The Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, where seven people on Wednesday protested China’s human-rights abuses in Tibet, occupies the southwestern corner of the huge swathe of northern Beijing that has been redeveloped into the National Olympic Park.
It is one of several such parks in China and said on its official Web site that among its purposes is to “enhance ethnic unity” and that it is “centering on the theme of patriotic education.”
“It is the window of ethnic policy of the government, harmony and progress of 56 nationalities in China,” it said in an introduction.
Development of the park began in 1992 with a major expansion starting in 2001.
Also known as the China Nationalities Museum, it was reportedly once dubbed the “Racist Park” in a bad English translation, or perhaps a Freudian slip.
Many would argue that the park’s simplistic portrayal of quaint buildings and singing, dancing minorities in bright costumes, happy to be liberated from feudalism by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), bears more than a touch of racism.
China’s 55 official ethnic minorities account for about half of the poorest Chinese, according to state media. They live mostly in underdeveloped western, southern and northern areas.
They make up about 100 million, or 8 percent, of China’s 1.3 billion people with China’s 56th ethnic group, the Han Chinese, forming the 92 percent majority.
The government included performers from all 56 ethnic groups in the Olympic opening ceremony and is promoting the Ethnic Culture Park to Olympic visitors.
Until recently, the park employed Tibetan monks from Sichuan Province. Tibetan dancers and singers still add some color to the Tibetan section, but the monks are gone.
“They haven’t been here for several months,” a shop assistant said last week. “They’re coming back next year.”
Wang Kun of the park management office also said last week that the monks were unlikely to return until after the Olympics.
“Earlier this year, we had them, but because of some business, they were called back to their hometowns,” Wang said.
After a military crackdown on violent anti-Chinese protests in many Tibetan areas in March and April, the government has been concerned by the possibility of Olympic protests by Tibetans or their foreign supporters.
Many areas of Sichuan were also hit by a devastating earthquake on May 12, which killed at least 70,000 people.
Wednesday’s protest at the park gate was one of at least five protests in Beijing by foreign supporters of Tibetan independence over the past two weeks.
The Tibetan monks are not the only group absent from the park.
From an artificial hill where a Central Asian-style brick minaret towers over ornate courtyards, you can see some of the main Olympic venues.
The 44m tower is an exact replica of the famous 18th-century Emin minaret in the ancient oasis town of Turfan in Xinjiang, where Uighurs in skullcaps still drive donkey carts beneath grape trellises.
A few scraggy goats scavenge below the Beijing version of the Emin minaret but there are no donkeys and no Uighurs.
“There are none of those people,” said one of the three Han Chinese workers keeping watch last week over the park’s Uighur area, which is designed to showcase the traditional culture of the 8 million-strong, mainly Muslim ethnic group.
China has identified Uighur groups, many of whom want independence from China, as the biggest potential terrorist threat during the Olympics.
It has blamed Uighur terrorists for several recent attacks, including one that killed 16 paramilitary police in Xinjiang last week.
Over at the park’s Kazakh yurt, a circular felt tent like those used by Mongolians and other ethnic groups, it is a similar story.
“All the yurts have Mongolians looking after them,” said one of a group of singers and dancers clad in bright pink Mongolian-style costumes.
Asked why there were no Kazakhs, another Mongolian woman said it was “because our religions are different, so it is not convenient.”
Kazakhs are mainly Muslim while Mongolians traditionally adhere to Tibetan Buddhism.
Other Muslim groups, such as Uzbeks, Tajiks and Huis, are also missing from the park.
China officially has 21 million Muslims, about half of them from the Hui group, which predominates in poor northwestern areas but is spread across the country.
The Han Chinese area consists of replicas of famous Buddhist grottoes, the Great Wall and other architectural highlights of ancient China.
Again, there are no people although rich Han often gaze at the displays from the Holiday Inn Express on the edge of the park.
Several other buildings were locked or under repair, but most of the areas for China’s main non-Muslim minorities employed people in traditional costume, including Korean, Dai (Thai), Bai, Buyi and Miao.
When asked about the absence of Muslims, Wang said it was “because some minorities don’t have many people.”
Wang also cited a lack of space in the staff dormitories “because now it’s the Olympics, so we have some more performers” from other minorities.
“If you invite some Muslims, you have to make some special arrangements for them,” she said.
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