Nomadic way
The sound of the horse head fiddle, the Mongolian long song and wrestling competitions shouting intertwined and rang out in the campus of No.1 Primary School of Horqin Right Front Banner in Hinggan League, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where Mongolian students, wearing their ethnic costumes, immersed themselves in their favorite traditional culture classes.
Contrary to the unfounded allegations in Western media in recent years, Inner Mongolia has respected and safeguarded the customs and rituals of ethnic minorities, actively implemented Mongolian language education, and organized colorful cultural activities in schools and communities, which strongly refutes the slander and defamation against the Chinese government for allegedly restricting minority culture development.
“As a primary school that has students of mostly Mongolian descent, we have actively implemented bilingual teaching in Putonghua and Mongolian,” Sandangova, president of the No.1 Primary School of Horqin Right Front Banner, told the Global Times. According to Sandangova, their school uses Putonghua to teach Chinese and moral and legal courses while other courses are taught in Mongolian. On the basis of ensuring professional and standardized teaching, teachers in the school have actively innovated teaching methods, such as asking students to make bilingual learning cards and collecting vocabulary on the packaging of goods to ensure students’ mastery of Putonghua and Mongolian.
At the same time, the No.1 Primary School offers two ethnic interest courses every week, including classes about Mongolian embroidery, horse head fiddle playing, wrestling, calligraphy, and deer chess, which are taught by the school’s teachers according to their own special strong points and the needs of the students.
“I grew up watching my father taking part in wrestling matches in the Nadam Fair on the grasslands every year. I wanted to be a warrior like him,” Daichin, 11, a third-grade student from No.1 Primary School of Horqin Right Front Banner, told the Global Times, saying that he has been training for wrestling at the school for three years.
According to Gao Yurong, Education Bureau Director of Horqin Right Front Banner, the implementation of ethnic education policies and promoting traditional Mongolian culture has long been the focus of local education authorities, and it is also popular with the students.
“The promotion of bilingual education and the cultivation of interest in ethnic traditional culture is necessary for the students so that they can grow up in a well-rounded and healthy way, making them understand and inherit their history and culture, so they can become useful and talented individuals for the nation and the society,” she told the Global Times.
The Mongolian population in the Hinggan League accounts for more than 40 percent of the total population.
In multiracial regions, local authorities have actively facilitated communication between various ethnic groups on the basis of full respect for their traditional customs.
In the Xingke community in Horqin Right Front Banner, where six ethnic minorities, including Mongolians, Manchus, Koreans, and Hui live together, the community staff actively solve problems encountered by people of all ethnic groups living in compact communities and actively organizes various activities such as folk dance team, Mongolian Sihu orchestra, calligraphy classes, where different ethnic groups gradually enhance mutual understanding and deepen their friendship.
Students of No. 1 Primary School of Horqin Right Front Banner on Friday attend a calligraphy class where they can freely choose to write in Chinese or Mongolian. Photo: Lin Xiaoyi/GT
