Xinjiang May Be Autonomous, but the Food Isn’t

Home » Featured, Life February 18, 2009 5 Comments
Looking for examples of Xinjiang food? Check out the Xinjiang food category!

For the past few days I’ve been factchecking the Xinjiang/Silk Road portion of the latest edition of DK’s Eyewitness Travel China guide and I’ve run into an interesting translation problem.  Or maybe it’s a cultural difference.  Either way, I’m now unsure how to categorize Uyghur food in the “Xinjiang Autonomous Region“.

In preparation to phone all listed travel establishments in the book I practiced the questions I would have to use with a Chinese friend. For restaurants Inside a Uyghur restaurant in KashgarI need to find out whether or not they serve what DK calls “non-Chinese food”.  Herein lies the problem.  Every restaurant currently listed in the Xinjiang portion of the book is annotated with the symbol indicating that it does, in fact, serve non-Chinese food.

“Wait a moment” my Chinese friend asked.  “These aren’t 西餐厅 (xi can ting)“, which in Chinese means a western cafe.

“Well, no, they’re not.  But all of these restaurants serve Uyghur food” I told her.

“I know” she said matter-of-factly.  “But it’s still Chinese food.  Why would you call this non-Chinese food?”

“Because it’s not Chinese, it’s Uyghur!  They don’t serve rice and chicken, they serve noodles and lamb.” I said.

She, being a Han Chinese, adamantly disagreed.

Autonomy for areas such as Xinjiang and Tibet, although officially granted by the powers-that-be, has been a struggle to maintain for people groups such as the Uyghurs.  This is a great example of why.  In America we have no problem categorizing food as “Mexican”, “Italian” or “Chinese”, even if the food these places provide bears no resemblance to the dishes served in those respective countries.  I’m sure the Mexicans laugh at us when we call that 7-layer burrito served at Taco Bell and developed in their U.S. headquarters “Mexican” food.  But as far we’re concerned, it is.

An old Uyghur man dancing in the town squareI think it’s fair to say that the west generally tends to categorize people and their food ethnically while most of what I’ve seen in China is categorized geographically.

Is it made withing the borders of China?  It’s Chinese.  Do they live in a Chinese province?  They are Chinese.

I’m not denying that a Uyghur person is a Chinese citizen, but to my western mind he is a Uyghur person who has a Chinese citizenship.  He doesn’t look Chinese, he doesn’t eat Chinese food, and Mandarin isn’t even his first language!  Even now I can hear the objections all the Chinese have with this way of thinking, but isn’t that what autonomy is about?

I’m willing to debate various aspects of geographical classification in Xinjiang, but for goodness sake, how can I call this area “Autonomous” if I can’t even label the food for what it is?

A plate of delicious Xinjiang kebabs

UYGHUR Kebabs

5 Comments

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  • Steph said:
    March 11th, 2010 at 5:28 am

    I'm ethnically Chinese and have grown up in Australia. Here we have restaurants serving "Asian food" and the gross generalisation is so frustrating!

    When I travel I also find that people are constantly surprised when I describe myself as Australian and even had one American exclaim "but you look like you're Japanese or something?"

    [Reply]

  • Chinese Nationalist said:
    July 15th, 2010 at 5:34 am

    It is simply because “Chinese” in the West is actually referring to Han Chinese or more specifically, Southern Han Chinese. So using “Han Food” and “Uyghur Food” to distinguish the two makes more sense when you are in China.

    [Reply]

  • Adrian Thurston said:
    September 9th, 2011 at 7:01 am

    If they say that they are Chinese, then they are Chinese. If they say that they are Uyghur Chinese from XinJiang, then they are still Chinese. BUT, if they say they are Muslims from Uyghuristan or from somewhere else like that, then they either need to be deported to where they say they are from and have their Chinese citizenship withdrawn, or transported to another Han or Manchu Chinese province where they can be integrated into the mainstream of Chinese cultural life.

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    Josh says: September 9th, 2011 at 9:47 am

    That’s a mighty fine ideal coming from a man who has the freedom to say those things. But what if you had no say in the matter?

    What if your life had been “carefully manipulated through living in an environment of oppression” and you didn’t have the option to change that?

    In case you didn’t catch the reference or my writing wasn’t clear, that quote is from your “about me” page and my point is that you’re very hypocritical.

    [Reply]

    huh says: January 5th, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    uneducated, nationalist tool

    [Reply]

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