Examining the Status Quo of Mongolian Culture as an Object of Orientalism Under the Selective Preservation in China

Despite the climate of economic development and the promotion of “ethnic minority culture,” I argue that the emphasis on nomadic way of life depicted by Han cultural hegemony constitutes an internal-Orientalism that views ethnic Mongolian culture as the Other whose cultural elements have been selectively incorporated into, and exploited by political and cultural agents in China. Generalized imaginings of the ethnic Mongolian group tend to adhere to the stereotypical images such as horse riding and milk-tea drinking. Nevertheless, their cultural and spiritual practice of Shamanism are removed by the official cultural agents in order to allow China to fit into the Socialist modernity. Today, ethnic Mongolian minority’s Culture is marginalized, and Mongolian language and cultural heritage are on the edge of extinct. This article serves as a patch for the missing Mongolian perspective of cultural study on the ethnic Mongolian group on Chinese mainland. I analyze Mongolian Culture in China from the lens of internal-Orientalism. Grounded in textual analysis, I examine “Boundless Grassland”, “The Believer’s Last Word”, “JunMa, CangLang, GuXiang”, “Fu Qin Yu You Er Qu”, “Da Sheng Kui Shang Hao” “The Mongol Conquest in World History” by applying Edward W. Said’s notion of Orientalism vis-à-vis the cultural study done by Mongolian scholar Borjigidai Uyunbilig. The texts I investigated in this article collectively represents the existence of intended partial preservation of Mongolia culture and the diminish of religious tradition and spiritual practices in their everyday lives.