Знакомство с 56 народами Китая: путеводитель по культуре меньшинств для путешественников

Xishuangbanna, Yunnan. Mid-March. The third day of the Water-Splashing Festival.

You’re walking the stone paths of Manting Park when suddenly a basin of water comes flying at you from the side. The culprit is a little girl in a Dai-style sarong, smiling even brighter than the water she threw. You won’t be angry — because tradition says the more water you receive, the luckier your coming year will be. Ten minutes later, you’re soaked to the bone, but laughing louder than she is.

That is the most captivating thing about China’s ethnic minority cultures. They are not exhibits to view behind museum glass — they are alive, and they splash you with water.

Where Does the Number 56 Come From?

China has 1.4 billion people. Over 91 percent are Han Chinese. The remainder — still over one hundred million people — are distributed across fifty-five ethnic minority groups. Add the Han, and you get fifty-six.

Fifty-five sounds like a lot. But four of them — Zhuang, Hui, Manchu, and Uyghur — account for nearly half of the minority population. The remaining fifty-one groups together comprise less than a quarter. The smallest, like the Lhoba, number only about three thousand people nationwide.

Autonomous minority regions cover 64 percent of China’s total land area. This means that when traveling in China, most of the land you cross belongs to ethnic minority autonomous regions, prefectures, or counties.

Southwest: Mountain Peoples, Smoke and Song

Heading west from Chengdu, crossing the Hengduan Mountains, you enter China’s most ethnically dense region.

Guizhou, Xijiang Qianhu Miao Village. At six in the morning, you open a wooden window to find the entire valley wrapped in mist. Over a hundred stilted houses cascade down the mountainside, layered like an architectural textbook grown from the hillside. Miao grandmothers hang indigo-dyed batik cloth on wooden balconies — the spiral and bird patterns on the fabric are how a people without written language record their history.

The Miao are one of China’s largest minority groups, with a population of roughly ten million. Their most spectacular festival is the Sisters’ Meal Festival (third lunar month), when girls dress in their finest and wear heavy silver horn headdresses — some weighing over ten kilograms — dancing in circular steps to the rhythm of the lusheng, a traditional pipe instrument.

Dali, Yunnan, the Bai people. Bai houses have a distinctive look: white walls, gray tiles, and intricately carved gatehouses. The Bai love stone — their houses are built from local marble, and courtyards are paved with pebbles arranged in auspicious patterns. On the third day of the third lunar month, tens of thousands of Bai young people gather by Butterfly Spring at the foot of Cangshan Mountain, singing, dancing, and seeking romantic partners. This tradition has continued for over a millennium.

Yunnan, Dai Water-Splashing Festival. Already described above — but worth adding: the official name is “Songkran,” shared with Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. The splashing isn’t random — day one is flower-gathering, day two is the “empty day” (neither old year nor new year), and day three is the actual splashing. Every basin of water has ritual significance.

Northwest: Colors and Faith on the Edge of the Desert

Cross the Qilian Mountains into Gansu and Xinjiang, and the cultural landscape changes dramatically.

Xinjiang, the Uyghurs. The old city of Kashgar is one of China’s best-preserved collections of Islamic-style traditional architecture. Walking through the earthen alleys of the elevated residential quarter, you’ll see coppersmiths sitting at doorways, hammering copper sheets into exquisite vessels. The air smells of naan bread and cumin. The minarets of mosques rise above the skyline, and when the call to prayer sounds at dusk, the entire city grows quiet.

The Uyghurs are China’s only Turkic-speaking ethnic group for whom Islam is the predominant faith. Their culinary contributions to Chinese cuisine are enormous — lamb skewers, big plate chicken, pilaf (called “polo” in Uyghur), and naan. Travel to Xinjiang and you’ll find naan pits (tandoors) on every corner. Freshly baked naan is crispy outside and soft inside — better than any bread you’ve had.

Gansu, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture. Known as “China’s Mecca.” Hui mosques feature unique architectural blends — Chinese-style roofs coexisting with Islamic domes, flying eaves above Arabic arches and Quranic inscriptions. Hui dietary rules are strict (no pork), but their cooking is extraordinary. Lanzhou beef noodles were created by Hui chefs — clear broth, white radish, red chili oil, green cilantro and garlic sprouts, yellow noodles. Five elements in one bowl.

Northeast and South: Forgotten Cultural Treasures

Yanbian, Jilin, the Korean ethnic group. At minus twenty degrees in winter, you step into a Korean ethnic home. The heated floor (kang) is so warm you can only wear a short-sleeved shirt. The table is loaded with spicy kimchi, rice cakes, and cold noodles. The cold noodles (naengmyeon) are buckwheat noodles in iced beef broth — you’re supposed to bite through them, not slurp them whole. Visit Yanbian in winter and you must experience a traditional Korean house — the floor-heating invention that makes minus-twenty interiors as warm as spring.

Guangxi, the Zhuang. The Zhuang are China’s largest minority group by population — about 19 million people, more than the entire population of Australia. Yet most people don’t know they exist. The Zhuang had no written script of their own (a Latin-based system was created in the 1950s), and their culture has been deeply absorbed into Han culture. But their March 3rd singing festival remains spectacular — thousands gather in the fields, men and women singing antiphonal mountain songs that echo across the valleys.

Yunnan, Yi Torch Festival. On the 24th day of the sixth lunar month. You’re standing on the grounds near the Stone Forest when suddenly hundreds of torches ignite in all directions. Yi young people carry torches, dance around bonfires, and sparks trace arcs through the night sky. The festival originated as a ritual to drive away pests and pray for good harvests, but today it’s more like a mountain carnival — wrestling, bullfighting, beauty contests, and bonfire parties lasting three days and three nights.

Practical Tips for Travelers

One Underrated Reason to Go

Many people go to China for the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Warriors. These are all worth seeing. But if you venture into ethnic minority regions, you will see a truly diverse China — not a homogenized “China,” but dozens of different worlds, each with its own language, clothing, festivals, beliefs, and cuisine.

In a Bai village in Yunnan, a grandmother said to me in broken English: “Our houses, our cloth, our songs — these are our writing.” She did not say “we have no writing.” She said “these are our writing.”

Next time you visit China, try heading west, heading south. There is a China there that you have never seen.

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