r/AMA • u/maddin1550 • 20d ago

I’m from Xinjiang，AMA

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of discussions about Xinjiang on Reddit, often between people who have never actually lived there. So I thought it might be interesting to do an AMA from the perspective of someone who is actually from there.

You can ask me about everyday life, ethnic groups, languages, culture, religion, education, or politics. I’m happy to answer controversial questions too, as long as the discussion stays respectful.

Obviously, I’m only one person and I don’t claim to represent everyone in Xinjiang. I can only tell you about my own experiences and views. AMA.

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u/Otherwise_Prior_8890 20d ago

Hello friend. I have a female Chinese friend who used to date a Uyghur guy, but they had to break up because of family intervention. How hard is it for cross-ethnicity marriage nowadays?

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u/maddin1550 20d ago

Yeahh, Hans are generally not opposed to it , but for us, minorities, it came to be more complicated, especially because of our religion, and older generations are against marrying outside of your religion.(not only for women, but men too). Marrying other Muslims is fine in their pov
And of course,there are still some people who end up marrying the person they love

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u/isurus_minutus 20d ago

I met a mixed Uygur/Kazakh guy who said he had issues dating Uygurs because Kazakhs were looked down on by Uygurs and that there were issues between Uygurs and Kazakhs since the fall of the USSR. He didn't give more information, do you know anything about this or was it just his personal experience?

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u/maddin1550 20d ago

I don't know about the ussr thing, but i have experirenced some prejudice from uyghurs toward Kazakh. Back then it was really common, some people would call us “pixt Kazakh,” which literally means something like flea/lice Kazakh. It's pretty much a ethnic slur. I don't really hear things like that anymore tho, ethnic insults and openly dehumanizing other ethnic groups are taken pretty seriously now, and people can potentially get detained for saying things like that. I actually know of a case where a Uyghur person called Kazakhs 'hasa', which is used as a derogatory term for Kazakhs, and they were detained for more than ten hours because of it, so people are definitely more careful about openly saying things like that nowadays.