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The Zhuang ethnic minority
 The Zhuangs ethnic minority is China's largest minority
group. Its population of 15.55 million approaches that of Australia.
Most of the Zhuangs live in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region, which is nearly the size of New Zealand. The rest
have settled in Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Hunan provinces.
While most Zhuang communities concentrate in a compact area in
Guangxi, the others are scattered over places shared by other ethnic
groups such as Han, Yao, Miao, Dong, Mulao, Maonan and Shui.
Lying in Guangxi's mountainous regions, the Zhuang area is high in the
northwest, undulating in the middle and low in the southeast.
Limestone is widely distributed in the area, which is known round the
world for its
karst topography. Many rocky peaks rise straight up from the ground,
and the peaks hide numerous fascinating grottoes and subterranean
rivers. Guilin, a tourist attraction in Guangxi, is an excellent
example of such landscape. As the saying goes: "The landscape at
Guilin is the best on earth; and the landscape at Yangshuo is the best
in Guilin." Wuming, Jingxi and Lingyun counties are also known for
their scenic splendours.
 Crisscrossing rivers endow the Zhuang area with plentiful sources of
water for irrigation, navigation and hydropower. The coastline in
south Guangxi not only has important ports but also yields many
valuable marine products including the best pearls in China.
The Zhuang area enjoys a mild climate with an average annual
temperature of 20 degrees centigrade, being warm in winter and
sweltering in summer in the south. Plants are always green, blossoming
in all seasons. Abundant rainfall nurtures tropical and subtropical
crops such as rice, yam, corn, sugar cane, banana, longan, litchi,
pineapple, shaddock and mango. The mountains in southwest and
northwest Guangxi abound in Liuzhou fir, silver fir and camphor trees,
rare elsewhere. Mineral resources include iron, coal, wolfram, gold,
copper, tin, manganese, aluminum, stibium, zinc and petroleum. The
area is also rich in tung oil, tea, tea oil, mushroom, Chinese
cinnamon, pseudo-ginseng, Chinese gecko (used in traditional Chinese
medicine to help regain vitality), fennal and fennal essence. The last
four items are the Zhuang area's special products.
History "Zhuang" was one of the names the ancestors of
the ethnic group gave themselves. The term was first recorded some
1,000 years ago, in the Song Dynasty. The Zhuangs used to call
themselves by at least a dozen other names, too.
 The Zhuang areas first came under the administration of China's
central authority 2,000 years ago. In 221 B.C., the First Emperor of
Qin, China's first feudal emperor to unify the country, conquered the
area and established three prefectures there. The emperor had the
Lingqu Canal built to facilitate irrigation. He also started a project
to move people from other places to the area, strengthening its
political, economic and cultural ties with the central-south part of
the country.
In the centuries that followed, a number of powerful clans emerged in
this area, who owned vast tracts of land and numerous slaves and
servants. Still later, during the Tang and Song dynasties, social and
economic development was such that irrigated rice paddies, farm
cattle, iron, copper and spinning and weaving spread far and wide.
However, the Zhuang area still lagged behind central China
economically. Quite a number of places retained the primitive mode of
production, including slash-and-burn cultivation and hunting. The
dominant social system was feudal serfdom and people were classified
into three strata: hereditary landowners, tenant farmers and
 house
slaves. The system was eliminated during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911),
the last feudal monarchy in China.
Administratively, most of the Zhuang area was governed by the headmen
system all through the over 1,000 years from the Tang to Qing
dynasties. |
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