Content area
Full Text
The Mongol-Han relations in a new configuration of social evolution*
Despite the long-standing wish for `Plurality and Unity in the Configuration of the Chinese Nationality' as advocated by some senior Chinese scholars,l China has plunged into a `cauldron of ethnicity',2 coinciding with unbalanced economic growth and resurgence of Chinese racial nationalism. The ancestralism and totemized myth of Chineseness that have emerged recently in China have forced the Mongols to reconsider the traditional categorization by which they are distinguished. The Mongol-Han relations are generally developing within the context of the Chinese national discourse. Dilemma: language problems and the urban Mongolian education At about 3 p.m., 22 November 1995, on the campus of the Central University of Nationalities, Mr Erdemtu, editor-in-chief of the Mongolian education magazine Torgan-Joloo (Guide) based in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, came to interview some of the Mongolian intellectuals living in Beijing. He wanted to draw some supportive evidence from those successful Mongols, who had received their first education in Mongolian, in order to boost the precarious Mongolian-teaching programmes at schools in cities like Hohhot. He told them that Inner Mongolia still had about 80,000 middle-school students and 250,000 pupils receiving education in Mongolian, but the number was dropping each year. To their own embarrassment, few of the participants at the interview could speak Mongolian in a formal style, although they were supposed to be a prototype for Mongol intellectuals who learned Mongolian first and then made highly successful careers in Han-concentrated metropolises like Beijing. The fact is that their urban success is due largely to their proficiency in Chinese rather than Mongolian.
The Mongolian Kindergarten of the Hohhotian New Town District was established on 1 January 1956. According to the head teacher, the standard of the Mongolian language teaching and learning at this kindergarten has been running down quickly. Initially the Mongols warmly welcomed this kindergarten, not only because of its Mongolian courses on offer, but because of its long-held credibility and its well-organized accommodation. Originally, all the pupils in the kindergarten were from Mongolian families, which was seen as a guarantee for maintenance of the Mongolian language amongst them. By now, things have changed considerably. Not only are Han-Chinese pupils admitted for financial reasons, but many of the Mongolian...