{"id":402,"date":"2019-10-11T18:01:05","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T18:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/?p=402"},"modified":"2019-10-11T18:01:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T18:01:05","slug":"beautifying-uyghur-bodies-fashion-modernity-and-state-power-in-the-tarim-basin-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/beautifying-uyghur-bodies-fashion-modernity-and-state-power-in-the-tarim-basin-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautifying Uyghur Bodies: Fashion, \u201cModernity\u201d, and State Power in the Tarim Basin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Share<\/a><\/p>\n

Written by Timothy Grose<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) routinely stages public fashion shows in Uyghur communities of the Tarim Basin (present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). In Yopurgha County (Ch.\u00a0Yuepuhu<\/em>), Kashgar Prefecture, young girls, teenagers, and middle-aged women sit patiently as Uyghur beauticians dab face whitening cream, draw perfectly symmetrical eyebrows, and paint lush red lips on their faces. Meanwhile groups of Uyghur women, organized by age and dressed in either blue jeans, mini-skirts, or pencil skirt-business coat ensembles, are paraded on stage to display age appropriate attire.\u00a0Usma, henna,\u00a0<\/em>braided hair and other (secular) grooming habits typical to Turkic Muslims of the Tarim Basin and\u00a0Fergana Valley<\/a>\u00a0are notably absent from the stages.<\/span><\/p>\n

These events represent the CCP\u2019s recent efforts to transform the appearance of Uyghur women; yet, the party began disciplining the Uyghur feminine body in earnest nearly a decade ago. In 2011, officials unrolled\u00a0Project Beauty<\/a>, a five-year, US$8 million dollar multi-media initiative that encouraged piously-dressed Uyghur women to \u201clook towards modern culture by removing face veils and jilb\u0101b<\/a>.\u201d Throughout southern Xinjiang\u2019s rural villages, officials organized fashion shows, beauty pageants, longest-hair contests as well as lectures on ethnic policy, ethnic attire, and social etiquette to persuade Uyghur women to \u201clet their hair down and show-off their pretty faces.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By 2015, lawmakers in \u00dcr\u00fcmchi introduced\u00a0legislation<\/a>\u00a0that outlawed\u00a0hijab<\/em>,\u00a0lich\u00e4k<\/em>,\u00a0chumb\u00e4l<\/em>, and\u00a0jilb\u0101b<\/em>\u00a0as well as \u201cabnormally long\u201d beards and clothing featuring star and moon insignia in any public area. These measures effectively discouraged Uyghur women from donning many veiling styles. During my visit to \u00dcr\u00fcmchi and Turpan, June-July 2017, two years after the veiling ban, I did not observe any women covering their faces with veils or hair in\u00a0hijab.\u00a0<\/em>Some, mostly older, women continued to don a scarf or yaghliq<\/i>, which they either knotted behind their heads or tied loosely under their chins.<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo: taken by author in \u00dcr\u00fcmchi, June 2016; captions by Darren Byler<\/p>\n

In 2017, the CCP rolled out the \u201cThree News<\/a>\u201d campaign. This package of study sessions, cultural programs, and workshops organized by local level governments aims to \u201cadvocate a new lifestyle, establish a new atmosphere, and construct a new order (Ch.\u00a0changdao xin fengshang<\/em>,\u00a0shuli xin qixiang<\/em>,\u00a0jianli xin zhixu<\/em>). Buried beneath the campaign\u2019s jargon is the \u201cprohibition against wearing strange clothing\u201d (Ch.\u00a0chuandai qiguai<\/em>). Although the language is ambiguous, it signals the CCP\u2019s recommitment to standardizing and Sinicizing sartorial practices among Uyghurs, especially women.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials are carrying out this campaign by farding the complexion of Uyghur feminized beauty with ostentatious glamour. Representatives of the All-China Women\u2019s Federation (Ch.\u00a0fun\u00fc lianhehui<\/em>) have organized step-by-step makeover tutorials in several southern counties. During one such\u00a0event in Qaraqash County<\/a>, Khotan, a Uyghur beautician taught her peers how to style hair and apply cosmetics. A May 2018 cosmetology training course in Atush called \u201cLet your beautiful long hair down and show your pretty faces,\u201d which \u201cdrew on the influence of \u2018Project Beauty\u2019\u201d provided instruction on fashion and cosmetics to over two hundred women. A report on the event featured dramatic before-and-after photographs of women who underwent makeovers. After her beauty treatment, a woman named Amang\u00fcl Alim\u00a0celebrated her new look<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve never been as beautiful or confident as I am today. We used to have to go to the city for these services, which was a long way from here and expensive. So, we hesitated to go. Now we\u2019ve learned to apply cosmetics and style our hair ourselves. We don\u2019t have to spend money, yet we look great!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To provide rural Uyghur women with access to these new fashion trends, county-level governments launched the \u201cBeauty Parlor and Hair Salon\u201d (Ch.\u00a0liangfawu<\/em>) initiative. This campaign has funded the construction of salons across rural Uyghur villages. In\u00a02018 alone<\/a>, the government boasted 2889 new beauty parlors (each\u00a0equipped<\/a>\u00a0with facial steamers, shampoo chairs, styling chairs, and disinfectants) and 7954 newly certified Uyghur beauticians in Xinjiang\u2019s southern four districts\u2014i.e., Kashgar, Khotan, Aqsu, and Qizilsu. To put these numbers into\u00a0perspective<\/a>, government officials built a new beauty parlor for approximately every 3,600 people or one facility per 1800 women in these districts. Residents of Qaraqash County (Ch.\u00a0Moyu<\/em>) alone can visit\u00a0252 newly-built salons<\/a>; every village operates at least one business.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Uyghur women are often coerced into cosmetology careers. For instance, over one hundred women from Ulughchat County (Ch.\u00a0Wuqia<\/em>) in Qizilsu Prefecture completed a twenty-day \u201cclosed-door\u201d (Ch.\u00a0fengbi shi<\/em>) course, which required them to live and study, \u201cwithout charge,\u201d in a vocational facility. In addition to learning the ropes of cosmetology, these women\u00a0also studied\u00a0Putonghua<\/em>\u00a0and Chinese law<\/a>. Therefore, their curriculum\u00a0resembles that of women<\/a>\u00a0\u201cstudying\u201d cosmetology and hairdressing in the region\u2019s\u00a0concentration re-education centers<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201cThree News\u201d campaign provides an illuminating example of what Michel Foucault called \u201cbiopower.\u201d Foucault observed that the state saw human bodies through a crude colonizer or colonized binary. He introduced this concept to describe the subtleties of power and its \u201ccalculated management of life<\/a>.\u201d Foucault argued that political order cannot simply be imposed on a population; it has to be taught, replicated, and self-inflected to effectively regulate human behavior. Power, therefore, functions to control life\u2014not end it\u2014through \u201ccontinuous regulatory and corrective mechanisms<\/a>.\u201d In other words, biopolitics need to work in tandem with discipline, which Foucault conceptualizes as a type of physical and mental subjugation imposed to increase human efficiency.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be sure, Foucault introduces \u201cbiopower\u201d to describe the types of power that permeate neoliberal societies; however, his theory may have utility in understanding how CCP power targeting Turkic Muslims operates outside the concentration re-education centers. \u00a0In the case of setting new standards of beauty, the impulse to look a certain way is not forced upon an individual through threats of violence; rather, power \u201cconstructs normality and deviance<\/a>\u201d and creates the\u00a0desire\u00a0<\/em>to conform. A\u00a0young Uyghur woman from Qaraqash<\/a>\u00a0remarked, \u201cSince our village opened a salon, I\u2019m able to maintain a beautiful hairstyle, attend to my skin, and apply make-up. I feel as pretty as a city girl.\u201d Her statement exposes the CCP\u2019s biopolitical intentions. The Party is inscribing \u201cmodernity\u201d and urban beauty on cosmetics, permed hair, and casual dress, thus normalizing these practices, while it is identifying pious and Turkic standards of beauty as deviant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials confidently predict that this campaign will transform Uyghur women into docile Chinese subjects. A\u00a0representative from the XUAR\u2019s Women\u2019s Federation<\/a>\u00a0explained that \u201cthe Beauty Parlor and Hair Salon initiative will bring forth three transformations in the lives of women.\u00a0First, women will transform their body image. Then, they will transform their way of life. Finally, they will transform their way of thinking.\u201d Certainly, the beauty parlors introduce new beauty standards. Dozens of photographs depict newly-trained beauticians dying hair, styling it in curlers, applying face whitening cream, and putting thick layers of cosmetics on their clients. However, according to Foucault\u2019s theory, the practices required to maintain this manicured countenance at home\u2014i.e., mimicking a stylist\u2019s techniques and repeating this process daily\u2014 inscribe the\u00a0body with state-produced knowledge and sustain one’s own subjugation<\/a>. A work team member in Yopurgha County, Kashgar Prefecture\u00a0claims to have noticed a significant change among women<\/a>: \u201cNow, women in the village have changed from shy and old-fashioned to cheerful, lively, and generous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To be sure, this tactic to impose new beauty standards and, more importantly, teach them to ethnic and racial minorities is reminiscent of colonial methods to control indigenous bodies. Federal boarding schools for Native Americans provide instructive examples. Students at\u00a0Haskell boarding school<\/a>\u00a0were forced to adopt \u201cwhite\u201d appearances: boys were forced to cut their hair and keep it trimmed while women were required to wear blouses and dresses. Strict dress and appearance codes at Chilocco were part of the federal government\u2019s efforts to\u00a0train domesticated and subservient<\/a>\u00a0women. Six hundred miles north, the\u00a0Native boarding school children in Flandreau<\/a>, South Dakota trained as beauticians and barbers and learned how to wash, style, and cut hair in the Euro-American fashion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A sewing class in Bismarck Indian School, North Dakota,\u201d\u00a0The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog<\/a><\/p>\n

The US example not only provides us with a lens to understand the Three News campaign, it also portends its potential failure. Indeed, the US government could not completely uproot Native Americans from the land and disassociate them from their cultures. This history provides a gleam of optimism for Uyghurs: as long as they remain committed internally to their cultural, linguistic, and spatial roots\u2014both individually and collectively<\/a>\u2014they will insulate a space wherein Uyghurness can blossom and flourish, on their own terms, again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notes:\u00a0<\/strong>I would like to sincerely thank Gina Anne Tam, Guangtian Ha and Paul Christensen\u00a0for thoughtfully commenting, politely critiquing, and enthusiastically challenging earlier versions of this paper.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Timothy Grose<\/a>\u00a0is a professor of China Studies at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology with expertise in ethnicity, ethnic policy in China and minority education. Much of his current research is focused on the Uyghur population, an ethnic minority in China.\u00a0His book,\u00a0Negotiating Inseparability: The Xinjiang Class and the Dynamics of Uyghur Identity,<\/a>\u00a0was published by Hong Kong University Press in October 2019.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Timothy Grose The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) routinely stages public fashion shows in Uyghur communities of the Tarim Basin (present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). In Yopurgha County (Ch.\u00a0Yuepuhu), Kashgar Prefecture, young girls, teenagers, and middle-aged women sit patiently…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/contemporarychina\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}