Remember the ethnic minorities? They were fake too.
NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images The Telegraph‘s indefatigable Richard Spencer reports on yet another bit of fakery at the opening ceremonies in Beijing: [T]he children supposedly representing the country’s 56 ethnic groups were in fact all from the same one, the majority Han Chinese race. […] They were dressed in costumes associated with the country’s ethnic minorities, ...
NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images
The Telegraph‘s indefatigable Richard Spencer reports on yet another bit of fakery at the opening ceremonies in Beijing:
[T]he children supposedly representing the country’s 56 ethnic groups were in fact all from the same one, the majority Han Chinese race. […]
They were dressed in costumes associated with the country’s ethnic minorities, including those from troubled areas such as Tibet and the muslim province of Xinjiang. Such displays of “national unity” are a compulsory part of any major state occasion.
But the children were all from the Han Chinese majority, which makes up more than 90 per cent of the population and is culturally and politically dominant, according to an official with the cultural troupe from which they were selected.
Asked about this, a Beijing Olympics spokesman was nonplussed, telling reporters, “I think you are being very meticulous… I would argue it is normal for dancers, performers, to be dressed in other races’ clothes.”
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