The dinner table in He Mingxing's house is usually a folkloric mosaic of traditional foods such as glutinous rice cakes from the Zhuang ethnic group and dishes from the Mulam. His family is made up of members from different ethnic backgrounds—his mother is Zhuang, his father is Han, and his daughter-in-law is Mulam.

Such a family composition is typical in his home village of Jinji in Luocheng Mulam Autonomous County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The village, with some 300 residents in more than 70 households, is inhabited by seven ethnic groups who speak 11 dialects. About 30 percent of the villagers are Han, the largest ethnic group in China with a little more than 91 percent of the country's population.

Ancestors in the village created a festival that falls on the 15th day of the 11th month on the Chinese calendar called Ping'an, which means "safe and sound" in Chinese. On this day, as important as the Spring Festival, villagers put on their traditional clothes and gather to cook assorted ethnic foods.

"People of diverse ethnic groups gather here, and we are like a family," He told Xinhua News Agency.

Sense of community 

China is a country with 56 ethnic groups. Aside from the Han, the remaining 55, though with smaller populations, are scattered across the nation's vast area. They mainly live along the border areas in northeast, north, northwest and southwest China. They each have their own unique attires, festivals and customs.

The proportion of ethnic minority groups in China's mainland population rose 0.4 percentage point in the decade after 2010, and their total population increased 10.26 percent to 125.47 million during the same period, according to the seventh national census results released in May.

"We will encourage more exchanges and interactions among different ethnic groups, helping them remain closely united like the seeds of a pomegranate that stick together, and work jointly for common prosperity and development," President Xi Jinping, also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said while delivering a report to the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017.

At the Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs held in August, Xi underlined the importance of consolidating a sense of community for the Chinese nation and unwaveringly taking the correct approaches with Chinese characteristics in the management of ethnic affairs.

"Increasing common ground and respecting the different characteristics of all ethnic groups are two sides of the same coin. By promoting both, we can achieve development and prosperity together," Hu Yan, a professor specializing in studies on ethnic groups and religions with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, told Beijing Review.

Jinji exemplifies a place where extensive exchanges, communication and integration of various ethnic communities are encouraged and upheld. Around 27 years ago, Xiao Suluan married her Han husband and moved to live with him in Jinji from nearby Rongshui Miao Autonomous County. When she first came to the village, Xiao stayed indoors and refused to go out because of the language barrier. "I couldn't understand many villagers as they would speak in dialects different from the Miao dialect I speak in my hometown," Xiao said.

After visiting Xiao's home, a villager found that she was good at making youcha, a broth-like Miao specialty made by sautéing tealeaves in oil and adding water. Her specialty got popular by word of mouth. From that moment on, many villagers would visit her house and chat with her while having a bowl of her celebrated youcha. Xiao became more open to talk and even picked up a number of the local dialects.

"It is not difficult to speak three or four ethnic languages or dialects, as we have been living here together for a long time," Lin Shixue, head of Jinji, said.

Such interactions among people of different ethnic communities are not rare, Hu explained. "This kind of mutual trust and friendship lasts year after year, sometimes even for life," he said.

Road to prosperity 

Given their remote location, many ethnic minority areas have historically suffered from endemic poverty and underdevelopment. Ensuring everyone is adequately provided for is not an easy undertaking.

"No ethnic group should be left behind" is another phrase Xi has often used in his speeches. According to Xi, not one single ethnic group should be left behind, be it in China's drive to eliminate absolute poverty, its building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects or the creation of a modern socialist country.

According to official statistics, by 1994, the impoverished parts of ethnic minority areas were mainly found in west China. Among ethnic autonomous counties across the country, more than half were poverty-stricken and given priority in terms of aid.

As the national determination to eliminate absolute poverty paid off, the number of the poor population in regions where ethnic minorities live, namely five autonomous regions—Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia and Tibet, and three provinces with a large multiethnic population—Guizhou, Yunnan and Qinghai, dropped 15.6 million from 2016 to 2020, according to a white paper issued in April by the State Council Information Office. 

"Making available basic public services and facilities, like infrastructure, water and electricity is key to improving the life of various ethnic groups living in remote areas," Hu said. He added that learning standard spoken and written Chinese is a window for them to connect with people and resources, while their traditional spoken and written languages remain respected and protected.

For example, the Ministry of Education, iFLYTEK, a leading artificial intelligence and speech technology firm, and the country's major telecom operator China Mobile have jointly developed a standard Chinese-learning app in Yunnan, the province with the most ethnic groups in China. The app contains over 1,500 phrases and words that are frequently used in daily life. Villagers in need can also apply to obtain a free phone that already has the app installed.

Yu Shenkai, a villager in Weixi Lisu Autonomous County, has developed a firm grasp of standard Chinese through the app and offline training. "Now, my children's teacher can call me directly to discuss their study progress, rather than having to ask others to translate. Also, after learning how to speak standard Chinese, I can sell our herbs in town and get a good deal," he said.

(Print Edition Title: Unity in Diversity) 

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon 

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