers did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and it is not clear what their motive was for using Han Chinese in ethnic costumes.
The ceremony has already been marred by news that a girl who appeared to sing a patriotic song was lip-synching to a recorded version sung by a girl who was deemed less attractive. Games organizers also said parts of one fireworks display were recorded and digitally enhanced for television.
China's 55 minority groups are officially celebrated, often as curios in pageants to the country's self-image as a harmonious, multiethnic society. But many live on the margins of the mainstream, poorer and less-educated than their Han countrymen.
From the time babies are born in China, they are assigned an ethnic identifier, a single word printed below their names on their national identification cards. Interethnic couples in China must choose to register their babies as one ethnicity only.
About 92% of China's 1.3 billion people are Han, and they dominate the economy and politics. The other 8%, or about 104 million people, belong to various groups, from the well-known Tibetans and Uighurs to the Zhang, Hani and Miao peoples.
Since the time of Mao Zedong, minority cultures have been made a central part of symbolic national events. Minority members are asked to wear traditional costumes -- clothing they would not normally wear today -- during China's annual legislature meetings, while their Han counterparts wear Western-style suits.
For Americans, the Beijing ceremony's presentation of minorities may recall the custom at some U.S. sports events of having non-American Indians perform in traditional American Indian dress. That custom has raised controversy, and some schools have given up their Indian nicknames and mascots. The University of Illinois, for instance, gave up its Chief Illiniwek mascot under pressure.
In China, however, neither the Han nor minorities appear to see much of a problem with the custom, viewing it is a way to preserve cultural diversity. "The opening ceremony was wonderful," said Dan Zen, a resident of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. "We recognized the third child on the left was wearing Tibetan clothes. ... It's OK if they're not real minorities."
Visitors to the Olympics can get a sense of how China portrays minorities at the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, just south of the Olympic Green. It features elaborate model villages and dancers in traditional costumes.
Han schoolchildren are bused to the culture park for field trips to look at the thatched-roof huts of the Jino, who live in the mountains of southern Yunnan province. They can see a display on the Li people of China's southern island province of Hainan, who believe in what is only described as "a primitive religion," according to exhibit brochures.
"We have to protect minorities," said Wang Ping, who is Han and started the park because she feared minority cultures would be "polluted" by globalization. Grants from the government help fund the park.
One Wa dancer at the culture park, Chen Xiuying, said a visitor once asked her if she knew how to eat. "He wasn't asking what kind of food I eat, but if I know how to." She said because she has dark skin, she finds she sometimes must remind people she is Chinese.
China has faced violence and protests recently in Tibet and Xinjiang. Muslim Uighur separatists have carried out a series of attacks before and during the Olympics. The culture park itself has been the site of illegal pro-Tibetan protests during the Games.
Andrew Fischer, a development economist from the London School of Economics, says inequities in China's education system, particularly in Tibet between ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese, keep minorities down. "Tibet is the only region in China where urban education levels are lower than those of rural migrants from the rest of China," Mr. Fischer says.
--Andrew Batson contributed to this article.
Write to Loretta Chao at loretta.chao@wsj.com and Jason Leow at jason.leow@wsj.com