"Diversity, Ethnicity and Minority Status in China"

I recently went to a presentation given by artist Tulu Bayar concerning a minority group in Northern China, the Uyghurs. Tulu is a photographer and a professor of art at Bucknell University. She visited the Uyghur region of China during the riots and presented her personal experiences with the aid of some of her own photographs and videos, which I particularly enjoyed.

She began the presentation with some basic facts and information about the region. This started out slowly, but I believe that information was necessary as most people in the auditorium weren’t familiar with the area, myself included. For example, China has a population of 1.3 billion people, but her visit/anthropological study focused on the autonomous regions like Xinjiang, where the Uygher people are located. Of the Xinjiang region, 40% of the population is Chinese but 60% is minorities.

After this information was given, she got into some much more exciting stuff and this is where she showed us her beautiful photographs. There were also a couple videos taken with a flip camera, one of which took us through both the old and new cities of Kashgar.

I was most intrigued to hear about her communication issues while there. She was only able to communicate with her husband through a friend who lived in Beijing. This was in order to not promote organizational activities during the riots. Regarding the riots, I was shocked to hear that Beijing news was treating the issue with little significance. Tulu first heard of the riots from her husband, who was in America, while she was in Beijing! Other communication issues included her communication with the Uyghur people, but she was able to use her native Turkish language.

The topic of religion came up several times. She interviewed a young man who was an English major but when the topic of religion came up he was very hesitant to admit that he attended mosque. Furthermore, if an individual there works for the government it is illegal to speak about religion with your own children or to own religious publications. I can’t imagine this being a government instituted law.  

Overall, I was pleased with her presentation especially because I had no knowledge of the region beforehand. When speaking with others who attended, however, I did hear some mixed reviews about her credibility and her pace. It’s important to understand that she is an artist and this was an anthropological study that she undoubtedly used for inspiration, not a scientific research trip.