Vincent ([info]entropy_rising) wrote in [info]xinjiang_watch,
@ 2007-02-28 18:56:00
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Entry tags:interethnic relations, uyghurs, women

Ah, Uyghur women are so beautiful!



This is something I've been meaning to talk about for a while.

So, while trawling the Chinese language Internet for material (Xinjiang Watch is always busy behind the scenes, even when post counts are lagging!), I found the following post on a forum in Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google:

我的印象中维吾尔族女孩很惊艳 我是汉族的

大家也认为维吾尔族的男人长相一般都很英俊,个子高大,女人一般都很漂亮。

维吾尔族女孩真的很美 呵呵 我觉得她们和混血儿一样美

维吾尔族的人应该是属于远古混血，他们有深陷的眼窝还有高挑的鼻梁，

都很漂亮的，能歌善舞的民族.56个民族中自身的民族特点很鲜明


好了 我要贴图 证明喽
And a terrible, Pera-kun aided translation:

My impression is that Uyghur women are really quite astonishing. I'm a Han Chinese...
Everyone thinks the features of Uyghur men generally are very handsome, their stature tall and broad, and women usually are quite pretty.
Uyghur women really are very beautiful... ah... I believe their hybrid looks are beautiful.
The Uyghur race I think is of ancient stock, they have deep-set eyes and high nose bridges.
They're all pretty, and good at singing and dancing. Of the 56 minorities, the unique traits of their ethnic group are quite fresh.

Okay! I'll post some pictures. That'll prove it.

Ah, I love that haphazard post-and-go forum writing style. This googly-eyed tribute would do mySpace proud.

The words of this poster (whose forum name is "I love Mathematics" and has no gender specified) reflect a naive admiration of the Uyghur physique that I'm convinced is common in China. Admiration: I was told quite often during my time in China that Uyghurs were the closest to what the Han felt was ideal beauty (followed, interestingly, by Russians). Naivety: my best friend, who accompanied me in China, was regularly identified by Han Chinese in Eastern China as a Uyghur despite looking nothing like a Uyghur, leading me to believe that most Han Chinese have a very loose grasp on what Uyghurs actually look like. This friend does have a unique look - she's of Northern European descent, and has very light skin and the distinctly European facial features but her hair is mysteriously black, which tends to send mixed signals to Westerners and Chinese alike (she keeps a laundry list of all the guesses people have offered on her ethnicity). Probably the fourth or fifth time I heard a Han Chinese ask her if (or sometimes tell her that) she's a Uyghur, I concluded that in many ways, "Uyghur" is the label automatically allocated to people whose looks don't fit into the Han ethnic taxonomy.

The pictures this breathless admirer of Uyghur womanhood went on to post sort of confirmed for me the liminal, interstitial, placeholder meaning "Uyghur" must hold in the Han ethnic landscape. I'm going to have to concur with I Love Mathematics - the women in the picture are quite pretty - at the same time, however, the pictures ILM prefers seem to be of "Han-ified" Uyghurs, with the exception of the woman in the headscarf. Because he (or she) speaks so simply and bluntly about Uyghurs, I'm sure that ILM is from a part of China that doesn't put him (or her) in regular contact with Uyghurs (assuming this would lead to a more nuanced understanding of Uyghurs), so that ILM's perceptions are entirely based on the tightly controlled media projection of Uyghurs popular culture industries export from Xinjiang. I'm talking Han-oriented stuff like Askar Huilang vs. less airbrushed cultural products made by Uyghurs for Uyghurs. The author of the most recent Xinjiang-related book I read, Dru Gladney (I swear I'll get to another book so I don't keep on falling back to Gladney), had a lot to say about a supposed campaign to exoticize Uyghurs, but I was wondering what thoughts you guys might have. Do you have a similar experience when discussing ethnic beauty with Han Chinese? Do Han Chinese in Xinjiang share the same beliefs about beauty as Chinese who have little contact with Uyghurs? Any ideas on the success behind the concept of "Uyghur beauty" in the Han mindset? Is this a recent phenomenon, or can we trace this through the Fragrant Concubine and beyond to antiquity? And so forth.

By the way, if anyone has any background information about the people pictured in the post (I'm particularly curious about the Uyghur child breakdancer named "Alpha"), please do share!

(Post a new comment)


[info]sparkandmercury
2007-03-01 03:38 am UTC (link)
I remember being told I look like a Uyghur. I also met a woman, once, whose friends liked to tell her she looked like a Uyghur, partly because she had (and, I presume, still has) a gold tooth.

It's quite remarkable how far a state's philosophy of ethnicity and nationality can penetrate into popular thought. The poster actually said "the 56 minzu"??? Good God. Well, Math Boy, what do you think of Sibe girls?

There's some really good work on exoticization and sexualization of Chinese minorites in Louisa Schein's Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China's Cultural Politics. It's really solid work.

Also, take a look at any 民族词典 or other popular ethnographic work in China. At least through the 1980's, they contained a couple glossy pages of photos and pictures at the front. First, you get the 56 minzu: One Han man in a Mao jacket (Actually, a Yatsen suit...) and 50-55 women in colorful native costumes. (The next page is a chart of racial typology. I never new "negro" came in so many flavors.)

Anyway, my point is, there's a ton of evidence for and work on the feminization of subaltern ethnic groups under a civilizing regime. However, I don't hear much about Uyghur hotness.

(Reply to this)
Dru Gladney
(Anonymous)
2007-03-01 01:18 pm UTC (link)
has a paper online about this stuff:

http://www.drugladney.com/articles/exotic.pdf

I also recommend Schein's Minority Rules. As for Askar, I don't perceive him as being so Han-oriented. Check out Nimrod Baranovitch's "From the Margins to the Centre", where he interviews Askar

http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=182892

Askar mocks Kelimu and Wang Luobin, and Baranovitch points out the subversive aspect of his music. For crying out loud, the name of his band, Huilang, means Grey Wolf - the nationalist animal totem of the Uyghurs, the image on the cover of Turghun Almas' banned Uyghur history book. The Uyghurs I spoke to about Askar thought he was cool, someone who they could be proud of.

As for the beauty thing, sure I've heard it lots of times before. I don't know if it's been true since Xiangfei, but I would certainly say that in contemporary times Xiangfei is emblematic.

Oh, and here's some videos of Little Alpha rocking the house on CCTV3:

http://www.139f.com/portal/show/1952356.html

here's an article about his success on the CCTV3 program 星光大道 (Stardom Superhighway? What's a good translation for that?)

http://www.178.com/stuff/news/20051129/stuff_news_2005819849293.html

And if you follow the source of the photos, the girl is supposedly 1/3 Han, 1/3 Uyghur and 1/3 Russian. But nobody knows her name.

http://www.mmonly.com/html/stars/qita/20040529023301.htm

(Reply to this)
we're all uyghurs
(Anonymous)
2007-03-05 07:05 am UTC (link)
Han Chinese tell me I look like a Uyghur. Uyghurs tell me I look like a Pakistani. Truthfully, I look like neither. But to get back to the point... let's just say that I've had a number of chances to examine the female Uyghur physique. They are by no means extraordinary, but have their pluses and minus just like any other group of people. I'll tell you one thing that's a definite benefit in China... they certainly don't look Chinese! Phew.

(Reply to this)
Beauty
(Anonymous)
2007-03-07 07:03 pm UTC (link)
#1, 2, 3 and 5 (your picture above) appear to be of the same person. If she is Uyghur, book me on the next flight.

#4 looks like the Thai actress who caused the scandel at the recent Thai movie awards ceremony.

www.chinalawblog.com

(Reply to this)

(Anonymous)
2007-07-13 08:00 pm UTC (link)
东土发言人迪里夏提是个民族败类

(Reply to this)

(Anonymous)
2007-09-27 03:53 am UTC (link)
Hmm, throughout all my time in China, including my travels in Xinjiang, I've never had anyone, Chinese or otherwise, tell my girlfriend that she looks like an Uyghur, despite her being an attractive woman of Scandinavian descent with black hair. But plenty of Uyghurs we met told me (a Chinese-American, or "Han" if you must) that she was really good-looking and asked if she was French. Maybe this is a sign of the naive admiration/exoticization of the White physique among Uyghurs. ;)

""Uyghur" is the label automatically allocated to people whose looks don't fit into the Han ethnic taxonomy."
So based on the experiences of ONE friend, you immediately ascribe some "ethnic taxonomy" to all Han Chinese people. WTF? Chinese people like joking around about what people look like. People tell me I look Korean. People tell my girlfriend she looks like a Chinese movie star(she doesn't).

"Any ideas on the success behind the concept of "Uyghur beauty" in the Han mindset?"
I think they're just seen as exotic women from the west, much as East Asian women are exoticized in the Western media (and to a much larger extent than Uyghurs are exoticized in the Chinese media).

"most Han Chinese have a very loose grasp on what Uyghurs actually look like"
Uh, that's because what Uyghurs actually look like can vary a whole lot? There are some Uyghur women that look exactly like Chinese women and others that resemble Greek women, and plenty in between. Have you ever even been to Xinjiang? Can you honestly tell me what the "average" Uyghur woman looks like?

But anyway, I think it's hilarious that because of ONE forum post from some internet nerd and the experiences of ONE backpacker friend, you're ascribing ethnic theories and exoticization conspiracies to the entire 1,000,000,000+ Han Chinese population. Because you speak so simply and bluntly about Han Chinese people, I'm sure you're just another self-righteous armchair activist type who doesn't really know anything about China. Oh, by the way, some Tibetans called, said they needed saving, recommended you start another Chinese-bashing blog.

(Reply to this)

(Anonymous)
2007-09-27 04:05 am UTC (link)
I mean, seriously. I've seen plenty of silly posts on the internet from White dudes who talk about how hotttt Asian chicks are how tight their twats must be. There are entire fucking Internet communities for White men who are obsessive about Asian women. It doesn't mean the entire world population of White men has some naive fetish with Asian femininity.

But of course, Chinese people are all the same, so one guy on baidu forums who has an Uyghur fetish gets to represent all Han Chinese people.

(Reply to this)
Femme ouïgoure
(Anonymous)
2008-04-22 05:52 pm UTC (link)
Bonjour,
Est-ce que par hasard vous êtes français?

(Reply to this)

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