Source: https://twitter.com/RianThum/status/1427672503099576320?s=20
Beautiful Girls & Savage Men
There are some links in the ‘interethnic marriage’ article by Darren Byler.
Encouraging less modest clothing style
China encourages Muslim women to take off their headscarve
Campaigns aimed at discouraging Uyghur women to wear headscarves are enforced regularly in the most traditional Uyghur areas of Khotan and Kashgar and occasionally lead to outbreaks of violence, like in the summer 2011 in Khotan, when deadly clashes between Uyghur demonstrators and police erupted. The tones of these political and social campaigns, which stress the “beautiful women’s hair” and the “right to make them wave in the wind”, are particularly adverse to the Muslim concept of woman, even if it should not be completely alien to the traditionally soft Uyghur Islamic religion.
Socio-Economic Development in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, p. 151
Link to originalIn place of Islamic veils, the CCP has promoted colorful ätläs fabric, embroidered doppa hats, and braided hair as “normal” symbols of Uighur femininity. To help set these fashion standards firmly in place, XUAR officials launched “Project Beauty” in 2011: a five-year, $8 million dollar campaign aimed at developing Xinjiang’s fashion and cosmetics industries while encouraging Muslim women to “look towards ‘modern’ culture” by removing their veils. Fashion shows, pageants, and lectures on ethnic policy, ethnic attire, and social etiquette seek to persuade Uighur women to “let their beautiful hair flow and show their pretty faces.”
That reminds me of something…
Xitiya Mystery City
While the Chinese state has destroyed some of the most important Uyghur sacred and historical sites, they have supported the construction of invented sites, with exoticizing, primitivizing, fantasies of indigenous culture. Here is Xitiya “Mystery City” (photo from CITS site).
Begun in 2011 and still expanding as of the last two years, Xitiya, near Karghalik, appropriates elements of Uyghur shrine architecture that are being destroyed at actual sacred places. For example, this “sacred tree” has Uyghur-style votive ribbons attached.
These elements are mixed with exoticizing concoctions that have nothing to do with any local traditions, like this altar:
Incredible how perfectly this video of Xitiya repeats Orientalist tropes of various colonialisms around the world. [https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTM4Njc1NjAw.html?spm=a1z3jc.11711052.0.0&isextonly=1…
