Culture exchange: Students from the Southwest University for Nationalities (SWUN) in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, introduce their culture of the Yi ethnic group to visiting Indonesian students participating in a trip organized by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) and the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta
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Wearing a traditional dress of black cotton with intricate bright-colored embroidery, 21-year old Ayi Lama talked passionately about her ethnic group — the Yi people.
The Yi ethnic group currently consists of around 7.8 million people, a small number among China’s huge population of 1.3 billion people. Ayi emphasized that there was less discrimination against minorities of late, due to the increased open-mindedness of Chinese youth and wide dissemination of information through the internet.
“It is much better now than maybe 10 or 20 years ago. We look a little different — we have darker skin and different features — from the Han Chinese but people who want to know about us can search the internet now,” Ayi, whose Mandarin Chinese name is Lin Ma, told The Jakarta Post in Chengdu, China.
Junyu Wang from Kangding in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Region, agreed that discrimination had lessened with increased people-to-people connections being made, partially due to the rising number of Chinese ethnic minorities entering higher education.
Both Lama and Wang are students at the Southwest University for Nationalities (SWUN), one of the six higher education institutions established for ethnic minority groups in China at the direction of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, which is responsible for connecting the central government with ethnic minority groups.
Such universities are obligated to prioritize applicants from minority groups. It is a requirement that students from ethnic minority groups make up 60 percent of the student body.
“I have many friends here and they are all interested in my culture. They have asked multiple times to visit my hometown, hoping that I will be their tour guide. They know that we have different cultures and are respectful of it,” Wang said.
Associated professor and deputy director of SWUN’s division of international cooperation and exchange, Yuping Lang, said that higher education institutions established for ethnic minorities were obligated to lower the benchmark for national entrance examination scores for applicants from ethnic minorities in comparison to those of Han Chinese ethnicity.
“The policy was put in place by the government so that we can develop talents among minority nationalities, especially for those still living in remote regions. We hope to find and develop new leaders for our country through higher education,” she said.
Students from ethnic minority groups are also offered extra points on entrance exams, one-year remedial training courses and post-graduate work placements in their home regions.
China has also established universities in nine special autonomous regions.
While the Chinese government has now recognized 56 official ethnic groups within the country, up to 1.22 billion of the population is from the dominant Han ethnic group. The uneven ratio has led to numerous reports of discrimination, including the underdevelopment of social and economic welfare for ethnic minority groups. Special policies have been implemented with an aim to smooth out racial tensions and develop human resources in ethnic minority regions.
Although Indonesia may appear similar, with over 300 ethnic groups, the government has chosen to tackle the issue with a different perspective. University of Indonesia (UI) sociologist Imam B. Prasodjo said the central government has a limited number of affirmative action programs, focused on regional development through decentralization, to increase the social and economic welfare of various ethnic minority groups.
However, he said, most efforts had been largely ineffective due to a lack of support from the central government.
“The government created programs to spread economic, social and cultural welfare but these have not been carried out properly.
“Efforts to establish autonomous regions have been put into place with the aim of spurring local initiative and, although there have been positive effects, regional autonomy has produced small kings who are not visionary,” he said.
Furthermore, Imam added, he said that non-government organizations and civil society groups must be allowed to grow, claiming that such groups may be the key to ensuring that ethnic minority groups develop socially and economically.
“These groups must be allowed to grow. There are many local, non-government initiatives that could help the growth of marginalized groups. However, the government has not offered enough support,” he said.
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